Behaving Barbarically
Chris Mosdell
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(i)
In this Flower-and-Willow City, a looted existence–––––––––––
(astral carp in the blood, vapourized eyes, unvarnished identities . . .)
A wind passes over the paddies . . .
encapsulated,
a flock of cranes

amongst drunken snowflakes . . .
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I am on an apprenticeship to learn of this epidemic of fierce beauty–––––
(my jeweled jacket glowing against my personal darkness)–––––
an entire aesthetic autobiography laid out before me.
(ii)
See–––––––––––I have fallen behind eternity

in civilization’s shattered banquet
kept awake by this pungent discord, by my script,

my wound spelled out in the awakening edifice
of each immutable day.
Here, where there are mind-hunters trafficking fortified chrysanthemum dew,
Boy Faithful hawking stolen truth . . .
the furnace overfed . . .
my self digested

at an incomparable speed–––––worn-down like the mountains–––––
a battle to the death with astonishment.
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