cross this wide wasteland,
creep or crawl.
taste the twisted weed
salted with sand.
take a bite of bitter thorn
and gulp it down
with draught of toxic air
or boiling gust and gale.
there are no nights
in this wasteland,
only one long furnace of a day
coaled by an eternal sun.
bleed, burn,
wilt or wither
with everything alive
to a crackling wisp.
even scorpion poison
dries up in this wasteland.
(find more death
in a sterile sting.)
cross this parched wasteland —
for only brains bludgeoned
by brutal wind and sun
can fashion living visions
of rippling pool
or flowing fountain.
'