two deuces and an easy death

a foaming ecru heart
fills the frame
but here is where the frame
is the most mysterious

it could be a kaleidoscopic
liquid cauliflower
replacing the one good eye
an imploding bat head
of mushy sand

but as it foams
a guitar begins to play
as if it is awakening

only Brazil
has such a passionate sandpit
and you want to sway
and to sing
for yes you are hovering

and the earth
is just like a tree of dirty white foam
rising up like a geyser
of Portuguese

when you awake
on the banks of the river
a man with leather wristbands
is haranguing an audience
with big floppy hats

an old mountain in rags
and wearing a thin and dirty crown
is wandering the streets
but you've just put on your sunglasses
having come out of the bathroom
freshly shaved

you hear the voices rising
like a sky blue dagger
in your heart

and you think of your car
of all cars
as a donkey
whose name its mother gave to it
as she played the guitar
sinking gracefully
you will be two deuces
of sand

donkey car
you are number 22
in brazil
[gunfire]

an old shaman
is walking down the rail line
with a cat that follows him
which cries like a baby

and even though the shaman is old
and walking on his own
you know that he is a young man
who has been shot
who a woman is dragging
to the river
to take his clothes
his shoes

she is a thin monk
standing alone on her knees
in the infinite boiling sand hearth
of brazil's single cyclopian eye
and the one thin string of drool
is like a cat
which makes a sound like a train

what frame?
the green donkey
has no master
and it pulls its wagon alone
when it pulls at all
and the wagon is full
with one single enormous bell
that it wears like a uniform

[burning guitar]
the general is retired
and now wears a white suit
and holds a rooster
he asks a whore to bathe
his dirty son

who is soft like cold cream
on the veranda
where the plants in their pots
look out over the dirty plaza
the gringos have made in this country

some upright green donkeys
help a crippled old general up out of his palanquin
they have brought him to look
at the lungs of the city

the lungs are an old man
with a fu manchu moustache
as grown by a black man
who wears a straw hat
and plays
a wicker piano
to a pile of coffee beans

a glass of water
is eating a melon
with a whore
in a green silk dress
who listens to the birds in the ferns
on the veranda

in Portuguese
the tetraskelion of flowers
is not so dangerous
as the train tracks
buried in sand

a gringo approaches the black man
and both of their cigars are lit
and they look at each other
across the plaza
at each other as if to say
it's a very long walk
unless I sing

and in the dirty jungle
the old shaman woman
is nude
pretending to bathe
pretending to be beautiful
the singing sounds a bit silly
and the gaucho
sees her bathing
in trampled bulls

what are these grey shapes of lichens
doing on the barks of trees?
what is this wicker donkey
tied to the hood of your car?

the innocence of some nameless grey fruit
makes you see
what she sees
[gunfire]

eve
evening
is a cocoa bean
which suffers the foaming cauliflower sand
which leaves untold rubble
just floating
naked
around the plaza

god is two
a dirty escaped whore
traipsing through the jungle
its spies on a naked cello bathing
in cocoa beans

green bulls
are yodeling

god two
says that a golden squirrel
demurely hands
the Empress of Spring
a jade acorn
which sounds like
a pipe organ

the miner woman
is lost in the ferns
which hide the opening
to her mine

a round rock
fits snugly
in the hole
in the bottom
of the drum

two deuces
seduces