red pilot, blue engine

no one describes the process
no one extinguishes the crystal thumbprint
in face of all the unreflecting visions and refined cataclysms
i exhume a particle, a filament of spider web hung on a clothesline
parsed by a consuming crowd

red pilot, blue engine, ice forms on steel
a tower of fuel rods transmits the message
into the fire-breathing sky
and produces a child, pale
a bone hung with flesh
a half-devil raised to fail

disproportionate in tone, in weight, in colour
a face within a complex, a tangle of linen
made entirely of tobacco and coffee
we insist the boy bring bread removed from windows
what choice do we have, when we’re stretched on the pavement
and a telescope tells us what we need and who we are

a river of pamphlets flows through the pyramids
and twists on itself like tissue dyed with kerosene.
whether or not we submit to the madness
the conventional wisdom of soulless mice
all depends on direction of windflow
and the patterns of numbers in houses of paper

red pilot, blue engine, within the wrist there is a stone
within the playground, a virus is spreading
above the factory floor the chains are trembling
and ringing like castrated bells
let this be a warning to the hamstrung children
there is more blood in the soil than
bone or blasphemy