ten poems for Antigone Kefala (2015)
we, marked by time
the furrow
and ourselves the plough
the rust
the bed turned down
the new old house
each night as dreamt
I know my way
but come forgetting
tears of cut stone
tucks into silence
trees marble
text intaglio
branches hung up with symbols
signs
the land is each in other’s eyes
lines lost in the face
dirt
all that we do is dirt
speak it and think it
the air we breathe is grime
we sleep with muck
a filthy image
gets us off
our best thoughts
are mud
it’s what we know
each of the others
how we do our
brothers down
dust off
and wash
and still sludge under
horizon dark of smog
still we know deep down
bricks are from clay
the only thing redeeming
is the good soil
we hold
to run through our hands
classical
so we are the vessels of gods
though they shout
we cannot climb to their silence
soldiers of tobacco juice
hoplites in phalanx
ours is faith in the empires to be
sit still and the cold of marble creeps
dance on and the amphora spins
history speaks of us
this church
once contained
a sea
ornate in voyages
of ivory
you see
in the dust
of the floor
the great lie
and the few
particulars
are still made out
history speaks of us
as inheritors
nation for our own sake
the palace, the tombs
o wide brown land of
it is in these objective conditions
one chooses to be
no one’s ancestor
frangipanis litter the path
death is laughter
the song won’t allow
cicadas are hidden
in trees you won’t name
they lodge
in your Christmas head
pathetic fallacy
the hills lie low
the town sleeping consists
of chimneys smoked
pillows impressed
somewhere from first light
a name was called
deep in the mirror of wishes
one knows there are
laws being made
knocking
on the lake still surface
casting the ripple
no sun could
knocking as the heart does
urging blood
on timber
as a blunt beak
shoring the sea
like the drill’s dull thud
oil delve
pistons in migraine
hear that knock
rod shot
knocking
like there’s no tomorrow
cause who got nuthin'
and how much ?
hear news of the world
clacketty clack
it's off the rails, on again
collide or dock
make impact
crater
goods knocked down
and girls knocked up
on the cross
the handyman
knocks next in
nearly nailed
and knocking about
with a metronome tock
a dripping tap
warm hand pressed
in a longing for silence
unless you've tried
don't knock
play chasings
we are chasing
this trickle of blood
and the sun that
bakes us alive
chasing after bullets
through pages of the book
ink across deserts of ice
after light and song
breath of the one
we’ve wished beside
chasing the next
and the last and the least
and into the dawn
and back into night
chasing the sea with the sharks
airbrushed on
we are chasing after
a coffin to kiss
and those worms
they are chasing us too
put an ear up against and hear the seas in me
rising to all occasions
and as in amber swim
a song has brought us
to the other shore
sing me
out of painted timber
step saints
laughter of trains
through dour suburbs
aiming self-possession
from all walls call
as if I were the whistled one
eyes up
wagging
for the joy of a name
the empty streets
and the barking
they’ve taken
moonlight and gone
stars are long fallen
they’ve come to spirit the night away
they’ve already taken the last of the day
they’ve got the pages
now it’s the print
through a broken wall
just this one beam
the prism promised
taste of light
to break the spell
birds like crystal sing
the blue light
that was once
at blinds
in an age of black and white
it's my decision
to live
in a book
out of painted timber
step saints
and all of tomorrow’s machinery
sunlight
nerving
blue and breath
to be a bird and song
in mountain dark
in speech
with shadows
and I the traceless
shimmering
exempt myself
from the plot
as in amber swim
and sing
sing me to the other shore
in tall grass
ochre
heat yet to pass
the eye is inching
with tiniest of insects
naked
to the rhythm sprung
in this pitch
of time
night in a circle
absent smile
no dreaming past
the web we’re in
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