between mask & face

one should try to make sense of all patterns: below &

around & above. it is my mission, after all. i know this.

yet i cannot draw myself away from the earl-grey tea,

ruminations. maybe all larrikin days must end quickly;

i should pin my badge to another. william is a terse lad,

but every evening as i ought to fly he polishes his boots,

dines lightly & gives me a knowing wink. unscathed

in the morning he savours a breakfast. perhaps as shadow

i always recognised him, slipping in to comfort me when

the nightmares hit: the bodies floating back skyward,

grinning. i can’t spot enemy lines now, surely because

his soft phallus & scratching kisses have etherised my spirit.

my fight. i am not angry. often i relish becoming lost in the weft

of a stray wire, the twist of a clouding star. the empire, one we fight

for, is immeasurably more than a vague concept. but i forget in what way.

i imagine my wife plays online. the lawns are green this time of year.

http://www.1890bryant.com/aawaa/image3.jpg

.

annotation in the margins of the index of first lines

the callouses are forming on my fingers

again &

it means: pictures of performing in front of you.

wowing you

with a simplistic chordal pattern that somehow,

possesses soul.

as i begin pasting these images all over town

a kid emerges

steadfast from the pavement. ‘does your drummer

play a double-kick?’

he intones & sure enough there is a blank spot on the

200 dpi scans.

i hadn’t thought things through. rather than do so i discard

the narrative.

in fact, never begin it. the kid will live with me now – i will

teach him the ways

of the world & how to choose an amp. he will surely

grow up & take over

my future business, he will not miss his family. you know this.

.

i’ll wait in the car

oh you’re sick of weather mirroring your moods

but this (like the plumber’s leer)

is just another thought you won’t tell me

some would argue your insane secrecy

has forced me to rummage & fossick

through your stuff for details

yes i am curiously absent from all pages i

suspected as much now

it’s the true reason for these words

here on page 294 / a bland 2007 diary (tan)

i’m a vain person you know but

will you acknowledge it? now?

nobody has lucky letters

only you

buy milk

eggs

.

wondering the time at 11.35

of the days out there

to drag out we seem

craving the ones

(those ones)

happier to be

only let go

.

the soccer fields

annotating pages / making pencilled

enlightening making / post-it-noted

territorial claims & / all the while

other virgin pages / get less & less

existent bits of dust / worn from

a statue they / fade in a confuting

way or like / tinkerbell’s life-force

but no absurd beliefs / i chant can

bring them back / see there are more

packages of / collections of works

to read than i have / the years for

.

13: spurious

i forgot the

things i

was

going to say

it seemed

appropriate

.

places never been are all around

even the starlings rut & fade early, tired

of musing, also this winter month

spent at their own sexual pollock art.

flys zero in, tack the buckled screens;

passers-by seem to approach one & every

line of sight, only to pass by your way.

it’s the pressure, always is & will be

in the minds of people cloistered &

preening on a wing opposite, & me,

i type to clench the blood free of

icicles i curse or cure the systemic

benefit of a deadline, an atonal scale:

the financial years pass prettily

like a thousand & one plane-trees

while i drive a car, mist burning.

.

band together

chris who always

plays the bad guy

sometimes gets

the right script &

money & tries

to do the right thing

genuinely / like

while he saves

someone (he talks

in an earnest but

hurried manner (in

a car going fast

through mexican

streets somewhere))

sure the flashes of

light / colour it will

evidence real street

paraphernalia so he

acts & he thinks of

how he fills the role

how earnest he is

how he might show

friends the scene how

they might (the friends

need it) mix up &

equate his genuine care

in these actions with

something inner in

chris he thinks this

while mostly dis-

counting it too he

knows he will always

turn / produce a derringer

maybe & then bead sweat

return to type poor

chris just looking so

scheming & so cool

.

things that have ‘ways of looking at…’ in the title

talked to a friend &

we imagined up another person

as we commonly do most wednesday

nights in the crisp country air

well as a trait this person we thought

up he took words like the words of

sylvia plath & recast them like

a smile of iceboxes he annihilated

things personally & lyrically i thought cool &

maybe he would take axel clark’s (though a

scholar & no poet) words do the same

lineate them & this time find an almost

hidden poeticness… yes he published these things

in the journal he was chief-editor of but

then his wife said you could understand

clark & plath if they were alive having

a gripe with you he said but they are words

they are not his or her words although

he found while saying this he was

trailing off into a corner

of the kitchen where the toaster sulked my

friend had more to do with making up that bit

of the imaginary person’s actions the trailing

off bit where no-one really heard his

contestable opinion he said subtlety is surety

okay but i wanted to have him rage at the night

not caring about a scene he would bring up

dubious recounts of plath’s awful behaviour

while alive yes he would stoop so low

this person we would all identify with him

.

stuckinsidewithsomeneedssomesoupsomeqwertyetcetera

windows go do things the temperature your

pain accomplishes clothes amid their fever

a sting comforting dressed courses of agitation

resigning lies prostrate sunny fields play drop

one twist circular neck muscles provoking

observance drab colour kinds of appendage

funnel communication up backwards west

ringing bells a vertex enters plop time

thinking is not fun it could be said to have

started just after the world war but

the manipulation of photographs already

had a history going back to the invention

of photography in a sense you invented it

admit that like seeing someone in

action that knows all the shortcuts &

can use them together efficiently it’s

a very impressive sight

.