How reliably can we
take
the endorsement of the gods?
their touch the indispensable
blood storms the refuges
from another maudlin hell
where Lawrence was reborn
to spill blood & Wingate
on whose head the Japs
placed a price, went mad,
the unveiled head of Chinese Gordon
for which a price
was redeemed. The exhaustion
of hotheads, or the acolytes
the gods sloughed off
Rashid Ali, sharif
of Mecca, rambling about
the middle world between
water & air, still short
of earth. A dry space
without rain, or wild pigs,
tipping from the gloom
of war to the gloom of spirit.
back to the poems menu |