It doesn’t get worse
It just goes on being bad
As ever on the digital
all the seconds my life
I repeat one by one I
repeat myself: so wide
was my journey. As ever
no one to tell it to
whatever lies I write
between the barred lines
on the page in the upright
iron of these letters, who
to send them in any case?
What we do here is count,
count, pencil in, turning
a smooth choreography – arm,
2 on the walkietalkie, slam
of the great gates shut –
a century, more. Oh
you’ll see me dance, some
time you’ll hear me sing,
truth is we despise as we
count each other, as we
study the clock’s time
ticking knockback knockback,
the hours one by one on Sir
and as ever it’s a long time
to the next number 9 bus and this
urgent news out of nowhere.
I threw my blade.
It was a lucky shot.
It got him right off.
It killed him.
Or it was a unlucky shot.
I been here six years.
How divide how many ways
cut up time, alone, paring
the fingernail, notching
the calendar, shaving
a match to a matchstick
by stick to his Romany cart,
wherein he would sail
any lane as he chose
or the slow wind suggested?
The days anti-clockwise
walking the yard count
how many miles, how much rain
and what names for the birds
which are two being hawk,
sparrowhawk, sparrow?
Each man here is a thread,
each man is a needle
stitching his tale told
silently over, already old.
whispers run through me,
nightcries, feet running
and rumours. So I moved
once back in the old life
through cities of women’s
remembrance and men’s yarns
where my name is a ghost,
face barely recalled. Now
my road’s closed I’ve years
to prepare, to polish,
rehearse my story for someone,
anyone, no one, myself then.
The man I killed. I don’t
regret it: I’d kill him again.
But for a long time I’d look
at the stars through the window
and I’d see his face.
Through the judas you’ll
see me reading or sleeping
or staring into nothing
at a gesture’s midpoint,
all my private dancing
in public. Once more
I free the bird my heart
in the closed 8 by 12
our space is, she and I.
She sings. She wakes me
and flies at the little panes,
the yellow paint, the brick.
Beyond glass and the wire
of razor hair and stars,
traffic and the wind. They
make the sound a sea breaks
on beaches and the risen
crowd’s roar in the stadium
up on its toes. This side,
just me and the budgie,
lost as though long steering
Asleep I dreamed my heart
the dark star far away
I long for and remember,
all the stones between us.
I tell her no and tear
the star out of my chest,
don’t you ever come see me.