YOU HAD ME THERE, FRIEND

I’ll stick that boy
In the red corn in the humid garden,
And when the cicadas croak in his ears,
I’ll feel the shrill pant of his fear
Stoke the corn to hot oppression.

This is my red corn,
Where I can feel the movement,
Where the harsh beat of crows
Rattles between my ears;
This is me drawing my blood into my eyes.

Put that boy in the humid garden
Stemmed over with red corn.
Here you are without knowledge, without the feeling.
Have you got the feeling?
The breath in the corn
Is galloping the crickets in my wrists,
Stoking their violins and stopping up their chests,
So that they play and die,
So that they shimmy and cry,
The blood in my eyes.

The melodic sinew of dry jaws
Has given you solace, I hope;
The cicadan hymn of bannered tongues
Slops over into the south field.
Tell me, friend, to the south field,
Is this where you go, is that where your
Sweet ash is sifting,
Through seven cringing circles of red corn
In this humid garden?
Is that your dirge I hear cracking in the throats
Of the locusts,
Or is that only the forked tonguing
Of their dry membranes,
Speaking one hand to this red ear
And one hand to that red ear,
Reaping a red harvest
In this humid garden
Under my bloody eyes?