1732
5.300
27.x.24
bestial
ekphrastic for Arthur Murch’s
1935-9 ‘Leda’
before and after
you decide
the wings to
lift or land
with whom the
other handed gesture?
half a leg
submerged
eyes tight
languid
dreaming
lust is larger
than the creature
godspizzle
invisible yet
taut neck
a bird
regardless of the size
will always
see things sideways
then who’ll
say – just a story?
who’ll say all
long since?
a tapestry
spill
how you had to
be there
we know
this entanglement faster than light
1731
5.299
26.x.24
bridgeless yet
ekphrastic for Roland
Wakelin’s 1916 ‘Down the Hill to Berry’s Bay’
to be under a hat here
held up with braces
summer one side
dry grass
low brush
the bush returning
craft issuing out
to the sky blue fallen
(too choppy to reflect)
the city rises
shades away
each element unfaced
anonymous enough
the train puffing back from the ferry
time is industrial
all this grey steel foreshadowed
1730
5.298
25.x.24
because of the creek
Gore Cove Track Series
track grows in
where the
breath’s to steady
city sloughs
away
tinklefall
turkey run
voice chime too
and others
scratchings of
the track beside
the creek
washes down
where the
harbour washes in
no slower
fling than root
under the moss
made world
bird of my
childhood singing here still
all this
because of the creek
1729
5.297
24.x.24
damaged people
chips out
strips off
people with
dings
missing bits,
lost
people who
remember how little they are
reek now
though
and people who
can’t
the augmented,
the diminished
people
inscribed and blank too
those in the
deeps
those under
those fallen
prey to
these are awkwardly
attempting themselves
faraway people
mistaking
all failing in
the end
and some won’t
even try
yet wishful
screw loose,
not quite right
out of our
tinies
a singing
midst
sometimes even
nose to nose
or other touch
occasional
cases of decency
we mouth to
mouth it on like words
as it was
passed down to us
a wild
undressing in the nuzzle whim
folks like us
I mean
the broken and
the pastured out
this midst as
much
trapped in the
laughter of love
we are all
consequence and no beginning
wept past in
the storm
because we
trust and care
not a chance
that we’ll survive
1728
5.296
23.x.24
welcome back to the Temple of Mammon
observing as a ghost may, on the 33 to Fai Chi Kei
我們都是資本主義的奴隸
women dou shi zibenzhuli de nuli
smogrise and
smogset
vanity sayeth
steel and
glass
otherwise as
of the temples of old
come to
worship the power, the fear
the little
dollar and the large
the dollars in
between
they are changing
them in the temple
the hand is
quicker than the eye
here are the
hubcaps to polish
there’s other
magic
to those who have will be given
the boarded up
day
the year
queued out
out front some
Silver Shadows
it’s like an
intelligence test
bridges thrown
over
mud salt
a tightening
sun
our old
familiar
come to the top
of the bridge
where the city’s
far down
in the mirror
intention!
there’s
harbouring
and thus these
bridges
always one
more
unknown ships
at ancient ply
they pour out
it surprises
you to be here
how this is
quite safe
in a poem
casino shines
like a cigarette tip
in the mind of
the dying
it’s all the
same loom
who casts
these up
makes name for
bold
we all must
bow as ever
and welcome!
this steady
stone
our eruption
stroke
overdriven
towards beyond
the cliff
commanded
frantic
inscription
Lukfook
Jewellery
Escuola
Portuguesa survives
Chow Tai Fook
where the Bank
of America
still CCB
woman with the
cat in sunglasses t-shirt climbs on
on San Ma Lou
over Leal
Senado
a huge
inflatable creature looms cute
the
conversation with themselves continues
a traffic
standstill for powdered milk
for formula!
all these eyes
suspicious
and so we’ve
all become
as biblical
vain smog
old rot, my
friend
roof of weed
straight out of the gutter
like the whole
town slid on a skin to splat here
ripe banana
there’s something
for us each
dizzy just
getting on with
and sweat for
it
on the side of
one
they’ve
inscribed a tree
it shines that
we may remember
I used to
think abomination
but now I see
one temple’s
as another much
all will earn
the righteous wrath
of the unseen
of whimper
loss
a wheel of
tangle fumes turns on
the animal
survives it
I’ve lost
those streets once mine
decayed to
gossip now
slower than
they ever were
today around
the Inner Harbour
I heard no
mahjong shuffle
the magic was all
spent there
the clocks are
long gone from the shops
are air
conditioned now
not the least
risk of hunger
but way way
past the use-by
it’s the ghost
lingers
just as was
there’s the
old ache to be here
here’s the old
ache to be gone
and you
remember
it was always faster to walk
