building narmada

the pale face of the politician is trapped in the jeep's window. a wave of the hand and without tenderness.

(and also the chief of the gendarmarie, and also the chief of the fishermen's collective)

they knows these people are to drown. they have lived by the water long as fish.

we must give back to words their work, no words are alien to me

fish as the words of the water, the river's snakelike wanderjahre

and now it advances up their throat they drown in rising water they cannot gulp down whole rivers

whose death subsidises whose schmancy yachts-


the river's four foot of iambic timeless still a whorl in the eyes of the drake


the voice and feet of the dead are constantly rising millions of tiny machines of feet in the throat

as they wait for the water to rise to be hoarded to be lavished on them so that their skulls bust up like pods


their is no honor in this no name no death by duel this is an evil so immaculate

it could even be an innocence. pain alone refuses to not be of the past. fight with hairpins.

the birds wasted wings flung backwards pinned it cannot swim its face as wax

incarnate. thrust a pistol in their stomach make it clean and dry.


fish kiss the veins on the forehead and murmur cheek to cheek. the statues of the old leaders grow.


they die small in mincing step executioned by an insect people. jails are pyramids too

(sand in the blood, phlegmata and nursed grief) and supervisors impoverished too w/ lice in their beards

but mature slaves. put your hands on life this is your reality your field your border

but not your river. imagine the forehead of the politicos, slaves too to their own strength.


read the script of the buffalo's bones no fate but this endurance of the dead the crushedness of bone in high

centigrade-no wise impatience. see the scavenged old histories the lumber mills the cardboard mills the pulp
& wood by products, the ntfps. the white walled bared provinces embarass their destiny. where have gone the
wandering painters of icons carvers of bamboo their bare feet crushing gooseberry?-


2. the water held in limbo leaves
dragged by time

standing time and water they
have left themselves for an invitation

some span of time lies atrickle
belonging to none

take water, for yourself, unapportioned
who can scale water

make water from water! take water to
leave. where would you leave, or take

expend it spend it waste and reckon
it does not appear in its removing in us

during and enduring evening
in the water's flow away away away

paralyzing river. repeating sequences tick
& give the river up as if it even flows away



3. search for the wholegrain martyr the right
tear's right angle do more than simply look
dirty, learnedly helpless


currents trail from the bloated body making
a liquid map drowned for 31 years still
the water only tell their knees

bloodless death by drowning in some
strange developer's dream palms open to reveal
unblinking pupils scattered teeth still making jokes


obscene means off stage under water pesticidal
corpses ingrow the earth the square of dissent is
girdled clogged by bodies not floods this time


but a surge of dying a digging up of graves
with nails speech after speech of panic
drowned by waves even the hangmen revolt

this thread will not come out of the skin
puppet shows hiccuping elections will bring
flowers arrack instead of the arrow's glint

no throats of dynamite. fruits from the
same tree the same bass voice of
the children's id the women dance

to the lone flautist with lowered eyelash
the television reporter studies her boots
the gap toothed secret agent looks away

the river like tea is brewing there
are no fire alarms the dusk is solid dimness
the temple's gong has a brass tongue

you can only understand a people after
they are all gone. only falsehood is
immortal their hate is not wrong

you cannot step into the same river
flowers for wounds the bustards keep vigil
at the concrete of our wormhood

ministry of water and ore. hydra parties
burst under the flame's thread how long
can death alone sustain a people

commissar of raspberries was choked by
typhus O mosquitoes our only friend
make their blood to rage rage

notate this in the river's current teach
revolutions on blackboards handwriting
and chalk and spelling error & scratched poster

no jails but dance halls. but instead
cart sugar to the mill bushel to the granary
trapped in a coffin with holes

while the agent picks up his phone and reads the paper
speech survives on mists alone. lets choose
the most becoming slogan under the old familiar 'lectric light

stitch pieces of lying houseboat song going
nowhere in the dark water. chisel temples. the river's
whorls are a perfect cancer an adamantine starfish

exploding singly never forget never
remember city of aluminum and zinc
childhoods learn to make enemies fast

in disbelief you touched his cheek thinking it real
a whole city flickers as he drowns always the old
is spectacular heart's widow-maker

everything is impossible to forget. mountains
will crash intemperate nervous angels become
fishermen tramps the moon is nailed

to the car's window. are they dead are they
crushed which heaven is this? sitting on a precipice
of calm they walk like unarmed children

but all eyes and bony bodies. would they rather
have lived maybe not maybe harmoniums and cameras
in a moment of strength suffice if

it doesn't embitter doesn't endure the golden dark
salmons in alaska mis beheaded flowers homemade
envy distractible babies fish like irises

don't mortgage words for ideals