everything here comes from somewhere
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 cities crowded by historical mystery
and world children
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
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