in the forest

 

in the forest  

 

a glimpse of a deer fleeting

through trees and undergrowth

the fleeing muscular panic   the flow

of music   the syncopation of branches

snapping   the fear and feared   there

and gone   in a car park   a shopping centre

in the x-ray of a bone

 

stopping somewhere

hidden   eyes gleaming

nostrils flaring   snorting

breathing   a heart beating

decrescendo   a violin   a piano

on a patio   a desk in an office

an armchair in a place called home

 

still   birdsong   laughter

the play of light on leaves

voices   a choir

acknowledging a stranger

sotto voce    in the forest

the head bending

the tongue lapping at water

 

licking at stone

translation

translation 

 

when his mother died Imago felt the death of a language

of which he was now the only speaker left 

 

his sister had to translate what her mother had meant

by refusing a funeral   her approach gentle heuristic

 

leaving him to sift the content of telephone calls

the visits on her birthdays   the odd letter

 

and into the past   the unremembered remembered

memories painted by numbers by sentiment by irony

 

the hermeneutics of the inarticulate the needy

of the narrative knife scarring a life dissecting the said

 

which he attempted to discuss with his wife

in the language which obtained when he spoke to her of family matters

 

by the living   of the dead

dodo

Dodo  

 

imagine the last dodo   confounded

the whispered croak in its throat

a whimper as it runs for cover

to shelter and shiver

beneath a tambalacoque tree

 

a loneliness only the dying

only the hunted know

 

each one of us

a personal extinction

does the world grieve for this one bird?

did God?

 

to be remembered   to become

a negative overexposed

too much light

too much light

 

an absence felt in someone else’s life 

performance

performance   

 

this performance of self was slipping away

a loose scarf falling from her shoulders

her hands flapping and fearful   useless

and in these final scenes

when everything   everything   was sliding away

she had never been closer to what it meant to be

to what it meant to be her   not to be her 

the lights about to go out   the curtain to fall

and the audience awed by the performance

the standing ovation   the rain    the flowers

 

in the carpark a slight impatience

platitudes   performance

the need for something solid   something graspable

 

the stage the theatre in darkness   

the scarf on the floor left behind  

a darker shadow   irretrievable 

arrhythmia

 

arrhythmia 

 

he listens

the piano in a Górecki song

the understated sympathy

those passages where a note

at a time

is quietly quoted

the dripping tap of his humanity

in a symphony of things ineffable being uttered

 

he exists mostly in the spaces

between the strikes of the key

waiting   with a kind of insistence

on the beating of his heart

that up or down on the staves of a ladder

unsure whether he is the piano or the pianist

link: Gorecki, Sorrowful Songs

revenant

 

revenant 

 

Imago

slipping from the raft of a dream-life

clutching at water   struggling to find purchase

waking to a sound

a pulsing whirring sound somehow

a mix of the tick and sweep of a second hand

the squashed wind roar of a wind turbine’s blade

sensing the whoosh of it’s shadow

swoop across his eyelids

feeling time sluggish in his veins

the engine of his heart starting to turn over

all in his head   all in the mind

a resurrection

    

the stopped clock that never stops

but does so   not today

 

opens his eyes on the world again

it pours into him   a flood

filling him with light with weight

suddenly   surprisingly   clumsily   buoyant

he sees

his clothes undressed upon a chair by the bed

a skin to be worn    a skin to be shed

Pepper's ghost

 Pepper’s ghost (ATU 327A/DSM-IV)  

Once upon a time …

there’s a girl she’s lost a shoe she’s lost in a forest she’s a pocketful of breadcrumbs there’s a body in the oven uncooked raw she’s been to a ball dancing into the club she’s letting her hair down she’s tying it up it’s a ladder it’s a noose highly strung high and dry fast and loose she’s a beast to be kissed she’s a bargain being struck a clock striking midnight a deal not to be missed made for a match she’ll light them one by one she’s a promise of gold of blood on the sheets she’s in a passage of rites she’s a stepping stone a chicken bone a finger to be pricked an apple to be picked a bite to be taken a bag full of beans forsaken a tower to be climbed a property to be claimed she’s a name to be named  constructed deconstructed postmodernised and analysed  she’s a life to be lived in but the shoe that she’s found herself in doesn’t fit it           

mirror mirror on the wall where they all live happily ever after    after all

no longer there

 

no longer there 

 

it’s such a long journey to the other end of the sofa

he’d have to put his book down and crawl out of his bunker of cushions

climb over the TV and other defences

he’d have to pull himself out of this car crash

and swim to the surface

 

it’s such a long journey to the other end of the sofa

and there’s so much baggage clumsy and heavy

the terrain thick with roots and traps

and the map is worn thin and folded so

so that it falls apart in his fingers

 

it’s such a long journey to the other end of the sofa

that language tires stumbles into sleep

and he can’t read the invitation can’t even get it out of the envelope

of his pocket of air so thin here so steep the climb 

here beneath the weight of stars he tries to breathe

 

it’s such a long journey to the other end of the sofa

there are so many stations so much distance to cross

the compartment overheated overcrowded

the window busy reflecting inside and out

and arrival was never the point of his destination 

 

and maybe you are no longer there

immortality

immortality 

 

not forever

but long enough perhaps

that when she’s in her seventies

divorced or abandoned by death

and her kids have gone off

to live in those other lives

they too found by the roadside

a cheque will come

so there will be wood for the fire

a bottle of inexpensive sanguine Sauvignon

uncorked   a steak sizzling in the pan

a few cracked peppercorns a little cream

she’ll take a book down from a shelf

open it to this page

she’ll take a knife   and fork

and there’ll be blood in the sauce

she’ll raise the glass   and I’ll be there

just me and her       cheers

pixel

 

pixel

each morning

when the sky is opened

on that day’s blinding sun

on that night’s translucent moon  

a zillion stars hidden in daylight

    a one and all those noughts

are still shining in the closed cold silent dark

 

find one   choose one   just one

and nail it to your heart

open cloze

 

Imago fails the open cloze test    

 

a word

the word

the one word

just the one word

just the one just word

that would heal the wound

we're after us

we’re after us  

there is a window

the outside world is now all but occluded

branches of a tree   a small triangle of sky

a patch of darkness

 

we are inside

there is a construction of sunlight

fitted to the walls   laid across the floor

polygonal pieces in the puzzle

there is the mathematics of shadow

cornered   an algorithm of photons

 

the room is empty

there is no furniture

there are no curtains

there is nowhere to hide

there is   finally   no narrative

we can suppose a door

a way in   a way out  

 

there is a witness   spectators

those who see the geometry

of moment   of time   of light

of borders crossed   of life shelled

the shape of things    the symmetry

things that are lost   things that are held

Hopper  Sun in an Empty Room

siódma fala

 

siódma fala 

 

this is where she lives

this is her house

this cycle of a song and dance

see how she sways and swirls

whirls whorled in a world aroused

around and around the flow the waves

count them   count the ways

cascade   cataract   maelstrom   drought

the confluence of water echoed by the wind

tornadoes stretched to derechos    the arabesque

flamenco and a tango she can do the fandango   

solo ostinato      there’s no control then there is   

the calm   the lull   the lullaby   the whisper and the shout

the voice giving out   giving way    to spiccato

her body her music is prey to the bow

the draw   the back arching   the release

an arrow in flight a performance a show

tracing a cardioid path

such height   then the descent

straight to the heart   segue

a sequence of love   happiness   betrayal   hate

 

the duende   oh the duende

  

read about Duende

listen to Manuel de Falla 'Jota'

family album

family album  

 and a here with a granddad unknown unknowable

indefinite epithets unilluminated a stern expression

a serious face of his age deftly inscrutable

a granny too indistinct crossing a distance

yet focused a deadpan gaze into a stillborn life

that stares back like a knife

then a father young almost handsome smug with potential

the future a wild animal to be captured and caged   beside

a mother inside her beauty peering out with uncertain

apology in a smile that never quite reaches her eyes

and an Imago windswept with the then and the now

caught in the gusts of a life stiffening and cracking

already brittle with rust