XII

Memories of my family
have begun to peel
slivers of colors fading
in my mind
fractured pieces surface
and in with the tide
washes the dreadful feeling
that these memories are more
dream than reality
but then it seems kinder really
that I'm not sure these memories are
truth
if they're not real
I don't have to think about
where those dream-people
are buried.

XI

I remember when the roads
were dangerous

bandits begging me now
offering me all their stolen goods
as indulgences
to buy their souls passage to heaven

plagued
passage along dangerous roads

but I'm not headed to heaven
I'm leaving my body behind
for Ostrapalis
let it rot
let them rot

X

Footfalls on untended paths
I pass through like a specter
I couldn't tell you
if I really passed by at all

If this road really exists
or if I'm lying in a stupor somewhere
imagining my journey
past corpse towns and screaming mothers
who have no one left to mother
maybe I never even left
perhaps I'm waiting to be buried
could be I'm a poor dumb bastard
too stupid to realize
he's already dead

But I keep walking
the landscape never changes
I walk anyhow
past different towns
that are exactly the same
united in the same bleak stink.

IX

has the king come?

is this man
who speaks of Ostrapalis
Christ come back

was this wanderer
crucified
is this man's pristine flesh
twice-risen

they want to nail him again
say he is a cursed Midas, afflicted
no messiah
brings instead of redemption or gold
bold black boils and pheromones
fleas and plague

he's the reason
hang him
hang the harbinger
hang the man from nails
he's the reason you're all dying
why the world wails
bringer of fleas and plague and pain

they're afraid to touch him

they say there's something wrong with his head
but I see gold

I will follow him, step for step
in the dance of death
take hands with the dead
and pave the sick streets with gold
a path to Ostrapalis
no better a way to go

VIII

No matter how many times they ask
I'm never closer to an answer
The hate that ravages their faces
more savagely than the worst onslaught
of the affliction
follows me from town to village to city back to town again
a silent jury
raging at me from the halls of memory
always asking why why why you why you why you
why do you live while my son died
why do you breathe when my beloved drowned in her own blood
why do you walk when our leaders fell to a man
why

Every town brings new accusers
soon I'll have an army
I can't share my immunity
but I give them life anyhow
anyone blessed enough to meet me in these damned towns
will walk with me forever
I couldn't leave them behind
not even if I tried
and truth be told I truly can't
bring myself to try.