january 2020
(i)
...only on this earth does life
dream of predation and fulfilment
nightfall fantasies that spin the sun
around the heart’s own axis
only on this earth are thoughts
left hanging high in the trees
like large, leathery bats
hungry for darkness
and only on this earth are there creatures
who will eat each other
because their dreams are different
because another’s death removes, even for a second
the certainty of their own
but then high in the glacial mountains of this only world
the freezing quartz breaks loose
and begins its journey
down through men’s souls
a grain of sand
that takes for itself the birth of all blood
the child, the enemy, the friend
progeny of the deep earth...
(ii)
...there is peace and there is peace
just as there is dust and dust
an unseen yet spectacular equality
that scatters the narrative of existence
these constant apparitions
that sew together the lips of the multitudes
these constant men
dressed in the icons of war
who believe that to kill
is to love oneself even more
that freedom is the enrichment of the soft air
a madonna in the skies
this megatonnage
this venom that scatters existence
the monuments sweating
the mystics shedding tears of gold
the unseen yet spectacular apparition
of who or what to believe
this peace covered in dust
these ghosts enriching the world...
(iii)
...then, for no reason, pageants appear
jugglers, dancing bears, harlequins
all pirouetting in and out
of the mind’s theatre
all suggestive of the world’s dalliance
mocking and teasing
prompting yet another electrochemical birth
another sudden cascade of madness
of words born by caesarean section
seeds for a new language
squeezed out like pips
from the brain’s grey jelly
the biodegradable soul
where vowel-sounds crawl towards cognition
spitting into ears that don’t yet exist
these cells that whisper madness
mouths gaping
as though begging for speech
for the theatre to stop spinning
and instead to vow and to hold
this new, cascading soul...
(iv)
...of all the given and known things
nothing can explain these feelings of infinite capture
they are the flickering pulses of light
from which we came
they are the dragon’s silver eyes
into which we go
the enormous liberties
the enormous prisons
haemorrhaging superlatives
these creators, spectators, dictators
captives of the infinite
with nothing to say
their stools turning black
their stomachs bursting
and then finally this
this weightless feeling of freedom
immense pearls of light
immense silver eyes
the unforgiving window
a journey, a poem made of echoes...
(v)
...behind every door lurks a wiseacre
an oracle with mad, vatic breath
forming couplets which, they claim
will abbreviate a thousand verses
and once spoken, lines that
will burn a million books
the ash of all human superfluity, they claim
but on both sides of the door
is the same infuriating universe
a lesion, a mandate, a scene
all converging on the soul
their darkness swelling
their differences falling
and yet these verses and books in flames
are a conflagration closing in
on all human thought
the ash of gods
the ash of words
couplets that stand waiting
naked beneath the stars
and yet for some reason
unable to make a sound...