IX, X, XI,XII

 

IX Marcus builds his babies. They are

physically hand grenade. One is his

darling, his humours. One his 

scourge. Marcus made a baby. Its

hand for the women. Marcus slams

on the door. For he had a world

to do. We saw he had failed at

his chance. The thing you ought to do. 

X It made two lists to 

struggle. Go out. The trees

orange glow about the

railing. We are going sad

towards the Bright new 

Days. Must eke the

beforehand of rooms. 

It tastes the good. Spends

money. Wails out of the palm.

XI There’s a way

for biting the 

facial patterning.

Acts on heaps of

stomach. A dark

and greenish moth.

I’ve carved my

knees for biting. 

Bite. Bite again. 

Revise. Immutable  

socket. Winter. 

Distillation. How

old. Hungry. As

you became wrapt

the air dressed 

you. The clouds

kissed your spine. 

Lay there out in

the garden. A pool

of your growing

lifelessness. 

XII The list begins to glint a quiet violent orange. Impossible to see. Each letter is a living evaluation of scattered motive. One day respond. One day, respond. Until then it is forever too late. Nothing will be cleared. Oily. Was oily. Oily and ashamed.

 

An Arabella

Today I met an Arabella, and moving

through the valley swish from the trees, 

a stream broke away, long grasses cut at my thighs

oh moving feels so frequently sad and alone,

or unable to fill up this time without recourse 

to the usual flares flash in the sky, at deep midnight. 

Still, I had never met an Arabella 

scrunchies at our wrists which indicate

a pleasant day pours into the world, I walked out calm. 

An Arabella, further, to a person or a sound 

I once met, last night and music appeared. 

Tracing alone through the valley dark and cold

daylight for once, today,  and not a threat. 

An Arabella sundown in the garden 

waking from a dream into another dream 

where long grasses tingling my clear thighs

swallowtails over the pond is only music.

If I could say an Arabella day. Walking to the copse 

where I spoke with the others, shunned

by the village approach, out and south we rode

in scrunchies, little ribbons lit the way. 

Until the dreaming dawn, you must wake up, 

go to a little work and rest by the moon’s blue fire. 

I’m on my knees like real estate, neither praying

but waiting for the grasses to rise up

hi an Arabella morning light, enclosed.

Aubade

Ask me. The answer will always be no. 

Ask me again and again

amongst the pinprick light

of the stars, for now

I believe in the stars. I believe in them for you

and get back silence

which deepens love

and anxiety, shelving like the sea

we once swam in, remember? Silence. For soon

we will all need such silence, can you hear it? 

The night is coming, but the bright day

is where we will hide

conduct our loves under pinprick cover. Ask me. The answer

will be in secret

is the only way to move

they want us dead. Our love is dead to them. The answer is always no

silently we kiss among the pinpoints 

of stars, and I believe in the stars

for now, take cover

triumph silent heart.

The Quiet Room

Private heart quiet room trooped

from another world, a corridor, you see

the wailing pipes wood resin aerosol tremor.

Far off though now to tiptoe, trill, at last

an empty building summer’s distance

distinctly promise, boughs I sat to leave

young broken frame, his roots upturned,

delight and pulped to bruises

little cuts along the ribs, 

with two whips, then another, little

punished face crowding quiet private heart

room trooped to his bed, to wake him dead.

Through a Crack in the Ground

We are always the feeling of the end
approaching steady as sunrise, you see

that's the mechanic, ever cresting wave
to your lost ones as we go into the air

to meet with what exactly and who you loved
are gone now do not blow them kisses.

In our new bodies the soul keeps single focus. 

Meanwhile we rose, dusted ourselves

stared to the sky where vanishing charms
clouds grew thick and if this is the desert

plain forever we may no longer live
near to one another forced apart 

in fearful rigour, but your features glowed to me.
You were completely beautiful, us both, more so

for twilight stormed down a harvest of colour
weak in our arms the sound of the flowers.

Rendezvous

Outside is the precinct wind

funnels its edges, low range drifters I stumbled

over to the window quietly, as it was so cold

sweating and weeping for a moment for a 

very sweet moment I pictured myself

in the dancing, satins and lace and you were there too

deposed platoon. Lost to all of this

buried and tuneless world routine, air collides

and that picture fastened back into its case recedes.

So take these hands, warm them. Light is here

and it's light that changes the atmosphere.

We go alone. 

Aching, Fever and Some Poems

 Hello. I wonder who's still here? I hope I've at least a few of the folks who offer speels to save my marriage. 

Anyway, in bed with COVID. 

Thought I'd use this weird moment hovering between waking and sleeping to put some more poems here. I've been writing a lot. Almost to the point where it feels as though I am letting myself get it all wrong. As always, it is some kind of sequence. I won't know quite what it is until it is finished, and even then... 

I've been thinking about the aubade and the alba. What an incredible thing, really, that there is a type or genre of poetry that takes place at a specific time and speaks about such a particular event. Lovers parting at dawn. Being drive away by the light. If you have ever come across a scorpion (or scorpions) and interrupted them with the right kind of light you know pretty well how an aubade operates from the perspective of the "light bring" - God, or someone like that. Scorpions are amazing creatures. They get up to all kinds of things, and then on bangs the light and it is as though they're allergic to it. They may dive away into the nearest crack or dent or hole, or else just freeze completely still. Once I saw a pair (that I was keeping - playing God or someone like that) freeze in the light in the middle of some kind of tryst. It may have been love or war but they made it clear that it was none of my business by freezing completely still. Now, scorpions don't see ultra violet light, but they glow under it. Go and look this up. They glow an electric greeny blue. It is incredible to see. I switched the light off and switched on the UV light. They began to move. I could tell you, now, what they were up to. I won't. They didn't want to be seen, and turning the UV light on was the behaviour of the Calvinist God. The worst one. I am still ashamed about this. I've a good mind to seek out a scorpion (preferably Heterometrus spinifer - the same type I interrupted here, and one that luckily has a fairly weak sting) and ask it to sting me, as penance. Anyway, what am I talking about? Here's some poems. 

This morning, this grand impossible morning

avenues of light passing through the barriers.

I wait for you. There’s annihilation 

in this speaker, though when it comes, who knows.

Poison, and poison begins reflected

in the shadow, a dark door over

the left shoulder or just out of sight, before

you’re through it you are through it;

the world closes down and the entire soul

is sabotaged, institutions formed up to pattern

recognition out of sight, out of the head

and shame and unyielding attacks 

on the imaginative faculties are its lifeblood

gorging on desiccated numbers, at large

mounting the insurgencies: Addiction and calm

this morning arrive here, learn its names,

depart without a kiss, pure blank severance

a light as light will form, forcing back the door.

For now we’ve to vanish

our thoughts are dispelled

I see no reason

it dogs our trail

our silence will lurch into

daylight as swarms do

hovering close and

removing our hands

out and into the perilous sunlight 

birds hissing and are cracking in time

light away

distrusted day

for now we’re vanished

our silence our precinct

holy and  heartless

religious and dead

hidden in my saviour stars

will fade and mountains

take us into scrutiny

and silence, out of time.