Dragon’s Breath

Quiet, little ones

We are trapped, momentarily, in the room that has no
sound, black and white, around and around and around
shake, squeeze, but we are fixed, these conscious
monuments of wax and sticks and marble
bits like
Babylon, whore, what dost thou intend to do to shake, manoeuvre
shift the weighty blame, thine own unholy name
from you?

hyperion sends his love. He says you
should have called. I asked you about the foul
things you wrote to me, but you said go away.
What is wrong with you these days?

i am four feet tall, mortified by love’s music.
baby, you know i adore you. dynamite in my ears makes
me curse, rehearse and curse the worse. solid state
crayons are crying to remember their names, trying to find
the way home, I am just recording the stuff I am
saying inside this bubble, cloud of mine own. Inside this cloud,
I fight and I crowd around the fiery mound, snuffing out its
sparks of holy sound. This nonsense makes me all the worse
for wear. I can’t find the lightning bolt to ride into
the thunder storm and be translated into Heaven. Put out this
fire, then, and pound me down, slowly, softly,
silently, into dusty, breathless earth,
that I may whisper you sweet nothings,
as always.

God make you green, belching out your chords of
courage. Atheists caress each other’s tongues with
testimony times ten. I am broken glass, lying in
a field in a war-torn country, somewhere cold and
hopeless. Maybe I’ll cut you. Maybe you’ll bleed and you’ll
see your red life for the first time.

Rush at you, I speed, I run, my soul ascends
a muted major third. Bedouin farmers get hammered
on fake moonshine and pass out in the field, sleeping
in the stars. I weep, I wept, there’s wind and there’s
water.

I am tripping on a distant ship, I’m slipping: see I slip
I keep my head above my hips, I rock, I rip! I count to
ten again, again.

I clobbered you in the brain, my spittle mixing
in the air with your rebuttal

I am not real, so pretend I’m not here. I’m done; this
dragon’s breath has had its birth.