#375 - at the border

 

9.i.21

375

2.9

at the border

 

say of five states

upstairs down

but it could be any number

 

people think it’s like hopscotch

piss in one state shit in another

it’s not like that

 

stairs are time

you cannot expect persistence beyond them

once was another

and rubble

and

 

there is a tea room where we gather

personnel of, uniforms of …it’s the Federal Republic of …

You Tell Me … at least

and now … the barricades, sandbags

are being set up

they are preparing to open

not so much smug as matter of fact

one might say humoured

nation has to have been dreamt

 

at the border

the world inside the wall is spinning

it is cornered

flat surfaces of lakelight

in an always motion

 

border in all its fine tricks

 

you can test this

they throw up the flags to hand

because we flew past

unable to take a thing in

 

back down those stairs to check

and it’s different country

you won’t see the moment

 

effort is just to remember

how in the child’s mind

might be me

 

this is really a place

just off the shore

a sinking canoe

someone dreams their own detention

someone is dreaming yours

it’s this way we escape

 

I, where you have been

 

and together

we, at the turning of the stairs

I think we were going up

see glimmer

it’s the old car

going into the wall

not thirties but design from that time

a miniature

you’d miss it but

 

it isn’t that the flags have changed

sometimes you see the singing

cannot hear a word

 

do things end here?

are they beginning?

 

you know that if you could get your head through

just sticks the other side of the pail

and see the forest as was

shy creature in moist clefting

mulch of

just a guess

 

my brother is late

what’s there for him to do?

 

the moment is a museum

 

we come back down the stairs together

all brick and slate over

I guess I’m not looking   

not the first time

 

don’t know this one the car went through

 

the border upstairs

some have said is to freedom

the guards are chuckling at that

butts under boot

 

we’re drawn to the wall

where we saw that flash, trickle  

 

did we think at the time?

that it came from nowhere

was entirely corner of the eye

there was no seeing other than

a thing of speed

and whoever in it?

we only assume a driver

 

I have my head in there

same as being in a brick

still spinning

doesn’t exactly hurt

but you imagine the nausea

 

never the one but all dystopics

 

to see the flag

tells blood in you

can you remember the colour now?

 

in this time

there was a disease soon known, named

in this week

there was an insurrection at the heart

these are of course beginnings

 

it is the border of everywhere at once

 

you cannot go head in far enough

without your body too

to see

green field

or will it be a drowning?  

endless dunes

like the market to graph

 

a sexless place

crossings out gone

 

start with the rug is a map

of was will be

grows up around the single itch

and that’s it

you cannot help distraction

but of course you’re there

 

clouds clear

nights tell how far

 

some dream drowning just where they are

in light for instance

 

all are drawn to the wall

this that another

like filings the magnet holds

ask who voted for this

(wrong question)

 

consider escape

you are already gone

who’ll notice?

 

a skin and you’re in it

all drawn to

go round it’s all this country is

people are locked up for less

saying, not saying…

 

you want to go further into the wall

courage!

perhaps we must leave it at that

 

one skin and paint themselves another

everyone comes here to pretend

 

there is a judgement throne

 

who sees the hover air up?

 

creaking pipes

have you heard birds tell an outside to it

 

you think

what faces they have to peer in

they follow

we’re conspired about

 

want it to be Finland

but all one sees is snow

 

there is a storm at the border

so you won’t remember

but rain days

and an anthem sung

 

as if they hadn’t already a chart

fathoms shown

but voices would bring it on

 

deeps of inkling until

breeze through fine hairs

colour under

 

flimsy in such a moment

the shimmering border

come up fast

 

according to the simplest rules

one reaches back further into the dream

a bone such as looming

day already lost

 

we’re what’s required

not more less

new key but no words

 

it’s all recorded

book’s burning

days in the crossing already

 

you have the normal cough

there’s no question of letting you

 

look into a clock then

those who look back

have you in their

have your eyes

 

lines of flight to grieve

and what’s your name now?

is there one?

 

stone before erasure

such stairs take down

time and the telling gone

 

as seen inward of

 

voices, other sided

could be recording

 

a towering in of trees that were here

because we are then

everything still is

 

a luring in of gospel

 

some come drunk to it

peddling their motives

 

we carry the book wherever we go

little tins of the law to hang for

 

see you sat unnoticed

new countries every direction

landscapes

a flower in meadows

 

nations expire as we blink

 

there are such places the border’s worn through

you see what will come then

 

some say a shell

cower under

no one will care there

 

so quietly among

 

they stop listening

I go into the wall

others there already

 

we have

we are

a silence together

 

it’s as with the old ways there

and a family come to knock

 

they have been tricked to the border

 

reprise

that if a hand were to come from the wall

 

something of love bids you then

unfamilial

otherly

 

you think ‘just  as they fly’

or as a letter

even censored, I could go

 

and what would be my title then?

 

I, who was denied

never spoken for

one of the thousands

shot at the river

shoes left

when we go

 

in the wall where we live now

times of

of course

worlds were

 

a miracle to be so set

in as amber

erstwhile

blink it

 

glass to darken

brink through

 

crawl out and now see

you’ll tell it from today

 

some will have all their lives here

 

find selves in that passage

where no one will breathe

 

where selves must know this all