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making moonlight
ekphrastic for Henri
Rousseau’s 1886 ‘Carnival Evening’
clouds cast of it
leafless
with more and less face
little hats for a sky
points of light time
mountains
as far as we can tell
like a hearth
with days elsewhere
the horizon aglow
from the forest they bring the dream
in slippers
with ribbons
all aflow
half the world’s reaching
half’s on the way
dark above
and darker below
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escape from New York
jetlag series
the city
not sleeping
and
neither are we
lie still
like a
park
but the
traffic runs through
fact advertised
I think of the cliché
brought us from Newark
‘motherfucker’ to a
pedestrian dare
he opened the door
for it too
the place has
self-deprecation issues
light out
where the day is now
make a moon
switch off
home is where the day
is
blinds still drawn
make our own lights
memory
then ask if we are
here
if the empire has a
heart
I see two on the
street
of the elect
not sleeping
sleepwalking rather
till it’s time
for my breakfast then
two apples – neither big
they’re saving up daylight
here
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looking down on America
Dallas – Newark
from a
great height
bricks
mortar
farms and
the forest gone
ribbons of
tar
the desert
deciding
pits of
great extraction
every
direction
lanes
marked
hardly a train
all on the
wrong side of the road
you can’t
tell them
pools in
every backyard somewhere
fences
over which to argue
the
various suburb shapes
cul de sac
wrecks
dirt
tracks too
bodies of
cloud reflection
the
Whitman-Ginsberg market moments
here,
there mistake a cemetery
then we
tilt to take horizon, level out
industrial,
flat
containers
piled
approaching
wing up,
banking
election
coming on
will they
know Christmas?
a trickle,
a treat
you’ll see
who made it all when you’re down
all the
voices of the world
but it’s
not for them and it never was
everywhere
the castles, the kings
great and
powerful wizards
flat roofs
to collect
here there
a park
a parking
lot
roller
skates
the paved
world, heat trap
from this
height, not even a flag
but denser
as we approach
I hail from
such a place myself
crocs and
snakes and spiders
not so
much with guns
it never
feels faster
than when
you’re landing
a
cyberlander outside the terminal
it’s all
beyond itself
got away
this must
be the land of the free
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date line
drawn like iron dust to the empire, to the empire’s
heart
now it is yesterday
finally up
the fast night east
the day come on
this same ghost in
all the moment
frail tin as in retreat
the mind, a city you
won’t remember
and we guess on
kaching
other pages alive
empty night
the blah-mid
neither here nor
there
the naked tracery of
time lived through
it’s as if we had
always been up to nowhere
hours of the queued
dawn
flesh wings far below
the same day gone
where days go
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on a day when I’m not here
for the Gore Cove Track Series
nothing can trip me
in the grey
it’s the hours as if
let them go
and have my shadow
cast
it’s shaped to just
this day
not here
still undersky
as dreamt
in time that was
cancelled
light breeze up too
the textbook says
‘don’t mention the
weather
they’ll just think
you’re boring’
still under it
event absent
how much can I take
in?
what will be made of
me?
must bring the
stillness myself
cast belief
we’re mainly
quotational
who use the words
there are
on the day I’m not
here
it’s a little like
an afterlife
but more authentic,
better
more effective
real
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to own creature
poem for
international dog day
to belong
to be abreast of
among all our effects
they named
who cannot
to feed the biting hand
restrain
till tether does us both
these primitives
traipse after too
chase tail
and lick
this as if love
a kind captivity
the handling
and the breed
to have
everyday adorable
lifelong
supplicant
and you’ll say
‘not for sale’
no one would buy anyway
mange mutt
left at home to whine
whom only owner could pet
rude in the undercarriage
nor is there privacy
but rub
we kennel them
they walk us
nights out and would kill
so much alike we are
best friend and kept the ages safe
when just the fire was to our backs
stars were so much higher
and sometimes to the slaughter too
marked down for a quick sale
then who’s a cuddly culprit
without the form of words?
may I call these my fences?
once tree, ore in the ground
I see them jump eye sly
the pride of wallabies
and watch the dream go by
