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Hero

& I have seen him fallen in the dust,
head blank as a bird's
his cudgel bird-headed also—
The copter blades of the Bull of Heaven
mixing the colors of the sky
in a dry bowl

Have seen him
rise on his stick-like legs

phallus like a thorn
& challenge this self-same Bull of Heaven
with nacreous claws
while the stars
like wounded aurochs
pale in the jungle distance
& god is
a severed head
in a helmet of thunder.

For he was born from the Rock—(one eye eternally
           open on the void)—
He carved himself from the Rock
& drove his furrow in the female grain;
stone glittered in his mouth before he spoke

Stone crumbled in his mouth before he wept
inside the skull's parentheses. From his forehead
leaned a granite crown
the size of Jesus in a blaze of sparrows

And all the valveless fury of his flesh
sprang the death's head from its amber prison
bruised the indehiscent into Spring
forced the incoherent into song—

Stone blossomed in his mouth before he sang.

---

Roach at the Cusp of Hearing

ripple
on a lightly fingered
flute

a flake
of beauty
on a jointed tongue

backs
within
the hockets
of a breath

the atmosphere
its bold enabler

hunkers
in sable stanzas
all its own

1
small
2
flat
3
t,h,u,n,d,e,r

crisp psychopomp
before the ear
the eye

ripple
at the
bottom
of a chime.

---

Prick these Words with a Pin in Paper
so the Meaning Burns with the Light
& Goes Out when the Light is Gone

A genius whose
genius is dying, witnessed
by miniature geniuses
____________________

who are giving pellets of nothing
to no one & are
exhausted by the work
____________________

A miniature genius whose
"burning mind" is ipso facto
the subject of a mini-drama
_____________________

(Imagine a chip of tourmaline
from which the cries of the fallen angels
rise)
tiny ears poised to hear
_____________________

Are they dancing?
or are they killing themselves?
one bends to the other
pulls a lever & ribs slowly
open to reveal
a furnace of pink pearl
_____________________

Look at me
_____________________

In a miniature genius' belly
grows another tiny genius shaped
like a pear, with red, concentric rings
on its head, & if one takes
a hammer to it
it will burst with a slither of black sand
_____________________

         or, rather
         the bullets
not drilled home, the
bets not yet pocketed
the gesture still not complete
_________________________

explanations requested
miniature analyses proffered
_________________________

miniature offense taken
tiny apologies tendered in turn
_________________________

or rather,
harness a wasp to a plough,
place a worm on a treadmill
_________________________

Still there staring back
in whatever
f,l,e,x,o,r
________________________

Look at me
________________________

o,f, n,a,n,o-
t,r,i-
u,m,p,h,a,l,i,s,m.
________________________

If a tree
falls in the deep forest
who, but the
miniature genius
will hear?

 

Copyright © Jesse Glass, 2004.