Inter

I-99

Geranium

Young, Younger

On Time

(for A.K. Ramanujan)

Art-full; the clock

stands on hind

haunches

& stands, staunchly –

its hands for feet

watches; the

tiny clamour

of so many fingers

to tinker soft

shifts of silver

filigree and

ginger, over

beside yet another

task that

could be

complete –

we think we lie

replete

in the cold sun

of late-winter

mornings –

the earth tilted

to a toughened

trilby-economic, fawning;

mesmeric; phosphorescent

pouring patters play over

the tableaux of

a heartbroken

pigeon who

took that mortal

dive –

a Banquo maybe

(perhaps nothing more),

the bird atop that

weather-vane –

a gift to the

outgoing thane,

trembles slightly…

and there no excuse for the blueing in her eyes

nor the ways in which seeds move overland

nor the cupping motion we sense as unconditional

love

nor the reaching cool side of the blanket

nor the burning of those first weeks –

that hang

heavy in the

lapel

as carnations.

We’re up to the door

and a young man is

being held behind all the

greenery – there are

scuff-marks

on the floor around

him – a mandala –

a heavy watch rests on his wrist

as a meteorite,

a trail of blood, strides

the flecked street.

My eyes are in his hands;

I blink and his fingernails listen –

my ears ache in the air and 2 seconds

stand near the heater,

waiting.

A cube of fog is delivered

from offstage right,

and her thumbs catch

mine from the

clutches of the

small dust eddies circling

&

even ancient words

in the face of so many faces

and thrice that

of hands

can catch

only

the

precept

of

moving.

The Top Waters

I’m off up to it.

I can help feel too bright –

lost socks.

the troupe thorax waiting,

twine-bound notebooks laying on the bleached porch –

the wine was warm for the first time in 43 weeks.

we toasted the damned walks through the castle grounds

toast gets cold quick in those english racks.

i fought with what it looked like on the radio.

there sat a cork shift in the top waters of a wishing well.

they scanned my brain for the thirst of ground roots.

i ate two small plates and fell sideways from the chair. Her equilibrium upsets mine.

i listened in a passive way when they read the summons from the dock. my name sounded all too funny in that mouth dripping with syrup and 100 other liquids. I caught the scent of pine oil in her nose. There to rest. There to set adrift.

The top waters of the wishing well swell.

The top waters of the wishing well stiffen.

And all of a sudden there are clouds of silence in the channel.

225,000 lines of dog-toothed princes.

And the curl at the back of her skull carries pogo ants as unwilling passengers.

The beds rock in time with the grandfather’s pendulum.

A phalanx in the base of his spine, the chair holds.

And the upholstery quietly orgasms, the leather emitting sweet bovine nothings.

And all the lights happen to be on.

And all the lights happen to be on.

And the top waters of the wishing well quicken.

And the top waters of the wishing well do harm.

And the top waters of the wishing well publish their manifesto on algae-slimed walls.

The court rises

to

pass

judgement

on

no

more

than

atoms.

It Shimmers

Your eyes shimmer like the surface of a singing gong.

There’s a want present, to be led by the hand through

2 or maybe 3 small pastures.

Monthly, fingernails form as the moon with her, halo.

Luminous, palanquins run on wheels one night, a year.

Upset, the milk jar spills and condenses, tears.

That track is slick with rain,

Your gums lock hands with the money of your gloss teeth,

And the here where no when lies turns amongst the cut hay.

There’s a convention of chasing horse on foot.

There’s no need to bring the tanner over the hearth.

There’s coops full of eggs across the vaulted border.

I can’t help but smile at your cautious strands of why.

Of how.

I have no clues as to the tempest of your heels.

Their tac.

I will consume 4 visages, emerald.

As rings.

To catch the final note.

To read your palms with ice, earth and fire.

To understand the sky for one flash of of.

Of it.

Of it, there is more.

Of it, there is not enough.

Of it, the trunk sucks dust.

Of it, the lines vibrate outwards in the form of song.

For it, shimmers like the surface of a singing gong.

HUT

The bought police found him later with a hurriedly slit throat. The bride wore petals in the adjoining room. The Young Boy, sheltered in a small copper bathtub, shook quietly. A breeze ran in circles. As he crouched, unsure that his legs weren’t broken, a vivid calm broke as clouds parting. One foot slung over the edge of the tub, he tested his weight on scarred palms. Confident to crawl, The Small Boy thrust his bones over the brim of his cell. The heat of the packed dirt floor softened his toes to breaking. Palm-fronds acting as portals parted with whispered assent. The Boy inched forwards. Or sideways. To his left, the bride, to his right, a creek of cochineal lay curling, meandering and unfurling, congealing around a jagged corner wall. Here and there the dust siphoned off a tributary and drank. Moloch’s vermillion oases. Golgotha spits blue tears. Bruised arms quake. The Tall Man runs out of Him, down pocked and thumb-indented thighs. Breathing could be heard from an ante-room. Her muffled, last sobs. A single lily petal adorned his path. All then was silent, except for the burst of his violated heartbeat and a periodic clicking coming from without. The Old Man’s body lay at odd angles. An arm seemed raised in pseudo-salute; a leg upturned as if to run. Arcing scuff-marks illustrated the floor. The Young Man looked from arm to elbow, recalling the fuzz of His wrist as it swept his eyes while time grew thick. The Youth had lain, frozen, counting out the rhythmic signature of pain. Warm gusts murmured through The Cut Man’s hair, reanimating him for a set second. Time thinned and Our Boy was outside the hut of huts, nude, on hands and shattered knees, staring into His Father’s ballistic Bombay eyes, eyes that watched their hands gently caress a caked blade. CLICK: open. CLICK: shut. CLICK: open. CLICK: shut. C L I C K . C  L  I  C  K . . C   L   I   C   K . . . CLICK: on. CLICK: off.

Palimpsest 2

Notebook Selections no.2