lxxxxi

the hollow men, are surely
no more

--standing in a circle--

are surely no more than the
echo of the unholy howl

sitting at the depths, of a
hollow people,

made empty, they see the
reflection of their lack

and scream with
the rage of recognition,

reeling, to fill their depths, they
do not understand that

we are made in circles, they reach
wildly to stop the flow of

all the things running through them
to catch and rot within them

lxxxx.

the lanterns swing, wildly
light falls across

the cobbles, shatters against
the wall--you know it

doesn't matter.

they say, with erudition, that the
father, sometimes

consumes the son.

the permafrost leaking, below the
power station, arcing

the pylons: against the dark,
proclaim a new age, promise

to burn the time, arcing,
cackling in the coils

the ground bleeding
beneath them, but they will

die in folios, diagnostics falling
to dark, the diagrams backlit

by a screen somewhere in the
other world, their only epithet,

there's some places, they say with
such erudition where the

son consumes his father, but--
the lanterns swung,

and shattered. the fall--

swirls, soft and chill
between the trees,

flicks leaves across the alley
between the buildings

the lamps flickering, the half
lit haze, and the dark-line

of the stream, the doors spilling
light into the shadow--it

wasn't enough, the hush and
the shuddering possibility,

what's the point in saying anything,
when the people to come

will be just
as they are now? and if they aren't:

just as easily broken, or dissolved

the walls blaze. the sorghum,
the slopes, the frost,

the tide bleeds, crawls up to
the shore burning--it won't

--the wind rushes between
the cliffs, guttering--

be enough.

you had better burn your
ghosts--before they eat you.

lxxxix

somewhere, between the halls where

the powerful walk, and the

streets where they scream for power

scuffed by so many footprints

the truth lies, head bowed, rests

for a moment, and rises—

running--

there’s a world of men who would

make of the world a hallway

to walk down, who would shoot

hallways across the buildings,

through the houses, cut their

avenues from the alleys

build their streets through and from

the lives of others,

so there’s nowhere they cannot tread

the truth flees before them—wild-

eyed, cast itself sideways

if you should meet me in the alley,

and you promise me you are no maker

stoop and help me track its traces,

in the dust and refuse,

if you see a flicker of motion, sideways,

that is the mark of its passing

walk the trail with me, quietly

through the leeside,
we will go slowly together

lxxviii.

the churches of the unwieldy

are scattered across the street

buried in office buildings, along

the gutter thick with leaves,

the parking lot at the edge of the light

the churches of the unwary rise high, or

low, thickly bricked,

with bricks or chatter, sometimes choked

with song—

the churches of the weary are no church

that we have yet seen, are passed

invisible, in pieces, from hand to hand

carried in the eyes, and the brush

of two passing, slowly, in the street