There is a mushroom called
solitary inkwell
also black egg

practicing the lash
on his wooden top
a child stays very real

then he can do nothing but sleep
repudiating
childhood and adulthood and old age.

the grass fire can be seen
raising its smokes

Wild horses folded into their last night. 
One burrowed against the dead’s descending heat 
as three cantered from the threadbare wood. 

After Africa, Surbiton:
An unheated house, and flag-stoned pavements;
No colobus monkeys, no cheetahs scouring the plains.

Tired of the eighties, and the on-
going crisis in masculinity—the compliment 
each generation pays itself—he stared 

Never put your personal spoon in the common jelly bowl.
Spread your napkin upon your lap. Do not grasp.

Shall we go then, just to the corner
And no farther, not like lovers and other strangers
Who catch the same bus, and ride off together

Drive-by birth—this mother snares a cab.
Shoots up, delivers, leaves her baggage
Backseat to the world—boy born, tab