lone wolf

everything here comes from somewhere
far away in dream memory
tibetan prayer wheels spinning mantras,
thangkas, prayer flags, delicate chinese snuff bottles

old tomb warriors guarding shy women
caught in foreign relationships
living in clever crowded cities

historical's mysterious misery
world children - slaving for a $ a day

geringsing - magical protective purity cloth -
village families inside dyed dried earth roots,
compose wood backstrap looms -

collect bone bead dust, Tarim Basin knives,
kata scarves, camel hair watercolor brushes, jade dragons,
fragments & filaments of unbroken bone conversations

lying lost
scattered among language bones
charred beyond recognition
spewing marrows masses
coagulating
endless sorrow
caught behind young bright burning eyes

o shining star
exploding grenades send mind shrapnel
scattering bodies left right center
'hut one two three, left right left right'
cadence at 19 shaven down to the quick -

the quick and the dead
thrust it home boys
cardboard statues stand in dream fields
dust dark dogs bark
among steel concrete jungle hospitals

reach for dictionaries
language tongues hang by a thread
woven on paper mache rattan rattles

dancing laughing loving caught leaning leaping
in death's direction
at crossroads, intersections, byways, highways -
no speed limit
along soft shoulders,
yielding signs of life