American Blues No. 4

This is the sound of waking from a lifelong fever
to the taste of my own breath,
the scent of windlessness,
the sight of being blind from staring
at the glowing pupil
of a cloudless sky.

On the previous horizon the sea rose up and swallowed the sun.
All the smoke of its death filled the earth, erupted nightfall.
Now the spent sea (a desert) is cold
from the light of the crescent-thin corpse
of the wet sun, dripping stars.

A dog kicks its legs in its sleep and growls in its gleeful throat.
Beside, a man dreams that he is running
from the snake-eyed shadow of his own ambition.

As daylight breaks they sweat themselves awake.
They are not chasing. No more running to escape.

They are lying both in puddles,
brush to one side,
rocks to every other;
bleeding out.

The man with his feet in the land, his heart in his head,
the days in his throat; pulsing wind,
each beat and return like the vertebraic crackling
of old hands trying to squeeze a trigger.

The wind knows just what the hell it is doing
when it blows dust and sand in the face of a dying dog
as it howls for its violent, virulent drunkard.