the bombing of “Agrabah”

between a “hot war” and a “cold war”

a corpse war

& here’s another way to think about it: it’s like the movie was made for them, the near-constant weather of aggression, a world opening and scarring in rhythm with patterns of extraction and firebombing—pre-coded, the most visible war, the green, the infared, muted black & white

footage of the largest conventional munition in existence
falling into Nangarhar
                                        & its telecommuted soundtrack

“I am guided by the beauty of our weapons”

lit like a small blue television

our mainstream night

                              //

it’s the way The Exorcist opens on a desert landscape,

workers digging faceless into the sand

the chimerical statues sunlit and halo’d
those early, cursorial cues of dark mysticism

& it’s as if to say one can only conceive
satan making

fated flight and climb

towards human spoilage
from this the last & the first

place in the world,

(can you make

                              sand glow)

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