songnet

a scholar in Beijing
the dead branches scratching the window,
blurred smoke and grime, was crushed
under innumerable feet, and spinning tires
and a poet in Los Angeles
fell twisted between
the hills, and the creak of the sage,
into scrap on the verge of the freeway,
bound for the greener coast

an artist in Baltimore,
sunk into the moss, like light
between the spindled trees, was
lost chasing movement in the brush,
to the sweet and rot of summer

--and an engineer in Washington,
busy wrenching some ghostly machinery
into functionality--before it failed
and faded, somewhere along the production line
--but, really, what can persist along
the great highways and the echoing ranges--
who can survive the desert in the winter?
fell into the thick beds of leaves,
and lay with them and the frost.

and a madman, least and last mourned,
whispering and mumbling, the names of each
until they blurred into one name, and then into nothing.

the relics and remnants fell, dry and tired
from his hands,

and the story-teller crouched,
and squinted quizzically at the fragments
as he gathered them up,

"...how many men died

so that you could be with us tonight?"