Ode to Mann

Given the weather
Lack thereof
A man of the mind
Has turned from love
because passion never hit him that way

The flatlands are
a safe flat place
to iron out ones
blemishes
bleach your insecurities in the sun

But a trip to the mountain
was all it took
Our hero of the mind found there
The genius of his illness
and, "The agent of terror..."

Above the mind and under God
Between a lady and the stars
An organ grinder and a Spaniard
The pedagogue, the underdog
At this elevation one is taught that time is just a decoration...

The gift of the mountain
is to unlearn, that is, that your
body must detoxify
And spring from its earthly prison
blood and its unspoiled ruby desire

Then death consumed our hero
they were dropping all around him
And humanity was just decoration
But a pencil that he borrowed
from a Tartar-eyed, sallow cheeked temptation was his liberation

You learn from the mountain
In a fever high
that your life has been pre-designed
To overcome's to undercut
Clandestine, in its unmistakable stride

7 years and understood
life is that pursuit of which is
truest to the soldier in you

He lost his brother, cousin,
and the Tartar that we spoke of
But it's not to safe to say
that upon his return to his flatter ways
this burning resonates this day forward