Time passes - that pressure in
space again - return of the unoriginals
tinkering with the power-box -
such fine work - setting traps out
for darkness. Time passes -
talons curve and hook - how the
mouth chokes with ash. Feet drag
muffled under dungeons. Time passes -
that pressure in space again - a
new proclamation from Semiotic City -
this custom built dome and
aquarium light, pulsing: henceforth,
no corners to hide around - no zone
permitted for surprise to leap.
*
Hugely, our indifference squats -
unleavened as fear, blood is contained
within news footage. Archaeologists
stop digging deserts because of
landmines. Camels wait for sand dunes
to drift into ridges - blue flags flutter
back at Fort Apache on brave
white trucks (what gets through
is the scent of coffee). A footless boy
hobbles past, bargain hunting,
a life at odds & ends - smoke drifts
over Manhattan, out across the Hudson
river as from a Bedouin campfire.
*
Circuit; right hand wise,
homage to the sun - as did ancient
Celts, Scythians, too - host to
the Milesians on their last leg to
Ireland as the first Celts castaway -
whose home precinct the Black Sea,
the right hand to the centre;
memoried in standing stone circles.
Yet homage to a sun as walking
pillar of fire, with hell for a coronet?
The world’s breath and mystery
end here, earth’s innards engorged -
sprawled redly coast to coast.
*
If streets had cobblestones
blood would flow in tatters - torn
flags to a revolution lost. Streets
smoothly ease to drains. The cut deep,
and blood wakes from its blackness,
crushed as berries in the runnels
of a wagon, oozes its oil from
the body’s casket - til flesh becomes
porcelain, perfect surface for moon,
ice, the glass-edged sky to play upon;
in silences deep as birch in the
bayoneting dark - and leaves finally
resemble paper money piled up
under the turbined lamplight.
*
A Public Works draughtsman
spent thirty years designing the City
Sewerage Reticulation System
he eventually hoped to escape through -
a masterpiece! A prairie dog would
have been proud of it. Complex of
accented runs, angles, drops, sluices,
pumps, ditches, endless unbowed
archways, treatment ponds breaking into
sunlight - the architects of Athens
would have been proud of it.
Only on paper - not one trowel lifted!
miles and miles and miles of it.
*