(for WB)
the secret order of things apparently dictates that
the folds in the firmament will never hold true
that crucibles are a waste of energy
and that the stone people
cannot tell you anything
today however
I absolve you of the need to construct proofs
because the pylons are dividers of two different realms
and the service station is suffused with angelic light
I see your signal now, the way the future you fear approaches
like a rickety milk-cart driving across the testing range
And yet I sing to you
To reconstitute the dynamited mosaic
To renovate the old dreamery
So strange that the sea
can be an unmade bed
the sky, a cracked stucco ceiling
trees, matches aflame in a different spectrum
everybody is a sometime genius
with a limitless capacity to transform what they see
into something else
mostly we exist
as a silent prototype of sound
letting others prise our visions open
Build a maybe tower
out of trick bricks
with see-through cranes
to browse through the rubble
one does not need planning permission
for such an edifice
it moves in and out of existence
with the phases of the moon
the spire divides, branching out
a monument to the impossibility
of anything happening
the same way twice
ideas do not supersede one another
but rather grow simultaneously
from an imperceptible source
a burning forest
a face drawn in condensation
a conclave of cats
the only light switched on in a grey towerblock
dew trembling in the illuminated web
there is something happening
outside of history’s neatly raked piles
a ping-pong ball with a question mark printed on it
bouncing around a bare room
time moves at different speeds
the further you get from the centre
the faster it seems
the less comprehensible the remembrance
of your clockwork dreams
interconnectivity witnessed in the mesh
of shared experience
a dog carrying a stick
which is longer than its body
the raw “is” of these moments
before we think ourselves too far into them
language fights for mastery of the void
and comes up with the phrase
“this page is intentionally left blank”
new words ripen:
the hard rind of consonants
the soft pulp of vowels
they convey the immutable fact
that on equals off
lifting up the specimen jars
to unpin each soul’s moth
blindfolded we pull imaginary descriptions
from the deepest top hat
each conjured vision
standing before the entrance to our world
muscles tensed:
waiting to jump
The Reliquary 