Camels

    semi-nude for a photo album

    their birthday was the other night
    the girls were going out; the grift
    delayed by getting ready; gift
    of tangled, sappy rattan; caused a fright

    pan, she burned some flowers on you
    meta-burban, real dream for two
    polaroid tacky, pantries full
    of shady tatters, curtain bulls

    sister, it was no dress for winter
    but they were grown enough to drink
    something fancy from the blender
    fermented guava, lava lake

    lavender flannel, camisole
    white linen sheets, hung in the sun
    nigel and sandi, mel and sue
    genre-bender, Java won

    high horse, he has a song for you
    but i’ll save it for another tone
    her sweaty practice, overdue
    vinyasa, tapas, organ brew

    dizzy lizzy ate some rice
    eat, pray, love, the antichrist
    jihadi, mum’s worst nightmare
    Gandhi, papa’s burnt-off limb

    inter-dimensional makeout queen
    Osaka airport, caused a scene
    village gossip, words above
    she’s never catching up on love

    not quite posh, but pulp turned through
    realism, my lands, god knew
    so sliced the flippin' longitude
    bless her heart and come on in

    agrimony henbane dish
    too-schooled harpy hysterical
    raised pie of huckleberry fish
    turned river-liver radical

    there’s mantra in the air tonight
    what kue set in sangga stone
    rise with the moon, the howling dog
    the crone, her voice memorial

    white-footed goat is coming home
    to graze by fiery sunset view
    the desert camel, bringing bones
    with mother Durga, chest tattoo

    a secret pocket of soil and spice
    elaborate belty-thing, rhizomes in knots
    not big enough for where you think
    whether it is cake

    //

    (wants cake)

    //

    texas talkin blues, like this
    vernacular from full moon 5/11
    genius loci, pura dalem
    blog 2-yr anniverse & job well done

    //

    as if i were a whitefoot

    nameless, the gentle landscape chose
    pointlost, ungiven, brutishly
    endbringer to deadset hunger,
    rudeness riverrun to mercy.

    grim gravelshatterer, sparking flint
    to be action or scenery—
    object of disbelief, the ground
    to goat a hesitating hoof—

    or clamp too-trustingshank, object
    of appetite. salivaspills
    from ruthless gum of animal,
    rankcivil tooth of shackledmilk;

    but snarlingword, infant of dust
    absent a motherverse, is howl
    heartletting keen of lucid sacrifice.
    come drink from me, Al-Shanfarā—

    she desertlimns greydreaded; trim
    your distance, wolves. the veil of thirst
    is inhuman as ocean, burns
    your hornsgolden by bending sun.

    //

    (reply to Shanfara’s Lamiyyat al-Arab, trans. by Michael A. Sells in Desert Tracings.)