how to make a killing machine

start with a child
(the child you once were for example
before your twelfth birthday)
make him witness someone murdered
preferably from his home-town
preferably while his home-town is burning
—by someone I mean his mother, your mother—
threaten to cut off his arm
if he refuses to kill his sister
shoot him full of drugs
before the sun goes down
preferably amphetamines
keep him up all night
early the next morning
teach him how to shoot a rifle
first at empty tins of cooking oil
then at gunny-sacks of straw—
use people instead
teachers from his school and church
give him more amphetamines
until half the fucking country’s gone
then dump him by an open sewer—
let someone else try to turn him back
into a human being

scrawled on torn paper

a little further on from Spain
you'll find Morocco

an all-day taxi-ride from Marrakesh
takes you to a village in the south

from there travel far into the Atlases
toward oblivion and wind

I must surrender

all the colors of that place in time adorned with holly hocks, and chrysanthemums where my mother and father were younger than me, their sky-blue corvette, black revolvers and beagles— burned by chemical processes into cracked emulsions I cannot repair; a drawer of dead watches that have lost their war against unquantified time; pocket knives, blades of tempered steel ground down to impotent points and turned to rust; boxes of pencils sharpened to stubs, depleted by the manufacturing of words and diagrams lifted to sky in ash; all the promises I once made, attempts to do better. I keep reminding my hands that burning candles has nothing to do with the diminishing wax. They never learn about light.

gusts

why are these children running across a red-painted bridge—
they laugh at petals of a locust blowing in the breeze

I sit at this broken table made of wood
far away from here I taste spices on the wind

it is warm and sunny
and our eyes have met again

I am here with my tarnished brass scale
weighing this dead fish of forever
against all the paper moments

they blow away
lifted high into the blue
like many yellow maple leaves caught up in a whirl

this crevice i have stumbled into

how can i not be thankful—
in darkness everything returns

the world’s many fields
wavering in sunlight
and shimmering with dew

understand

there comes a time when everything is taken

give what is asked
empty all hope
all will
all of what will become

he was also despised

empty yourself
of what you've been filled with
a vessel poured out

this is not your home
you must learn this yourself--
hope deferred makes the heart sick

but a longing fulfilled
is a tree of life

gasoline

a scientific term i don't recall
many colors in its sheen
that shimmer on a hot day
how fire burned inglorious
my father's brother--
uncle i would never have
fuck the Philippines and war
which can't be waged without it

half a world away

riding his bicycle down a country road
he is still on Zanzibar

Stone Town behind them
they’re headed to the east beaches

he coasts beneath mango trees
seeking shelter from equatorial sun

in the afternoon's silence
she pedals just beyond reach

Stone

One day he found a grain of sand
among the lint in his pocket.
It had a curious feel
he kept rolling it around
between his fingers.
He didn't notice
that it had grown into a pebble,
smooth and almost burgundy red.
When it was the size of a gemstone
he had a jeweler set it in a ring
that he was fond of wearing
until it bent the posts
and he had to wear it
on a chain around his neck.
It never occurred to him
that he should discard it
and when it grew too heavy
he carried it on his shoulders.
One day they found him
dead beneath it.
They buried him with it.
Now his grave is a hill
where strange mushrooms grow. 
Do not pick them
for they are poison.

Rusumo Bridge

but this migration of possessions
is familiar

one day at the soldiers quarters
wives and mistresses begin to smile

all the china plates
silverware without tables

nearly every man in the border-unit
with a boom-box on his shoulder

UNHCR tarps
US vegetable oil appearing in the market

belongings carried across kilometers
over ridges of rock and swamps

borne —by remnants of families
whole neighborhoods—

through relentless rain
the river swelling

with those whose passage
required more

dispossessed of heads and hands
they accumulate beneath the falls