quiet

Collapse

In the winter sun I saw, a gold
forest of leafless trees appear
It was warm in the shower and the wind
could be heard at night on the eaves
I played games on the evening
and in the morning I played games
The tangle of ideas has become full
and the temptation arises of a sword
Stupid people say stupid things
and I cannot be sure of my difference
I cannot be sure of the world
but I can be sure of the deep house
I drink stimulants all day,
and in the morning I drink stimulants
My heart is a construct of ideas
of the faster beat and slower thought
I cannot be sure of my body,
my thoughts of my body are dark mirrors
I hold inside me a red liquid
I hold in my hands a rare earth element
In the winter sun I saw dirt on the screen,
and the night wind brought desert dust
I am a rare earth element, they know
my paranoia grows and shrinks in ceaseless
patterns I never see coming or going
It was warm in the shower as I heard
the guitar be generated by movement
The tangle of ideas is a symptom
of competing interests conceived as a whole
I cannot be sure of the political body
as its organs revolve, unconnected

*

In the stream of time games appear
and the faint sound of choirs
Things repeat and repeat and I hold
within me this repetition and outside
the wind flicks between warm and cold
I hold my loved ones close
I hold my hands clasped in the darkness
The answers I have found to crumble
and rebuild, and repeat only in torn
forms like recycled paper used for chips
or packing paper used to wrap objects
Words lie in ranks on the tablecloth
Connections form and are lost again,
being lines between lost things
In the christmas quiet I heard peace
In the blue fire of the hob,
small fragments of history gave us heat
The world is an organic simulation
Time pours through us and damages us.
The tangle of ideas rests in parallel lines
and smooths out the kind of fear we feel
The fire is warm on an evening
the sting of heat on my legs
the sound of ancient voices from my childhood
and far off trumpets and the brightness
Another year passes, I cope more easily
In the christmas quiet I heard peace

*

And what is there to say
when all stories are noise
and all stories are equal in their relation
to the void and what is there to say
and what is worth saying
when all words are noise and void
and all stories are at risk
From day to day I tumble from this mood to that
and often forget what I have said and believed
From day to day my purse grows lighter and heavier
From day to day the world goes darker
and darker and brighter and hotter

From day to day the clouds pass over the face of the sky
and the moon’s blank eye, and me –
If they do not care to save the earth
why should we care for them?
If they do not care to save the earth
why should we care for them?

*

In the end, the sun enfolds the trees
and as I gaze at the page, it watches me
Collapse is a strange thing, it threatens,
but never quite finishes with us –
my heart is a construct of golden ideas
a web, a force, a soul, a sun tower
The future cannot help, but out of the present
it flowers, and we can help ourselves
In the sun, I see, a winter sun behind a sea
of branches, there where I lose myself
to find what there is to see

V.67 Fainting at the Supermarket Clinic

When I was lying amongst them –
the tubs of biochemical
waste – I had a thought, on the floor
there, under the bright yellow tubs

I cried later, the self-service
checkout beeped and I cried weakly
Julian of Norwich touched me
on the shoulder. She hugged me and

I cried at the gap. The quiet
where visions should have poured outward
was a small cracked rock in the dark.
The Wu tang Clan sung me back with

C.R.E.A.M. as my selfhood rebooted.
My heartbeat was slow, I was born
again, from a song I can’t know.
I thought: what has happened? I know

nothing anymore, just this face
and the other, staring back down
as I lay on the smooth cold floor.
The lady passed by, I sat up

and stood up, slowly. I wandered
from here to there, bought frozen food
and went to the checkout. She had
hollow eyes and she hugged me close

V.18

Silence as silent as rainfall
in the mid-atlantic on fire –
open up on puddles of oil
paint from a sinking container –

then see the faint rain start. Silent
as you, floating ten feet deeper
silence as the waves wash over
determined by ancient causes

of death, of life, of everything
else as you look up through the film
of skin on your face to see bright
young fish darting into the fire

between gulping breaths of water.
Silence as silent as cut rope
sinking into the depth of sea
beneath you, perhaps the last thing.

Silence as loud as thunder’s roll
which rolls on and on and never
falls to earth but holds the soft birds
in dark suspense on the ship wires,

drawn from this satellite footage
of the earth at night, on your phone
as you lie hearing nothing roar
louder each second each second

Respite

Unnanounced in the cities spring up
unattended eddies in the flow
hiding quiet and held in check
by walkers whose solitary paths
attain the force of stone.

And from time to time, erupt
in a long awaited silence
in some valley, some alley in the back
where aerial trees cling drinking
the living city rain, and biding.

A silence which, like a sigh
after a long day’s work and walk
after the bag’s down, tea’s brewing
and you raise your hand to your eyes and rub
and the air empties itself of talk;

So, calm descends in the sun’s heat
and the car-noise lends you pity –
lets you breathe freely, unassailed
by unnoticed constant tack and tear;
the cold stress of a city