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10.xi.26
a
scribble and a scratch
ekphrastic
for Mio Pang Fei’s 1997 ‘Ordeal of the Nation’
in an ink drowning, in a splash
there are faces, there are signs
among scattered leaves
are stars
time sinks in
mountains and dark declivity
swift linger
one cultivates an accident
if a body, dismember
– the gestural vestigial
paint is thicker than canvas
everyone leaves some kind of light
there’s risk of falling in
it’s just that kind of ghost
this will all be over soon
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9.xi.26
this
town is too old for me
Macao
reprise
blown bubble of concrete
trip hazard city
they run a stream through the garden for a breeze
past shade
climbing where the hot air rises
no veranda but a cage
there’s a street of baby formular pharmacies
beauty and fitness reign
that’s money for you
sometimes aircon will leak through a crack –
the weather of a lost world
a building may stand to rot
only the blue collar workers can afford to smoke
it’s so they keep the sun at bay
life’s short, so sweet
Tour #77 stumbles through the Lisbon cobbling
each has a badge to say
there are too many words
they are too familiar
the town has torn itself down again
people with phones are about to collide
streets go where they will
have to make my own souvenirs here
I’m just one of the ancient sages
past my use-by now
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8.xi.26
be
kind to a self
any will do
and sometimes they’re all among us
pinch and there’ll be skin
is there anything on my face?
ghost in the mirror
smoke – comes in the shape of a body
one and another and not
even eyeless insensate
be a slef yourself
why not?
an kindly so
take your time
it will come to you
some say ‘give it away’
they’re just dreaming
to be a
tree
or wing it
be kind to a self
you have one you know
perhaps several, maybe many
best yet next
just try
it’s as if we were here all along
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7.xi.26
woke
with the blue
old urge
in a head and elswhere
stepped out abroad
if there’s a world
they were sweeping the leaves of a morning
I would look up
find myself in a garden
and until last of light
walking away and towards
have known that spark
lost myself among the stars
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6.xi.26
in
the belly
I am the same as the mountain
I am as with the tree
I am as gone as any cloud
as empty as the air we breathe
that’s to be nothing at all
fix an eye on this
we are all victims of the unknown
I am just as tall as the tale I can tell
it’s a fish this big that caught me
it’s the sea that threw me back
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5.xi.26
there
is an art
there is an art of seeing through
… people, things, a proposition
there are walls you must imagine
or
else
there is a street not there, never was
this is the way to unsay
these are the steps never taken
names with no place now
empty air
the glance with least suspicion
a
vacancy of eyes
I have to persuade myself
that I’m
here
this is the way of the wish
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4.xi.26
dusk,
urgent
the trimming of hedges
and the sweeping of leaves
the tending of first shoots
scarecrows of the field come to life
ghosts of old bicycles pass
my cloud in the shape of a cloud
under the street run of since rain
smoke telling autumn
an open window and these wings
little fire and the sun’s last
the scratching down of such lines
little snub nosed van pulls in
from the least world one looks out
to chart the change of light
