The tree meditates as it burns.
You are singing you just don’t know it
yet. Who is the angel with his foot
on the dragon’s neck? Who is the dragon?
We are moved by the polarities of grass.
Kafka tries to wish us well.
Tolstoy tries to wish us well
but they have no idea the empire
we’re dealing with. Its spill-overs
clot, its geysers rot into a million Bibles,
its ash is ash. Who wouldn’t rather
start over. The tree meditates as it burns.
Myriad the disconnection holding
world together. Myriad my love for you
shatters. Hang around long enough,
you’ll be a prop in the next Illiad.
I don’t think this is going to get any
less weird. Dark things following to the car.
Dark things saying our nightmares
are sissy shit compared to the real.
The effort to make something lasting and free
progresses no further than a pine needle bed
for a wounded animal. Little red gods
make the mind a hive not of bees or wasps,
honey or wax but of fire-forged.
Blue-black glitter shook out.
I spend half the afternoon teaching
the old, wiry dog my name
least I go unrecognized in paradise.