fat Mahdi with concubines in retreat

More Head spoke of a general Gordon who unspeared by running
the time back from Mahdis
to where they ran as ichor and afreets into the sand

the spear was a cold thing that schlupped out of his chest
into the arms of an unravelling young man dark and sweating
who rewound down the steps from the embassy
out into the desert where the words flew from his ears
into the mouth of the Mahdi black and whirling
who in another time would grow fat and apostate
but in this would fade in equal proportion
to the words that flew back in
with such diminishing and disempowering
that he shrank back even then into the far Afrique Interior
where he slowly ceased and shifted, silted and shut up
like a motorcycle a mammoth a monolith half buried in dunes
a skeleton laid across it
all its tools buried in the wind below

ribcage-deep lightfalls in the blow bells of hell


.