WEBVTT

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Maybe something
called "War Suite."

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I wrote this at such
a time I suppose

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and in one respect
or another I was

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thinking about the Vietnam
War although it's not

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mentioned by name.

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It was more of a
sense of a total war

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in the human condition,
both inside our own bodies

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and history.

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Or I mean if we're at a
state of war with ourselves,

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how can we help but be in a
state of war with each other.

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In anything more than that I'm
on dangerous political grounds.

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It's called "War Suite."

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The wars were drawn to
them as if in fever.

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We sleepwalk to them,
wake up in full stride

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of nightmare, blood slippery,
mouth deep in their gore.

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Even in Gilgamesh,
the darker bodies

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strewn over stone battlements,
dry skin against rough stone.

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The sand sifting
through rock face.

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Swollen flesh covered with such
sand against blackening lips.

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Flesh covered with the
bodies bloating in the heat,

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then hidden, then covered.

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Where at an oasis
beneath still palms

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a vapor floats toward
water, her soft belly

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flattened of its weight,
tongue flicking at water

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beside the faces of the dead.

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Their faces, chests,
pressed to Earth.

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Bodies also flattened, lax
with the weight now surely

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groundlings.

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And the moon swelling in
the night, the sheen of it

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on lax bodies in the underwater.

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Now, in Aquitaine
this man is no less

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dead for being noble
at night with the clang

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and rasp to his
shield and hammer,

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air thick with horses, Earth
fixed under their moving feet,

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but bodies falling.

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Sweat and blood under armor.

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Death blows sweet nights, blood
flowing, horses screaming.

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Horses now riderless,
drinking at a brook.

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More sorry with
bits sweat drying

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greyhound flanks, noses
dripping cool water,

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nibbling grass through bits.

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Patches of grass with the blood
still red and wet upon them.

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I've seen 67 wars.

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The war now, the
war for Rapunzel.

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Earth cannot use her hair.

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The war of drowning hair,
drifting upward as it descends.

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The lover holding his
cock like a switchblade.

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War of apples and pears
beating against the Earth.

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Earth tearing a hole in the sky.

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Air to hold the lighted
is gathered, river bending

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until its back is broken.

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Death, the black carp
that swim in our innards.

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Grand wars.

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The final arc poised
down an ice floe.

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The wolf shot from a helicopter.

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That shrill god
in her choir loft

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among the damp wine
colored crumpled robes

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face against the dusty
window staring out

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at a black pond in the floor of
a woodlot covered with ferns,

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if that wasp on the
pain stings her.

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Cancer to kill child,
child to kill cancer.

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Nail to enter the wood.

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The virgin to flutter in the
air above roam like a Piper cub.

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Giraffe's neck to grow
after greener leaves.

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Bullet to enter an eye, bullet
to escape the skull, bullet

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to fall to Earth.

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Eye to look for its
skull, skull to burst,

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belly to find its cage of ribs.

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Face down in the pool
his great fatty heart

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wants to keep beating.

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Tongue pressed to rug
in a chemical hallway.

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On a country road caught
by flashbulb headlights,

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he wishes suddenly to
be stronger than a car.

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The elephant to couple in peace.

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The porpoise to be
free of the microphone.

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This page to know a master of
future, a page with the flesh

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melodious to bring her
up through the page.

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Paper shrouded
from whatever depth

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she lies, dulling her gift,
bringing her to song and not

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to life.

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This death mask to harden
before the face escapes.

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Life passes down
through the neck.

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The sculpture churns hearing
it rub against the door.

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Mind to stay free of madness of
war, war all howling and stiff

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necked dead.

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Night of the mind punctuated
with moans and stars.

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Black smoke roiling, peering
minds straight to the zebra.

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Ass in air madly
stalking her lion.

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Fire to eat tar, tar
to drip, hair to beat

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hound, Grace gross
to avoid shot.

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Trout to shake
fly, chest to draw

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breath, breath to force song.

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A song to be heard,
remembered and sung.

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To come finally to
an opening in a field

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without pausing, to move there
in a full circle of light.

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But nights out they're
not even behind the glass.

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There's nothing to
keep her out or in.

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To walk backwards to
her, to step off her edge

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or become her edge.

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To swell and roll
in her darkness

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a landlocked sea moving
free dark and clear

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within her continent.

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