gris gris

"...as the gods decompose into their elements (cultic, etiologic, theurgic, physiological, euhemeristic, iconographic, cosmic), they continue to give off from below, together with the smell of decay, an aroma od Olympian ozone that communicates danger..."
-gordon teskey, "irony, allegory, and metaphysical decay"

sound of six seeds
snapped by strong white teeth:
red dress girl,
sitting on a burial mound.

up from mould, mulch,
that stuff that releases
that rich smell
at a touch.

it was a cross-
roads
nearby atlan-
ta. red dress girl
six rubies ringed
her throat.

up from mold, mulch.
that stuff lets go rich smell
at a touch.

i would have been
nuts
to take that hand,
take that hand
and crawl
through the dusk--

up from mold, up from mulch,
the stuff with that smell,
that smell loosed at a touch.
___________

peel that thick mottled-gray bark
off the tree.

break it in half
for me.