of fuel
of fuel, refueling, running out,
questions in orbiting, Rimbaud
of dust,
debris in unfinished caress,
refueling,
penetrating the shieling.
Yesterday's glass rings,
coming closer,
gaining loss,
losing light,
time, years.
Laboring docken-
leafed, stricken,
over the couched
terms and call,
land's vacuous end,
dreamily chanted
fanciful winged coquette,
stubborn, barred, lucky Lucifer,
flickering.
Inventing a whole waning tongued other calendar.
We are top sailing instead, upside of the angels,
opaque dreaming,
acknowledgements intended,
speaking through to another risen,
much worse condition,
(not in your language)
tucked into furthering this body,
fain resurrected button and zip,
whole inexact uncertainty,
danced for you.
*
In arms. In arms.
*
Letting it travel on wind.
Pledged copulation,
casual fistful of coquetry
and you.
And you and you.
This fair body,
just breeze.
. riparian riff raff
. medium coarse,
. broken, speaking
. cornered, derailed
The holding condition,
holding, conditioning the heart.
The heartening subscription,
swaying domain, dead figuring cant.
. dumb run
. dangerous
. lipstick, inscribed
. Biding time.
*
We are becoming obsidian,
memorial, free floating.
*
. years blinding
. perpetual motion
. in light
*
Sage willing flesh, pen,
later and born.
Cross-stitched
Over-structured authorities, skilled writers, caught up
in cross fire, cross-stitched to the spot.
High on participation, rally round deciduous growth,
pronounce it delicious, amazing challenge,
close knit modules of gross error in judgment.
All those parallels loosen the ball bearings.
Flicker combinations of events in small cages.
Back up your job description,
flog yourself into tasks and alternative attitudes.
Same old middle finger throws ancient gesture of scorn your way.
Novelty lost interest in mass innovation.
Let's just say the cultural quarter was overrun.
Certain houses have known generations of
the same families—ties, continuity, old bonds.
One died on an anniversary;
death gravitates to particular.
One died in solitude, silence, unsociable fortitude;
death castigates survivor.
Grand National was over in a flash;
couldn't even tell you who was running.
***
ODD TOURS DE GOBELETS
It seems a pity to have wasted perfectly good newsprint on well over three columns worth of story on the ass-end of a project, intricacy lubricating the folio, treading slippery slope.
Wedding presents? From the bride? (clue found in a drawer.)
Had you really believed assignation of numbers to be the solution to smiling into the abyss, you wouldn't have asked for names and addresses quite so early in the affiliation.
Oh, well done!
Panegyric discourses:
You are clusters of distribution,
tin-glazed earthenware,
patterned metallic colours,
scratches and blisters,
absolute kill.
Mile long carpet,
clipped wings.
***
Too quiet. Pale.
Aspiration exhaled, lung-damaged.
Hope is fulcrum to permanence, no matter what you imagine.
You're in a really good place, don't get me wrong,
if you don't want to go there, looking too far forward,
taking more than one day at a time. There's no way in.
Think twice before speaking. Now is the time to be cautious,
hand-clapping, counting rhymes. Shake up the neighbourhood.
Gunshots are heard. Young men give up their lives, slept in dust,
for dubious gang leaders. Next exhibition follows (too closely).
Vaguely symbolic glyphs, carved small onto form, basic shapes, shifted.
Where does eye lead, if not to strangely mutated darkness, free trial, finding a way,
weighed down, rocks around neck. Time can be better than spent.
I have never seen you so sad.
***
Acts of contrition
pursue shortfall of cool,
directing negotiations, too many effects, ineffective.
Out of time, strobe-lighted. Those are the breaks, original.
Make it two. Casual is costly, too comfortable, hidden
in well-oiled predictable rules,
senselessly knocking on nonsense, selling it short.
I'm on the opposite bank now, sharpening branches,
replacing ether with water, swimming through green, cloudy waves.
You are barely a ripple.
***
Rhythmic bleeps
add a certain I don't know what to the experience.
Lord knows you have beautiful eyes. What does clock matter,
daily thoughts replacing real, live experience, unable to move,
stuck in a moment? Folds on map, impossible to manage.
Someone may assist at some time, though discussion alludes us.
Find an identity next to a dustbin. Hand it on or hang on to it.
Forty years ago is yesterday. Now. This minute.
Some things don't change. How did we end up here, not together?
Can you turn back time if you cannot commit to more than today?
Truth is rewarded with a warm hug, time, tide, no one,
everyone's sister, cousin, best friend, double.
***
***
