2277
7.84
26.iii.26
cut out of the picture
ekphrastic for
Nahom Teklehaimanot’s ‘No Shore for the
Living, No Shore for the Dead’
there is no face but
made of another
no hand but must have
held
lips and all the
world drawn out –
disguises, chains of
gravity
the dove of exile
wings to say
the grimace
a chess field
if there is a mask to
wear
it’s all the eyes to
haunt me still
one feels how we all fall
2276
7.83
25.iii.26
can any eye take all in?
ekphrastic for Grace Cossington Smith’s ‘The Curve of
the Bridge’
all for art
this geometry is open
ended
stands on stone
another shore approaches
the funnels of mother
pass under
arrive
distance is infinite
tools down this hour
workers absent
shadow falls over
itself
strange weights
a frame of leaving
time’s arc
we could have left it
there
one more harbour sculpture
not all of it ever
yet to be crossed
there’s a sky of
gradual strokes
2275
7.82
24.iii.26
mind your step
Gore Cove Track Series
slippery when first
lit
try not to muddy
here’s hat collecting
here’s running of the
creek
as rain from nothing
falls
your puddle’s just a
sky come down
look up!
cliff adorned in
creep
I call it another
country
every day I’m here
sun as through glass
I gather to the page
first shadows then
show
colour of stone shows
and all around the
shining
I like a leaf green
mistlight
take eye to the top
of the tree
a leaf in the
afterfalls
day upfurls
everything rain
touches, blessed
cove is a shimmer
skein tide in
prints in wet sand
where it’s out
close, like this
heaven is
heavens are
and then the wash off
these few notes
falling away
2274
7.81
23.iii.26
between the black and the white
all this
all the colours there are
a flower up
find heavens
time drains
so many shades of us and must
the smile skin
blood falling
miscegenant, all are
red
beak
a
treerise
the
bunnies on the moss
a fox
first
light shows
it’s so
as smudge far
wings
diaphanous as guess
won’t it all fall together here
2273
7.80
22.iii.26
in all the places of the dark
paws forward, scratch to eke
faith that the day will come
in all the corners of the dark
in the wings where we wait
very few see what I do
yet
all the colours of the dark
fix an eye for later
my dream shone
pillow for a cloud come down
in all this then
a day dive
eyes up
to receive a sky
2272
7.79
21.iii.26
someone
asked me what would become of my book
poem for Rob Edmonds
actually, what would I do
with the book (?)
that was the question
I thought long and hard
(and one always hopes that a
book may have such effect)
but, more realistically
the book and I, in a sense,
headed each equally for an oblivion
and you, o reader, too
the one who asked
all are!
compost
fires to light before
(though perhaps too soggy
with the tears wept in)
still, your ex-tree,
inscribed, has its many uses:
– a cockroach swatter
doorstop, post yellow pages
the araldite weight
and counterweight measure
for poison in the pipes, for
lead
and burden to bear home
a heaving thing, my book is
once candlelit and peer
waste hours
someone might take a leaf
out
grease wipe to a naked flame
or bright side
as a sun plays out
your sovereign method of
gathering dust
humidity? dust sticks
presto! grime!
eventually inscription fades
a rot sets in
there’s slim chance read
first
to open eyes, hearts, change
minds
a cobweb blowout eye slap
and others can be therewith
whacked
for mole
(smartarse for instance
… most fun had with book)
here’s one that others might
yet pile upon
a book to bookend all!
for the sweeping of crumbs
to make thwack
or flick through pages for
that sound
so satisfying (once got to
the end especially
have we word for that?)
but picture it!
the image procession, mind
of a reader
plot and make it bible
the memorable lines
now collocate
your aphorist recalls
it can be on for young and
all
treasure hunt to find the
hidden page
(two stuck together… one may
speculate)
or some will hollow out
to hide the key, the drugs,
a secret map of the library
leads you to the book you’re
in
and there’s your Escher
scratch
if with mirrors so then
smoke
open to any page
divine
by see what insect lands
aliens all prophesy
and take your time
sing with
a pillow for the hard of
head, book is
in corners where least scribble
but who can read such
annotations
as the ancients did?
to speak of all the woes
there are
of better world we’ll make
what would be done with it?
what’s to be done?
the point is
just to prove a point
it’s for building a bridge
it’s for knock down a wall
it’s to tear up a fence by
the roots
a thousand years our purpose
in eveyone’s words
in no one’s
in case of hope, break glass
to find the voice that was
there all along
that’s to speak a new world
out
2271
7.78
20.iii.26
a tree
does birds
with twig perch
and till leaf along
if weather will be anything
each sentinel
see it’s up with
sky between all
a feather to the breeze
big can-we-call-it-smile?
and there will be
suspicions, cares
first light sets breakfast
off, we’d say
or time, like a silence
between
we watch
there’s all the sleepless
chat to bright
a kind of writing in the
vanish
gone as soon as sung
