one thing then another
one story then another conversation
always interrupted by another conversation
I want the words to barely glaze the page
gone the moment of their utterance
as we are
I want
in back of this a story a man with his face with his name
exile emigrant refugee displaced person outsider offcomerdon stranger suspect
the terms interchangeable politically undesireable
a story of a man who leaves his country
and the woman he loves
and the story of why
and her story
they never meet again
that’s it that’s all of it
far away she hears in the night street
footsteps footsteps stop
when she stops go on when she goes on
from the dark in back of her she hears
I can see you I can see you
Sammy Sammy Sammy Sammy I can see you
far away she must go on
far away he must go on
the middle ages
defeated on all sides
they tire of the games
and become their own gestures
for instance my lords Follejambe
who lie in their armour at Chesterfield
a little mad leg dangling from each helm
the dead and the maimed
already numbered
crows and the old picking women
what happens happens to all
a conclusion that is no consolation
think of silence now
the last message from the buildings
indecipherable over and out
static then the long nothing
the moment the lovers
walk away from each other
the moment the moment
such a sheepish calm on the face of the madonna
look of a man peering through smoke
a man kneeling into the light
who kneels in his own veins
and is alive is alive brooding
the forked branch of his solitude
gone the rain falls
the rain renews itself the rain
falling through centuries
columns and forests
oceans the ships nudge into
the house rears through it
its freight of jars bottles boxes
containers for all manner of occasions
assembled just for our amusement
the rabbit enquires of everything
is it good to eat? is it?
the rain finds the mouths sewn shut
the rain drilling its pits
*
whiteout
think of lovers for whom silence
is all the speech they can bear
become old with nothing to say
but what is unspeakable now
to burst again into language
a thousand years of nothing
then a single cry and again nothing
small talk of the aspens and the stars
at the continent’s dead centre
one light on a circle of ground
lighting the sleeve and the face
of a man carrying his lamp
the moment it is blown out
the new world
lady you moved me so
I may not be still again
and if I return to my own country
what shall I find there?
grass on the ancient hills
small fields running to smaller fields
the going away of love
and if I walk to the edge of my lands
when shall I see you?
*
here and not here
always among stones stoney places
scuffing the dust’s old pedigree
is there nothing it seems nothing
the taken for granted hum of the generator
refrigerator percolator traffic cries
the endless muttering of the machinery
nothing but stars and their stardust
grown upright a little wiser perhaps
from where do the words come
weepings and birthcries
shouts from the tram grunts corner mutterings
sotto voce cacaphony of things left unsaid
the grasses moving under the air’s
falling through itself
shadow of hand over hand
voices from rooms I’ve not been
calls from a country no longer in existence
the wind scribbling the water with letters
*
off message
everybody here on automatic
I’m on the train just leaving Liverpool Street
say hello to Uncle Joe for me
he was always my favourite dictator
lost in the outbox at paperwork.com
a customer at Incarceration Inc
date of birth sign here sign here sign here
all this and a water feature too
I’m out of here off into the twilight
a long way to travel to sit on a bench
listening to the wailing of yet another city
I don’t have the language for the language
I need a cup of coffee to get me to a cup of coffee
my next number is called Accidents While Dancing,
out in the apocrypha of the world
its dust all over my shoes
*
cape fear
who can’t wait for it all to be over
the story the love affair the telephone call
history the message on the tape
at dark I walk by your house
hearing the corn creak
a ship on the sea’s nowhere
we have travelled forever without words
I can’t bear now to go from your face
forever forever and the distance
*
quickly fading here
huddled cold I woke by a dead elm
looking out over the morning I said
goodbye morning goodbye afternoon
goodbye silence begetting itself
goodbye echo my own footsteps
running away my shadow ashamed of itself
always on the maps where you want to go
is the crease worn away by so many fingers
searching searching goodbye to that
lost in a muddle of egg timers lost
in a labyrinth of assorted cheese sandwiches
signs that say remember to smile at the customer
confused by the sign in the video shop
last person out switch perplexed
by the what-does-it-mean of mind the gap
so goodbye riddle of the egg in the box
in the Chinese puzzle at the middle
of an infinite succession of nesting dolls
goodbye mouse with an ear of wheat
old drainpipe cluttered with leaves
goodbye old drawer of lost keys
blue hills sea glimpse haze on the river
the mulberry shadow circling the yard
goodbye rainy nights in a far off city
the neon shorting at the corner of the eye
on/off orange in the drops on the window
constellations I’ve not seen a long while
goodbye Big Dipper goodbye Orion
goodbye dodo rain forest caribou
goodbye empire of grass field of wind
hedgeback where no mercy is asked
all the world falling away like a shell
I have seen you step from the house of your flesh
saying this is it this this is my life
goodbye is it so it’s goodbye so goodbye
*
in the desert
everything lost and the rains gone forever
the rivers and their names the dry stoney riverbeds
the groundwater in the wells falling month by month
the memory of grasslands antelope gazelle
lost as I am on the hot anvil of the desert
under the great shed of stars at last with the wind
without the endless need for explanations
questions to answers I can no longer give
some I met on the brown road to this place
the ant a bag lady with her bundle chamelion scorpion
bells on the wind nets to catch fools
and always some fool’s errand to run
I am breaking up into segments of myself
always another chapter in the tale that ends
the clock in my skull out of time in any case
the bones I am becoming walking off into the wind