summer

V.97 Nightingale II

It was probably a sleepless
thrush, or a lady blackbird out
In the morning to center me.
Later in the week a green tree

(green, you remember green, a sharp
asset, a zone) is filled up
by a murmuration. Words fail
to register all of the ways

that words fail. Over the next months
poetry leaves me as I hold
my black plastic controller and
curl up in bed as the womb hurts

curl up around an old and new
goal, to have the numbers raise up
and buttons click neatly and soft
as the shots of unreal guns sound –

As the game becomes my home, I
hold myself in the vibrant light
and lines cut to suit the dull eye
and suspended in a rest mode

I wait until the suspense that comes
from restraints, as in chess, or love
is suspended in turn and light
of sun over the river grows

V.60

In the background things pass away
making a noise like dark fire
crackling. We go around nudging
remains into the embers with

our feet. There, fragments of wire lie
where authoritarian
structures once rocked back and forth. Life
burns and brings sadness. The brambles

are so green but in the fire, lines
of red-gold crisp light steam and curl
around the blackening leaves. Feel
the substance behind beliefs fall

away and reveal the golden
embers and their heat that can sting,
as the smoke curls up around you
wherever you walk round the flames.

On the drive home, it turns out that
the universe conspired to build
Nick Drake so he could soundtrack this
night. I feel complete in the car,

with the moon, moon, moon, moon, and me.
As I turn the corner to home,
I see the subtle moon, pink haze.
The record sleeve hangs in the real.

V.44

Coming home on a long warm night
where the air takes the noise of keys
and holds it cupped in its hand like
a ladybird which alighted

on the hand, and is climbing up.
Coming home after mild concern
has flared in a blank stare forward
and later a stratified phase

of conversation while the feet
hit their warm rubber on the path.
Coming home after talk of trade
and politics and other large

and uncontrollable forces
which fluctuate like black storms do,
hung waiting behind the buildings
on your right, and seen between them.

To say power is power just
raises violence to a law
and that seems a dull reversal.
There are as many reasons to

do a thing historically as
there are to do a thing today
at least, and as reasons densen
a cool breeze blows over the street

V.29

Matsuo Bashō reigns his horse
in and stops a moment. After
several seconds the cool sweat
pearls his forehead, he moves to grasp

some scrap paper. Ahead, the shrine
hung on the priest’s back sways buddha
slowly to enlightenment. I
think to write this poem as I

walk in the sun uphill and out
of the city. Some very apt
resonances would have been sought.
Between my walk and the journey

he took, ready to become close
to things which want their expression
in the form of a clear cut haiku.
As it is I had to take the

bus. Nevertheless, I think to
write this poem on the bus, yet
I see the wonderful smile and
mouse laugh of a girl I now know.

She tells me of the peregrines
nesting in the uni tower.
So, finally, I note this down.
I don’t think it turned out so bad

V.6

Oh my god we were all such dolts
in high school. I say that, but what
are you going to do about
it? I mean myself. I only

live to apologise for my
past crimes. It gives me something to
hope for. All of a sudden I
see sun I see everything seems

poetic to me again. Must
do better. Just that time of year
when life seems written by Hiyao
Miyazaki and my high school

wrongs seem a warm subplot with which
to throw shade. Context of current
millennial life: we have phones.
I turn up the soundtrack. I turn

to Spirited Away, where ghosts
are turned and made to serve children.
River spirits and lake spirits
are high. Here in the city trees

spread blossom around like golden
syrup on my unseasonal
thoughts. I drop my sister at the
café to meet a guy and drive

V.4

No matter how hard we all try
the future will remain unknown
soldier to the past’s graveyard.
A singularity. Is it not

trying hard enough. Is it not
easy to imagine the move
beyond. To imagine grass green,
a massive overproduction,

see life changing as we stop, give
out. And the computer’s structure
being where the strong motive force
is in fact the human motion

blur. It is hard to describe what
a piece of work are machine life
goals, intentions and what drives them
mad. We are likely to end up

selling trillions of useless things
so called objects the ‘first A.I’
so called, produced, mistaken that
process was all it needed and

then saw god as a nicely phrased
meme. A ladybird landed here
and the sun, appropriate to
these four kinds of full-sun musings

Sun Paean

Gracious sun who flies
freewheeling
without weight
being weight
and light itself

Generous sun, who
with patient defence
has mechanised us
from the infinites
with infinites
with immense patience

Great sun here is my appeal;
It is not enough that you should set
do not be so humble!
Shine all day and beyond –
erase the night so I may
awake and fall sleeping
to your light through
the thick blinds in soft covers
in living blankets
of sublime furriness

These warm nights
which feel so odd, knowing
you are close
the air rings with tension
while the bins are emptied
with rhythmic trundling

Giant sun, please!
simply ride the horizon
like a carousel
bucking up and down
on the plastic horse of the hills

Your twilight is gold
I purchase lightness with
Oh gracious sun