Clusters Travelling Out

Clearly I tap to you clearly

Along the plumbing of the world

I do not know enough, not

Knowing where it ends. I tap

And tap to interrupt silence into

Manmade durations making for this

Moment a dialect for our purpose.

TAPTAP. Are you reading that taptap

I send out to you along

My element? O watch. Here they come

Opening and shutting Communication’s

Gates as they approach, History’s

Princes with canisters of gas

Crystals to tip and snuff me out

Strangled and knotted with my kind

Under the terrible benevolent roof.

Clearly they try to frighten me

To almost death. I am presuming

You know who I am. To answer please

Tap tap quickly along the nearest

Metal. When you hear from me

Again I will not know you. Whoever

Speaks to you will not be me.

I wonder what I will say.

Remember I am here O not else

Where in this quick disguise, this very

Thought that’s yours for a moment. I sit

Here behind this tempered mesh.

I think I hear you hearing me.

I think I see you seeing me.

I suppose I am really only about

Two feet away. You must excuse

Me, have I spoken to you before?

I seem to know your face from some

One else I was, that particular

Shadow head on the other side

Of the wire in the VISITORS ROOM.

I am learning to speak here in a way

Which may be useful afterwards.

Slops in hand we shuffle together,

Something to look forward to

Behind the spyhole. Here in our concrete

Soundbox we slide the jargon across

The watching air, a lipless language

Necessarily squashed from the side

To make its point against the rules.

It is our poetry such as it is.

Are you receiving those clusters

I send out travelling? Alas

I have no way of knowing or

If I am overheard here.

Is that (It is.) not what I want?

The slaughterhouse is next door.

Destroy this. They are very strict.

Can you see my As and Ys semaphore

Against the afterglow on the slaughterhouse

Roof where I stand on the black ridge

Waving my flagging arms to speak?

Corridors have their character. I know well

The ring of government boots on our concrete.

Malcolm’s gone now. There’s nobody to shout to.

But when they’re not about in the morning I shout

HOY HOY HOY and the whole corridor rings

And I listen while my last HOY turns the elbow

With a fading surprised difference of tone and loses

Heart and in dwindling echoes vanishes away.

Each person who comes, their purpose precedes them

In how they walk. You learn to read that.

Sometimes the step’s accompanied by metal

Jingling and metrical, filled with invention.

Metal opened and slammed is frightening. I try

To not be the first to speak. There is nothing to say.

Burn this. I do not dislike this place. I like

Being here. They are very kind. It’s doing me good.

If this place I write from is real then

I must be allegorical. Or maybe

The place and myself are both the one

Side of the allegory and the other

Side is apart and still escaped

Outside. And where do you come in

With your musical key-ring and brilliant

Whistle pitched for the whipped dog?

And stands loving to recover me,

Lobe-skewers clipped to his swelling breast,

His humane-killer draped with a badged

Towel white as snow. And listen,

Ventriloquized for love his words

Gainsay any deep anguish left

For the human animal. O dear night

Cover up my beastly head.

Take note of who stands at my elbow listening

To all I say but not to all you hear.

She comes on Wednesdays, just on Wednesdays,

And today I make a Wednesday. On and off

I decide to make her my half-cousin Brigit

Back from the wrack and shingle on the Long Loch.

You yourself need pretend nothing. She

Is only here as an agent. She could not

On her own carry a message to you either

Written or dreamed by word of her perfect mouth.

Look. Because my words are stern and frown

She is somewhere wounded. She goes away. You see

It hasn’t been a good Wednesday for her. For you

Has it been a good Wednesday? Or is yours Tuesday?

When the birds blow like burnt paper

Over the poorhouse roof and the slaughter

House and all the houses of Madron,

I would like to be out of myself and

About the extra, ordinary world

No matter what disguise it wears

For my sake, in my love.

It would be better than beside the Dnieper,

The Brahmaputra or a green daughter

Tributary of the Amazon.

But first I must empty my shit-bucket

And hope my case (if it can be found)

Will come up soon. I thought I heard

My name whispered on the vine.

Surrounded by howls the double-shifting

Slaughterhouse walls me in. High

On the wall I have my blue square

Through which I see the London-Cairo

Route floating like distant feathers.

I hear their freezing whistles. Reply

Carefully. They are cracking down.

Don’t hurry away, I am waiting for

A message to come in now.