these days, summer sticks sticky
on plastic and skin,
and moss above lips grows fast and fat,
sneaks through muscle to chin, and
leaves its footprints on the nose

these days, ticklish goo melts
out of the bodies of clay and
drips dreadful down
licks the spine with a slimy tongue,  
and opens its dark wide mouths
near hills and pits, it
sputters out snails of staining trails

these days, metal wings stir up
an air soggy with warmth
and mix up a hundred drain flies
that settle unflinching on necks and arms
and bite little
little and sour

these days, sweetest touch is salt,
and faces unpleasantly gleam
beneath liquid white lights
that splash all boiling on flat-faced tiles

these days, March winds march
their banners of sun-softened fruit
and sallow nights
that tumble in tumid vomits of black
and smoke and groaning fans
round
     and round
and round
in an orchestra of mosquitoes
right inside the ear

water down stone
stone
pebble pebble pebble
stone
splash! shatters the sun
quiet

twinkles then it around
in ringlets ringlets

and feet jump in
scare the fruity fish
you know, winds they move
like violins
and rain blooms
grey on concrete
moon on palm
run run run the children
peach-cheeked
and nest hair
through streets
where hawkers make apple pyramids
and orange pyramids
and some spray glitter on flowers

through turns
turns–– one falls! gets up
through streets and streets!
laugh and talk
then halt
exhausted
lips moving–– chests like sea-filled
and then
then
the water topples topples
down the stones
and stars and suns
peep by
and children grow out of their clothes
but through streets they run
run run
laugh laugh laugh
laugh
and rain becomes the puddle
loud and starry
and a frog startles

painting is butchery
is beautification of breaths

as they bubble hastily out

sometimes mad
like suddenly breaking glass
or pond

sometimes springs
tinkling down stones

painting is thunder
slowly rising
or the perfect fury of it

I hesitate, stuck astray,
as the hues awaiting
wait

reap or harvest, must I burn or
decorate?

but, tentative, I breathe
inevitably on

and suddenly
it is all here

I drink in the silence's spicy chill
in the midnight awakenings
and in heavy tides, it gurgles down

and settles a thick black insufficiency
in my legs

I run and run
and all the running will not do

and heat like flickers rises
and sweat runs down my crackling limbs
and something bites off
and something eats

and I run reckless and bare
and all the running will not do
and it is all like charcoal and ash
and a stout smoke

and the night rises rises
till I cannot see it

words elope
perhaps all alone
in nights sweet
and nights black

I am a child
fumbling my hands
on the faces of land
and the world topples
bounces about

this trembling scrawl
tentative almost
as the rickshaw
coughs and shakes

I don't say when I say
I am in love with words
sometimes the dance
sometimes song
sometimes the people
they carry along

I don't say— I don't say
I watch away
it is the child that writes

viscous noise rumbles
churning in a chamber of ****

like impossible realness
its sallow bulbs drip

onto a breathing bog of muck
that rolls its rotund wells around

and bursts bleeding
its tongues of moss

its tumid limbs reach up and out
sizzling shatters on walls

it mingles with the shadows;
their gaunt deformities dance

it drains in ringlets
beneath chairs and shoes
it slides past the tiles
and echoes down down

it leaves vinegar flies
to hatch in a fat rancid air