Haboob

The haboob holds 

(back)

its breath for the time

being.  Something dark,

out there, ready, always

to destroy us.

This is

the disaster. To each year,

its own Armageddon.

And now, the formula for '09:

Tales of nerves and verve--

anxieties, universal and personal--

your private version

of fear or your privates'

version of fearless.

Necessity photographs

puzzling evidence, the pattern
of change, the climate of fear,
   the forecast.  What is left

behind are fingerprints,

the oil dusted and raising

personalities and questions

at the crime scene.

        

From outer space,

we are less than

the spectacle can correct for--

microscope, telescope, monocle,

camera--the distortions

of imperfect organs

made of bias, self

delusion.

We search for better

lenses, better senses,

better eyes. And 

of course, the ears 

listen more closely, 

"We are here.  We are here."

(And we are used to the idea 

that you and you and you

are queer.)

Just a who

in a town, on a dust speck

on clover.  From the first

of the dust, I knew

the world was over.

Loss

When the world ends,
I will miss the face you made
every time you came.

Chant

The world falls into itself, out of itself, onto itself.
The world falls into itself, out of itself, onto itself.
These are the pieces;
these are the people.
These are the fragments of God.