Anabasis

So many have died or killed to get this far,

I act like I have too. Or perhaps I have—

had journeys sealed with sacrifice:

those motorbikes on airport roads,

those bodies at velocity,

or does murder come later with a man and a flag

who tilts his christs and his chainsaws at you,

wields round numbers into the superabundance

to fecund it with rattle-eyed prophets,

flapping and cawing across the monoculture.

Everyone has their horsemen here.

New braves drag booty and corralled men

to harvest by the supertankers,

fairy-lit on the south sea, as hawkers launch

glittering parachutes for the tourists dying to stay.

Down on the sand, a cracked-out Virgílio

mumbles to his Ícaro of defect and excess

in love, of fingers worn against the rock

that swells against the light and says “I am paradise”.

In a French Maizefield

For the Maya, we are of the same flesh,

wrapped tight within our layers of skin.

I stood between their rows of hidden gold,

those teeth of summer, my brothers, I felt

my eyes adjust to sun filtered through their light 

and raised my arms among that clump

of dancers. I wondered if this was what

true permanence would feel like, as we

bent and swayed and leant in the wayward rags

of a hurricane blowing out on this side of the Atlantic.