A spiralling ascent
Along the world's edge
Sweatdrops fall
To a below without sunlight
Boot dust
Llamas labour under supply packs
Hoof beat lantern dance
Shadows cast on the cliff face
Distorted we loom
Above the mute fog of humanity
Summitous
Awash in the final dawn
The old Inca smiling sprouts his knife
Ancient tapestral landscape
Exhales into us
Curvously infolding
The old Inca holds out his hands
The knife cuts horizontally
Reality opens like a book upon a tabletop
There, he says,
Pointing to the infinite space between where the sky in the past met the land
Timespace lies like a discarded washcloth
And we see dimly through the mists—
There, he says,
Pizarro could not follow us,
And we see dimly through the mists—
The neon lights of
Neoqusqo

the lost city of the Incas,
survives and breathes
with this cataclysmic vegetation
still malignant and undying
to conjure divinity
for those lack,
in the purest form,

it awed Neruda and Che
with the shimmer of the first light,
the smell is a poisonous offering,
the view is like an unforgotten love,

most of the nights in my sleep
I come back from there
and some of the nights
I wish I could never.

She was my homecoming queen
She was the period to the end of my dreams
We conversed on the golf course that night
Her blouse unbuttoned
Her breast bare
Shadows danced across her chest
as the wind predicted rain
How I wished I remembered
what we said
But all I do . . . are spider bite kisses

How the years decay
Lucky in love
Lucky on death
Teeth that once were sharp
have been ground down
Homecoming Queen
My Homecoming Queen

Carved in stone, lost in time,
freezing my parted smile,

Peering down into the unknown,
I sit next to you, toting my arms:

Where is the world
that breathed you to life?

On this lonely peak, tires
upon tires of hopes and dreams
retreat into the the terraced
spirals of mists; Every mystical
dawn dissolves into the lakes.

Gnomes bear the burden of
mysterious gates to the beyond,
as whispers tiptoe to strains
of the Quijongo.

Here epochs and worlds end.
And counts begin all over again.

I arrive in Lima
The sweat-sogged poverty
lumped onto concrete
pushes at my heels
The tight black air
swallows the nakedness
of prostitutes and thieves
Pockets empty like a traveler’s stomach
growling beneath the world of Los Incas

In Cusco
My head throbs in the thin air
with the sound of boys
trying to shine my boots, my sandals
my bare feet
no problemo
women sell fresh papaya and guava
sweaters and trinkets
Hawkers surround me
like a tightly stitched T-shirt

Cusco
The Navel of the Earth
A bulging belly
throbbing
digesting
living
 
Sunset
I spread my toes
over the evaporated flood waters
of the Rio Urubamba
where it once flowed
from the fingers of Manco Inca
over the fleeing conquistadors
at the top of Ollantaytambo
Momentary brilliance
before you retreated to the jungle
Spain, always gnawing at your heels

It’s a mouth-full-of-coca-leave’s journey
to Macchu Picchu
I enter the dream
spitting wet leaves
on the silence of a dead kingdom
Gasping for air that once filled lungs
of Inca messengers
carrying news of defeat and conquest
over the great Andes
Los Incas Caminos
The cloud-dripped mountains
spread green across my eyes
I see ghosts
a steady move of feet through the depleted air
Porter, takes my backpack
carries it against his brown crusty skin
ancient, sun-baked descendant
of the Earth’s naval
A toothless, painless smile
It must have been different
before we came
with money the color of unpicked rice
Now I hear your belly-groan
Between the perfectly fitted stones
of Sacsayhuaman
My voice bounces circular
off invisible walls
because your magic has survived you

Macchu Picchu
Unknown and majestic
Hidden from blood
from the stink of vultures
No more
Black raven feather
drops on my skull
floats on the shiny gray stone
under my feet
which are wrapped in dried, brown skin
naked, without a heartbeat

It’s past sunrise
the tourist bus has arrived
and the flat shadow of the crowd
blocks the light of the ascending sun
that tries to penetrate
the perfect holes
of a perfect wall
in an imperfect dream