The hour has the flavor of its time.

the reflecting pool is stagnant
deserts pursue their mirages.

He watches the weather’s sepia

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

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

veined blossoms falling, the face, lightly
tattooed, of a god

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