Winter, without journey: I watch too much weather.
The slum clearance has turned old lush gardens to blood,
making noise like a bank in a blizzard
of constant views and surfaces.
From the unhealthy Jewish town within this image
of undamaged city I throw a can of pineapple juice
at a streetlight’s unipolar world—a nested act,
with dragging slipper walk.
And move that sound aside like the earliest known word,
keeping guard over my ear all the time (my system just
has on and off) for cup-muted sounds that tend
to stop half way,
but looking for untasted words, though whispers
have their own key, and seeing everything as if it were
scenery. If I try to drink the paving waves
in the lavender-coloured mirrors,
or hold up the wall in my head with a third
hand, the dream ebbs out of me. I tie my Palestinian
scarf, stained teal-blue, ash and parchment
like that small 45 the Englishman wears.