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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