they did a sweep of the area twice more
dusting off the panels as they passed
white porcelain light blinkering
as they bandaged up the remains

\\\

piipiipiipii, bzzzdt.
Tap, taptpatptaptap.
Vrrrrrrrrrr, vrrhhhhhrrr,
ckah-clunk, bzzzdt.

/////

several years later, they unwrapped the hollow
when they forgot how to read the patients form
but found only, etched into the edges of the chasm
walls of maize and paper cranes
and the soft siren call
  of
        the ringing truck

\

so
     skid on the mud
of last winters drought
the windfall is better
the bigger your pouch

or,
   cull your tinnitus'
ambiguous haze
on your conjured
                      posterities
marionette gaze

   mix up a stew
   in a broken egg's shell
   and say your child's
   the same as always you knew
   ( always knew )


and then

wait
watch
  see?

as the frosted lanterns
sing the harbor dry
                                                             /

but who am I to judge
all boarded windows and gusts

i who you where us we,

-
    till just-


follow on down
into that
absent labyrinthine corpse,

crawl on down
  into soft mist and dirt

speak the air


and breathe

hi my name is and I believe in                   expand out
myself as community together                  remain seated
small businesses and growth                     rend your vision with lens
finance and restructuring                           of sedatives and phlegm
downsizing and expansion                  
small businesses and growth                     the cannibal chair of a limbless corpse
small businesses and growth                     the social vision of
small businesses and growth                     erected stone and allotted plots



                                 look away
                                                            ­             where?
                             To the future
                                                          ­               how?
                       Remain positive
                                                        ­                 with respect to what-
                                                           ­                                       -Don't ask that
                                                            ­             but
                                                                ­                                  -shh
                       shh­


                                                           shh.

soft asphalt hills
breathe your way
in burgundy sleeves
frayed rusted shoefoil
of cobbled years

scatter your papers
march aniseed dreams
indent the sandstone wall
with your ha'penny smile

you, too, were a child of bones
upon the sea of bleached clay
ground saul and peter
breath of crimson lines

learning to crawl
through leather-bound walls
but getting caught
coiled on the grief
of noontide pebbles

the misery of whim
quiet dignity of nothing
gentle pride of the abyss

find cheap relief
in twelve chamber meals
lard and mushy peas in
tiled up garden rows

worn down by
the soft focus sun
passing by

call for your step daughter
sit her down
comb her hair
peel her clothes
like mandarin folds

a tar voyeurism
bored of lust
but locked in cruelty
out of old habit

admit it,
don't you want to
burn the beds
just to see whose sleeping?
to find your face,
among the retreating blisters?

a shallow water charlatan
slice off your wings
feed them to your pets,
laugh as they choke
on feathers and blood

  just like
the gulls outside,
always humming the same **** tune
for generation after generation,

yet still
they go out to sea to die

when i was young
i never intended on living to adulthood
    i didn't have any dramatic plans for my death
    but i hadn't planned for the contrary, either
and so
time rolled on, the way it does
and through pure neglect
i found myself here
   alive today

and the years keep passing, the way they do
time's funny that way:
it increments in loops;
      another year forward,                
      another revolution of the same.

when i was younger
i didn't believe in the future,
i still don't, but now i find,
that the present tends to stick around.
and one's seeming imperative thoughts and actions,
one's urgent sparks of actuality,
aren't flames of some eternal logos,
but are more
the random shower of a Catherine wheel
spinning aimlessly on a pike

and so, through sheer inertia
the world keeps on turning
and you with it
till one day
you stop
and are left
disorientated and thrown
into a wall

i'm not sure what i'm trying to say here,
or if this maudlin sentimentality amounts to much
but if i had any truism
from my time spent,
it would be this:

the self is a clear plate of glass
onto which meaning condenses like steam
at first invisible to yourself,
you become aware of your shape through
the foggy coalescence of the things you cherish.
but sometimes,
those meanings become too much to bear
and they condense
into a liquid
and silently drip off.
then
maybe you wait,
slowly drying out,
for the process to hopefully start all over again
but in the mean time
you're left there,
gently and vacantly
estranged
translucent

and damp

speak
    lie to me
the meterbox is leaking
black teeth stretch through bramble hearts
look
       draw me an ocean
  swirling
  swirling
find space in spaces
and drown in them
     there
    the doresh haTorah
     writes his code
     stamps his envelops
enveloped in folds
suffocated in empty spaces
touch
clasp for her
radiant flesh
anchored in robes of sung feathers
blood pools at consecrated feet
a slave to the idea of sin
but always withering its invite
spit on your forgiveness
taste
a plum
solid but porous centre
fermenting mud
stinking bottleneck
smog your beaded eyes
gloss over and choke
hear
the unfathomable word
polysemous and locked
in hermetic seals
speak
shout
call to them
any direction will do
you know
you know what they say?
he'd beat his kids
**** his daughters
gnaw their scalps
but he can never remember where he put them
      can never remember their faces
isn't that funny?
isn't it?

you were

water parts



     the burrowing sun
cries


take our pitchforks to the aisles
  drenched in meridian sleet  


did you hear did you hear?

  the sirens last week
yeah yeah, the day that really massive bee got trapped in the window
apparently the whole neighbourhood was aflame

   we never notice anything, do we?



The noon, a pebble
  how were are at you where what too going today?


i-  i’m really sorry, i
   yes

yes, no
                 no


so did you, in the end?


        Ah, no!     It
    wasn’t




just
     couldn’t find
it

      gushing mush
   drowned out

       fallowed hallways
   left upturned

wait so,
    did you
                in
  find it?         the end?

..
what?


             oh-
         sorry,
nevermind





.

it moves in lines, upon flat surfaces
  we tried to catch it last week, but, no dice
‘that’s your department, isn’t it? take responsibility.’
  true.
but, we were waiting for confirmation.
                  ‘excuses aren’t relevant here,
                        moving forward is a precondition for itself,
                                 so nothing will change until it’s properly addressed.’

the counter’s still pointing at「 green 」 though.

  things should be safe for now


three months pass.


         it multiplies in aggregates
               motion seeps within still surfaces,

‘where were you last summer?’           like a lava lamp
oh, you know, out and about,               it deforms
busy. buzzy. buzz.                                  and,
‘oh. yeah. we can’t afford                      separates from itself

deficit here, can we?                              into self contained units
i hope everything’s okay.’                     and
   it’s fine.                                                 floats away.
                                    …
                     ­       ‘that’s good’
                                    …
‘we were thinking of leaving this place soon, anyway.’

…

fair enough.
  no one’s
                  really expecting anything to be found, anyway.

the counter is pointing at 「 red 」 now, though


three months pass.


it breeds through rumpled cloth, and breaths out through solid objects.
colours float over matted patches, a ringing sound pierces out of iron bars.

        -   the counter no longer shows anything

people pass themselves at crossroads,  half turning,
  to  speak,    but carry on walking their separate ways
  (it’s okay, none of us had anything to say, really)

        -   we expect a full report, you understand?

the spaces between take root. shadows flicker though the limelight
        filter filter, pass over. embroid and disperse

        -   yes,   of course. there’s no one left to read it, though.

the counter is pointing to 「 itself 」

huh.

must be broken