Dept. of Posthumous Letters

in relief against a pile of rarefied bodies,
like a temple swept of its bells—b. shimoda

     I’m going to use names. No one knows who
     the stance for the outsiders is remain,
     outside, cartilage is better unseen sutures
     are redundant how many stitched will it take
     to whole up the unholy?

     The name was speechless against other names.  It went
     to school.  Studies were rigorous, like learning
     latin by latin’s vengeful, yet repressed hybrid—
     a deaf mute. A quagmire is vengeful.  Are others?
     Plate glass shards, the wind that returns, solders
     your stigmata.  Get out. While you can. 

               What are we about?  Shape, shape
               up, basin, become a glory ring becomes
               engagement.  Heiress to buffalo and everything
               roiling, gone, my deflated lungs in their wake.

                              Put me to sleep at the risk of your own neck. 
                              Say you need a horse, you fear the floorboards
                              raising up to be your new master. 

                              When the singing stops.  Terror buses in the fools.


Demand home to the palace to die!
This will be quiet.
The great wait a minute.  I want nothing—
either expression is correct.
Not lost, I know where the wall is, and how
to bring you the book, turn
the pages at the tin pulpit.

     Demand a price on your head for nothing
     else than to demand
     oneself for its natural resource—
     Resistance.  The name grown into its ears
     returns, the Bishop’s sacrifice.
     Needless.  All is.

                                             Wake me when the Dakota plains are full again.

Posted 09/29/09

To be read with Scout Niblett's cover of "Just What I Needed"

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