and you who wasn’t

it is the barbarian who weeps

to the moon that it looks so lonely

whereas the city crashed into the hills

like a flame burning all around

contents itself with choking the night

into corners where sex can mix unseen

for as long as the shadows have no story

the light will always tell too much

 

it is the barbarian who wills

the animals into order on pastures

rather than lock them up into waiting

disaster like a cough or a bone too large

down one’s throat

 

it is the barbarian who knows

that silence raises its hands to peace

in the same way wheat suspends daylight

in a knowing cloth that comes only in the third

beer where the gold can flow until it flows

through you and back onto the earth

that sucks it up all the same

 

it is the barbarian who whispers

what is the point of determining the point

and collecting cash on other’s lack of it

when all there is is wind there

misplaced in their breathe

a nonthing becoming a thing

but forgetting nothing

so as to stack dead trees again

a hundred feet tall

one leaf by one leaf by one left

though all leaves

 

it is the barbarian who writes

without words for there has been enough

damage to the ear already

and the eyes are too precious to watch

death daily with an author gone and going

without their reasonable understood voice

fading into the conceived cry of time

that will never be fully comprehended again

 

it is the barbarian who wonders

if stars sleep and if not

how cruel it is always to be awake

shining

 

it is the barbarian who walks

to the city smiling gently

being wary to avoid stepping on the gardens made

with care and poise

and is told to get out get out

you pig

 

it is the barbarian who wishes

he had somewhere to go

besides to keep going

until gone

 

it is the barbarian who wild

and wet comes to the conclusion

during a rainstorm leaking his dirt into

the cracks scattered

as an attempt at poor bandaging

that he is the earth learning how to learn

about itself

 

it is the barbarian who wilts

under a grunt of hope for the continuation of this

even as the city spreads like a plastic cage

building statues and memorials to the nature

that was around before round

became defined as a boundary

instead of all

 

it is the barbarian who was unknown