Poem

Palisade

A fence encloses me

Formed of impaled skulls on wooden spears

Shoved in the mud in a circle around my feet;

I stand naked in the center

And the radius between me and each spear

Is about two yards.

My cage of refuge

Is located in a tiny clearing

In a huge hazardous rain forest,

A jungle swarming with unpredictable contingencies,

Random accidents of chance,

Crazy events involving both the living and dead.

Occasionally as I scan past the treetops

For a patch of azure sky,

A parrot or bird of paradise crosses overhead

And shits on my shoulder or hair;

The skulls grin at this subversively,

But mostly they provide faithful service.

These bodiless heads are scarecrows,

Except more like a four yard diameter pentagram

In their portentousness,

Warding away evil from the heights

Of their ten foot javelins.

In the mud at my bare feet

I have scratched a crude representation

Of extravagant female breasts

And one mantric word:

REASON.

6/27/1999