Hiroshima of the Mouth

Mark the spear's throw from the hand,
the jungle, the shuddering flank;
describe its motion as anything outside
of itself, anything but some sacred impulse,
overlooking that the rage of the body
is no further removed from the mind
than the salt is removed from the seawater.
It is the withering, the holocaust,
the Hiroshima of the mouth,

and it is why you can cry for freedom
and silence with the same breath.
Talk moderation, talk middle path.
Strap on sandals and reject
the labor of intensity, marking
footfalls on sandpaper,
talking to the spiders
on the mountain path sanctuary.

Caressing the rock face, you find
the oils in your palms preserve the shine
of its many faces, its cubist projections --
your eyes focus and refocus,
straining to conceal what might emerge there,
but your mountain is not stable.
Streamers spark above you,
the air hums electric

		and there is lighting.
It will cook your eyelids, brown
your fingernails, long before it splits
open the rock. And you will win back
your anger, because you are the electrocuted,
what you wanted most to avoid, this excess,
the mere probability of electrons smeared
in your blood with an angry difference.
to crack open a new life,
ignite the evolution revolution.
_You_ are the burning bush. The prophetic voice.

Spit out the black soot from your mouth:
that is the careful, the understanding,
the escape from discourse -- push it out
with an angry shout, the shrill, wordless
cry of the banshee. Herald death, proclaim
the stone dead. Stun your Moses.

Reshape the wind tunnel so he can hear
the words that blaze forth from your mouth.
He cannot dodge every lightning bolt --
shout until he runs from the mountain,
madman with the singed hair, singing the angelic,
singing the angry angelic,
while you collapse in embers,
waiting for lava to reclaim you.