In slow sutures of pale white -
dabbed in growing spume & mud dried earth,
a glowworm is obliterated by warm, soft light
coming up to elbow particles of near dappled clay
that plants dissect, warm as feasts, aloft a muscat lawn.
Pale, segmented tortoise -
trite in area and jellied purpose,
the glowworm oozes headlong
through an aroused dark
necking furiously with fungus turds
and truffles rooted from the
pig ground by mice sized swine
holidaying on scents and mildew salvaged
thru pores & nestling bowels
of their planet sized turf.
[43]
BETWEEN TWO STONES
They poured hot water into people's cups
in which green tea leaves were floating
like algae,
or into red-painted spittoons
placed on the floor
which the travellers made frequent use of...
It was strangely quiet.
[44]
THE WATERS OF THE BAY LIE BENEATH
An abandoned house -
dark salved to eclectic;
crinkly, black pigment of old pine boards
disparate to the elements.
The waters of the bay lie beneath.
A long slope trailing back of brush,
garbles stones hoarse
in the throat of a dust-flecked field
are made more barren
by the skunk cabbage weeds,
the ugly, flotsam cloaks
of horse hair to the neck -
a hair shirt, coddling abrupt the barren pain
tilled from empty soil.
The summer's heat.
Nameless insect waifs
wavering, adjusting tumult
to straighten the tight air
about the outward door frame.
Pinched in windows, glass in
refugee lots billowing about
urine paper;
nails a ruddy pick
dried to rusty blue,
some dim shiny in their cropped disrepair.
A road dry, rotating bare,
nameless zigzagged
only limestone in shelves
meanders in
throngs about stony debris,
sometimes up to this beaten house.
[45]