The Violent Red

The Violent Red

The violent Red is a powerful mantra.

It forces you to forget but

you remember. The violent Red is a

knife that cuts mandarins open

but the smell of raw meats

oozes. The violent Red is a pair of

hands that strangles you to death

then makes an epitaph for you.

The violent Red is bottles of wine

made of blood — only,

the blood of bleeding sunflowers

dazzled by the sunlight. The violent Red is

an espresso, short and intense, like a

hippo that crushes your head with a kick

or a stamp. The violent Red is a self-burning

metasequoia blaming its deciduous leaves:

how violent could a leaf be to fall away from me?

The violent Red is the smell of the sun in

your clothes, the smell of ash, the smell of dust.

The violent Red is an icemaker

turning every flow into an ice cube.

The violent Red is an enlarging ice cube.

Could there be an ice crack?

Let there be an ice fall.