once climbed
my highest mountain
nothing left
but walking down the land
I screamed out:
"come close and look at me dying"
they did not understand
words like eating horses
so I repeated:
"come closer"
they began to hate
to eat their horses

then I met the palliative messiah
I see this meeting
in the greenness of a stunted scrub
somewhere on a slope
I asked:
"what is the sex of death?"

each of these ugly ones
has their own palliative messiah

and shadow trail

"don't ever remove bookmark from what I read"
I murmured and now
I'm dancing around his body
in the way never known
singing the hymn to death