zeitgeist

by Quan Barry

or Chapter VIII: The Death of the Poet

after Red Pomegranate

1.

One by one the men remove their black cassocks, let in the dawn.

2.

At the top of the stairs a door opens. Behind it, the darkness tactile, felt-like.

3.

She arrives in a green gilded gown, on her shoulder a white bird perched like a balance.

4.

If you touched them, the walls would crumble in your hands.

5.

The roof is made of stone. One by one the men unrobe. Even here they cry like candles.

6.

When someone speaks, it is only to command you to sing.

7.

What does it mean to fall on your knees, to let what spills from the jug

8.

Sing.

9.

pour over you?

10.

"Though I die, no more will be lost to the world."

11.




12.

Your sentence is an unpaved road. The fruit was bleeding.
The camera never moves.






from Asylum