Send a fire
send a hot scorching fire
a fire to burn . . .
a hot blasphemous fire . . .
A fire to outrun the devil and pale him
and turn him into black ash.
A fire to leap from roof to roof
set the jail-masters and burgers on fire and follow their hot leaping till not a drop of water remains
Burn it dry burn it hot
drive out dew moisture sweat blood
boil till it all cracks and blackens and becomes ash
black, white, burn, run sinners
the needles are burning, the sap is burning, the limbs are burning.
Send a fire to purify skin, hair, fingers,
make us warm again before we become ash.
drive the chill from our schools, our streets,
make the sewers conduits of fire
red fire flames torching fire from spigots
set rats on fire the mice on fire the cockroaches on fire
put everything to fire.
Oh, we must want that fire.
Burn the engines the oil, the junkyards, the airports the cities the trains the cars the libraries
send the efforts of a million poets up in smoke vanished,
raged by your fire!
Your knowing fire, set it all ablaze!
Torch the houses, burst apart the walls with fire shards
shrapnel hot metal burning scorching through flesh, set the earth on fire.
send a fire send a hot blasphemous fire
eradicate everything with flame.
Stop the fire.
Send a rain
a warm pulverizing rain.
To purify the stones and make mountains into sand again.
sand sand into silt
wash down forests, wash down rivers, dredge out the foul bottom,
send it all down with water.
Send a rain a driving hot dissolving rain that tears leaves away and softens skin and loosens hair, a never ending rain
fill up the cavities in the earth, loosen the mantle of the earth, gouge the crust of the earth with rain
split apart the head of the earth and float it away
drown the creatures of the sea.
Oh we must want that rain.
Drown the fish drown the whales, drown the people, drown the sky itself, drown the raindrops with more rain, send rain till the whole world is washed to the bottom of the Universe send a warm pulverizing rain put happiness on my forehead before turning me to clay.
Shake the earth split it open break the spine of the land
break the mountains in two
terrify the continents and crash them together take your axe and show no mercy
send hot lava into the settlements encrust us in burning lava
send plateaus, whole continents into the sea
take a billion years and compress it beneath your terrible weight
make us into the stones of the future.
Shake it Kali shake it. We want you to shake it.
Send a wind
an eerie escalating wind
to flail the trees and make a hailstorm of twigs and branches
then snatch the leaves away
lift the houses and dash them against the cliffs
send skyscrapers crashing
tornadoes of broken glass
into the vortex every little manmade thing.
blow a hail of daggers, ripped apart, groaning, screaming, torn in two
and then grab the oceans and lift them up and chop them to a fury never again to settle,
condemn them to an age of razor droplets.
Flatten everything with your wind
consume every soul with your moan
blow it down, flatten it, blow it down.
Shake 'till it splits
break us in two with your laughter and mirth.
Oh, we must want that wind.
Shake it hard Kali, shake it hard.
