After His Woman is Killed, Conan the Barbarian
Goes On To Become a King by His Own Hand
With Her Spir­it Guid­ing Him

 

Beau­ti­ful lipids

The mad­ness of negatives

Last night the tall dead

Walked the vil­lage like giants

While I shot up in a dream

Shall I make sense or shall

I tell the truth—choose either

I can­not do both.

Kind eyes, an unmade bed,

I know you are read­ing this

As I go. I go, not quite as doctrinaire

As an athe­ist, I will bend

Some­day like a reed over the broken

Mosa­ic of a sub­urb, my home you,

Your home, me, and those who

Under­stand will also die.

“You are the most alive thing in the world”

You too, in my world and in the oth­er one.

Amen.

 

[in New Amer­i­can Writ­ing (2005) and in Sun­ny Wednes­day, Wave Books, 2009]
 

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