i burn experience like petroleum

--title :hector the crow


it's an interesting thought
she muses as she lights her pipe.
last night she was in barcelona, walking
between guadi's landmarks and the rest of history
trying to out do him. since architecturally,
he set the standard ,  the beamslingers all come after him.
he's dead so he won't mind. and the church
that rises in his stead-spanning a build
 time of a hundred years
just like back in the middle ages when
the exhuberant sacrifices went into lasting
works of art, or back before ancient egypt even
when the sphinx was carved and stuffed
and placed beside a river whose water we'll never know-
it won't mind either because temples
understand the need for flashy spaces and carvings
to occupy the mind intent on finding gods.


when i walked in la sagrada, as the locals call it, the bodies
all around me became muted. my head popped backward
like a trick flamingo on a swizzle stick , my eyes
craned and strained to touch the star burst
at the knaves's center. i could feel the flow of the crowd
as people passed me , moving on and out.
transfixed, i couldn't heed them, but i let myself be carried out
of the ailse and found a small eddy to rest in. finally
i took my eyes from the supernova and began to record
the figures in the alcoves. then i had to stop. it was all
too much to catalog. it was like watching a life unfold
in a move that was playing everywhere all at once
and then i realise that the star is god, who is wearing my face.


















9090000






i burn experience like tobacco
in this small bone pipe.
i try to keep some for later
try to quell the desire for more.
substitute weed but it doesn't
satisfy, it makes me desire more
tobacco.

i'm not saying i quit. i'm modifying my intake
i'm managing my addiction, i'm giving into temptation
because my won't power has the upper hand.

and despite the cold i've had for weeks
i sang better last night than i have six months.
one day i might be able to sing allelujah without taking a breath.




























*(^^^



i burn experience like incense
smokey, slow, stinky.
swing it back and forth in a censure
to cloud the outcome
and confuse the congregation.

i've heard them all, all the stories,
behind the glass screen. forgive them father for
you left home when they were mere tots.
most of the things that would make good stories
i had to forget, or i couldn't look them in the face again.

i wish they'd let us burn weed again. i think it would help
with the collections plate. or the concession stand
i can't remember if i'm at church or a quidditch game.










$$$000)))











i burn experience like shell oil
burns methane in elijahland.

i burn experience like american flags in baghdad
i burn it like fields of poppies kabul, like vietnamese jungles
my experience is napalm , my burn is nagasaki.

i burn experience like looters burn  fergeson,
 like cops burn tear gas on the streets of protest,
i burn experience like fukushima burns the sea.














actually, i haven't had that much experience to burn.
but the grand canyon was on fire.