Thrice this dreary winter I\u2019ve dreamed the bogus death
\nI died in Africa, not its buff savanna or undulating sands
\nbut where the vertical panorama of cumulonimbus
\nis self-contained, where thunder claps call out
\non their own, downpours taking up the theme.
\nWas it soma or coma? Hepatitis on the Pepper Coast
\nlet my liver have the say.<\/p>\n
Quarantined, stunned\u00a0with soporifics,
\npinned against a sallow tumescent\u00a0sky,
\nI felt the whole treacherous tropics gouge
\ninto my guts, leaving me brittle bones from brow
\nto ribs to toes with shriveled pulp for viscera,
\nflaccid shrunken testes. My sap was hot with bile,
\nmy shit pale clay, piss shit brown. Was I then to die?
\nWas this my unction, from a friendly mantis tacit prayer,
\nfor incense the stench of coffee blossoms in fetid air?<\/p>\n
A rooster crowed, a dog barked at a stooped
\nand wizened, demented old man. Myself, I saw.
\nThen all gravity cut loose. My bed became a bier
\nin surging currents, dipping down past pallid
\nshores whence no one I remotely knew beckoned.<\/p>\n
Limbo? Purgatorio? Inferno? Whom are<\/i> we supposed
\nto meet there, anyway? Fathers whose afflictions
\nwe grow to share; lovers transmogrifying in dream;
\nlumpen bums lurching at us to beg change, faces
\nchafed and skinned like the hindquarters of small
\ngame, rubby veins blasted to the surface?<\/p>\n
We each live out our own protracted crise de foie<\/i>.
\nWe call it the liver because this gland strives against
\ndeath\u2019s relentless inward seepage. Mine did, and won.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thrice this dreary winter I\u2019ve dreamed the bogus death I died in Africa, not its buff savanna or undulating sands but where the vertical panorama of cumulonimbus is self-contained, where thunder claps call out on their own, downpours taking up the theme. Was it soma or coma? Hepatitis on the Pepper Coast let my liver … <\/p>\n