Mappae Mundi

                    I

"A map of the human heart"

Charabanc of verse,

moving across parchment acres

where the vaulted stacks

of dribbled word-khat are spat

and mulched into ledgered soil;

a geology of song – migrant journeys

of the tethered soul.

Sun dips behind the ocean’s arc

and hometime shadows throw

a scaffold upon which we climb

and fall.

                    II

"A line taken for a walk"

Takes me with it, this chorus line sway,

along-for-the-ride chalk hand

pirouette; a noose-line tightened

into mastabatory flex; or an

arabesque ocean dragnet

where hauler and hauled

embrace in a tail-slap of sonar love.

Mahayana sand scribes pipette

multiverse mandala worlds;

know all too well that the wind

knows better.

                   III

"The territory is not the map"

Heart wrapped in a clover field

and left to the wolves; it's cold

in the forest at night, why

smother yourself in earth

when you can bivouac in the

scalar heights of isopleth homesteads:

gated lives lived in plan view.

Carpets bombed into underlay dunes

that move like ancient diaspora

across boundary lines strung

like wire.

July 2014