Escaping
fleeing from
overcrowded hangars, airports
Kevlar and duffle bags
100 days of wind.
Escaping
as we did there,
in the night,
in the cold heat.
Among the box cars
with that tarry hash,
freaking out like bums hiding
from the amazing, terrible size.
A war waiting to swallow whole
fields of out-of-order M-RAPS
The dirty oil seeping down into the
ancient Afghan medan.
The sun breathing down on our heads
under my scarf, waiting, watching
the corner for the procession.
Road all lined up with soldiers
Saluting, waiting for the fallen
and there he comes.
Light-headed
anemic
nausea
I
Fall
Back
Stumble under
the concrete barrier
And
so
When we left we fled
but it wasn't enough
to be back home
Lights too bright
Traffic jams
No, I haven't seen it, heard it
smoke a joint, drink a beer
and
no one knows a thing
about
explosions in the night
waste and corruption
mud brick ruins
bones bleaching white under the sun
The ruby wash in the sky
on the dead men being fingerprinted
photographed.
But the mountains are so clean!
they don't have the caves
you thought they did
But instead
Dust and fattened black crows
near the river seinde with the sunflowers
dry and filled with stones
and when it was quiet, the remarkable
spiral arm of the galaxy.
Now,
a different sky over Manitoba
and the moon is following us West.
Reading The Plague, Metamorphosis
and feeling the insects crawling all over our pours
like little friends we neglected
claiming the bodies
of distracted minds
turning off the highway before Winnipeg
Delighted with golden fields
and time-washed clapboard homesteads
relinquished to travelers
and far enough away.
The sky fills with the geese
fleeing
escaping
the coming polar vortex
The delicate ecosystem fenced off,
every delicate thought behind it
Lacey and transgressive
hidden and
anthro-animism covering the blight
of the lands to the South
that are paying for
and
endorsing
the value of destruction .
Here
there is more
there is more
more and less.
So bright,
deep,
as if
the vacuum of space isn't even there
and
Cassiopeia doesn't hang over Afghanistan
with shooting stars and the lunar eclipse
dripping with blood angry Allah
gun fire salutes word the oaths of
completely unrealized
complete isolation .
Don't forget,
"Structure is an illusion"
clawing into the mind
Lest the natural world
In places untouched by
manipulators of matter
gone awry
but then
even the mountains are scarred
and pocked
Here and there
There and here.
Is there any such thing as correcting the past?
We can see the Big Bang's gravity waves
A lifelong student of literature and writing.
