You have to look beyond the pigment
of paint to a point where the familiar falls away.
The trauma of the real cannot be tracked further.

Falling figures across the barbed wire
of a diagonal line: faces ignited
with the frenzy of fire-walkers.

A river is struck off the map with cranes,
pillars and dynamite.
A mob with petrol
bombs moves deeper into the eyes of a man
frozen in fear, his hands folded.

This is how the linear world turns in on itself.
And this is when you long
for the script of the slanted rain on the plains
to tell you the difference between a prayer
and a false affidavit.