Once a youth on fire with radical ideas,
paying no heed to zeitgeist;
now, a shadow-hunter
waking far away from home.
Inside there's a monk, a Buddha.
You are solidifying into an attitude,
composing a philosophy,
plotting to overthrow an entire industry,
becoming a phantom like yesterday's weather.
You're part of a race not yet conceived,
even in Switzerland.
My face is familiar, though.

Back from Swiss caves, poetic ruins,
we meet in pumiced wind.
Angled fear becomes a musician
conducting an overture of differences.
You speak to me in concentric simplicity
about the penultimacy of your existence.
Machiavelli, Rabelais, Moliere;
you extract the trio from my renaissance mind.
I taste the envoi of your life,
plant seven garlands for your grave.

This musician-philosopher
cannot endure audiorape in the city,
the undertone on his uncle's farm.
Even wind flattening grass is disruptive.
He seeks a place where
the psyche is still, the soul does nothing,
where he can watch the approach
of his monumental assassination.

In preparation, I shop for black garments.
I learn to breathe in, breathe out,
to sit at your bedside and wait
while you hide in pine trees,
void of sweet narcotics.
I anticipate your return,
pockets wet with clay from the brick factory.
You're about to make a terrible mistake;
I begin the weaving of pentagrams.


The man who speaks of Switzerland
and believes nothing is forbidden
apologizes for taking me to the floor
with his calloused hands.


I take time getting supper.
In the middle of tofu,
you press a calloused hand to your side.
I see rivulets of blood
blend with perspiration and fall.
Mourners will weep dry-eyed,
tearing at their clothes.

The accuracy of predictions is distressing.
Had you been wrapped in linen,
I'd be viewing your mummy
through museum glass.
I accepted your celibacy
but toward the end, your senses were dulled.
Still, I taste you in my mouth like a bit.
After climactic murder comes peace
tilled by infant slaves.
It's no use reading prose to a dead man.

Lucid with honeyed opiates,
I rest with lids closed
in a manger of pine trees.
On scraps of once-white paper,
in folds of rain, draperies,
the presence of a man lingers.