The pungent smell of carnations sends me back

To summer days spent wending my time away

As dandelions mimic the gawdy sun

And the pebbles in my pockets are reserved for skimming water.

A heavy incense melds with the patchouli oil

Sweating for his mortal soul

Mixing an amorous mescaline tincture

Pale and milky, resistant like a heavy oak door

The frozen moment of a kiss

Memory stares down the decades

Echoing the immutable calm of the white burning candles

O! such mummified unwindings of a past that did not last

Like a dark, tepid river, fear snakes through the empty space

Where my mind once was

Where all the souls of all the boys and girls coagulate 

To stretch this nothingness of not-knowing way past infinity.

The unguent messes of the girls' eyes closed in unctuous supplication

But no body listens to the late summer wind anymore

The insensibility of stones is a staging post

Heading off the allure of  this once unfenced existence

As we smell them burning Amazonia.