form over content

 

form over content 

Imago thinks about the car   the snow falling

the snow falling settling on the car

flakes flitting   flake fitting to flake to form

the puzzle of ice   a tight skin of ice forming  

a headache of ice   a skull of ice 

a puzzle without pieces   pieces

he will have to make   tap tap tap

the handle of a hand-held brush dusting

off the snow shush shush to uncover ice

tap tap tapping   the ice cracking

slivers   and shards   shivers   but now

the car shrouded stolid stoic the snow

building itself into a shroud thickening

unthinking solidifying snow turning into ice

ice like a skin tightening on his life

the key in his pocket the key to the car

four days the car has sat shrouded in snow

nowhere to go   nothing to show for

 

the key in his pocket   turn the key

turn the key to open the door

turn the key for the engine to start

his hand on the key in his pocket

to open the door to unlock it to start

the engine to warm it up    the engine

to melt the ice to turn the ice into water 

back into water   water flowing   the car moving

 

the snow falling   nowhere to go   falling 

Babel

Babel  

 

content there’s nothing but content

Imago wakes from his dream to open his eyes on form

 

Imago marooned in the Tate’s Rothko room is soothed

subdued   moved   is a mirror meditating on colour

 

in a library Imago experiences language   on paper

as the instructions for interpretation as experience

 

meanwhile Imago experiences consciousness as interpretation

language as translation   the hermeneutics of being   in a room

 

music is a lake   dipping his hands into the water always the same

a simple compound running through his fingers always different

 

in a word   in a colour   in a sound   Babel   sentenced to life

belief in the form   belief in the content   belief in the knife

 

on the blade   the tongue   the taste of metal on the palate

the brightness    the darkness of blood on the palette

 

on a dark wooden floor   the spatter   on the wall   the splatter  

for sale or rent

 

for sale or rent  

 

buy me   I’m a story for sale   to view

a happiness distilled for the future

pure in the bricks and the mortar

porous the laughter passing through 

                                                             

vacant possession    previous owners evicted

for lack of means   of meaning   restricted   bereft

yet each stripped me bare before they left

carefully ripping out the veiny wires

that fed my soul   stole the arterial pipes

that emptied my sins and desires

abandoned the garden   lapsarian and diluvian

peeled the paint from each room

each wall and ceiling each window and door

down to the bone leaving me raw and unhomed

as if they could erase undo reverse

the narrative the discourse the course the cause

staunch and stop the bleeding   the source

 

buy me   I’m for sale    I’m a promise   I can heal

wrap me in the bandage of belief    put me in your pocket

to retrieve    to steal   like a lover   like a thief

in the alleyways of the heart

keep me from harm   keep me warm   turn up the heat

plug me into your socket   turn me on   turn me on

 

or just rent me   stay   stay awhile   time can be bought

on a lease if you please time is short it’s on the house

look around   breathe   breathe the air   all is fair

you’ll be gone   you’ll have moved on   up or

down the stairs   a flight or two    to grieve

turn me off before you close the door   lock it

  

douse the light   when you leave

naked

 

naked 

 

Imago is riding up the escalator

in a shopping centre   naked again

a hand shielding his penis

as if this lessens the totality of his nakedness

as if this is the seeming centre of his nakedness

no one really notices   this after all is his dream

the dream itself is where imago undresses himself

where he is temporarily stripped of interpretation

where he is really naked   exposed to himself

as a self   an animal in its own skin   no hat to wear

nothing up his sleeve   just him   a me   the fear

both subject and meaning   a tree losing its leaves

is still just a tree in a forest of trees

Cupid's bow

 

Cupid’s bow 

 

the day we never meet

everything carried on as usual

 

water swirling down a sink

a sun setting to rise again

 

in the space between there were stars crossing

doing their best   the competition fierce

 

and you looked up and I looked up

facing the same sky   framing

 

constellations already named and mapped

indifferent for millennia   just the light travelling

 

and the cosmic dust falling and burning

and all those wishes   all those fishes

 

in the sea swimming   swimming

to futures   to you and to me

 

oceans apart   the flight of thought   blowing a kiss

arrows to the heart   skimming the air     falling short

spoor

 

spoor  

 

then there’s the walk

the pulling on of the boots

the tightening and tying of the laces

the tracks they’ll leave in forest

the pattern of the tread

the length of the stride

the measure of the gait

traces in the soil   in the snow

of himself and other animals

somewhere to be    somewhere to go

…

then the pulling off of the boots

of the trick of perspective in the forest

like something approaching absence

and all that’s left

is the dirt on his hands

the sweat in his armpits

the stains upon the carpet

the snow melting to pool on the floor

in the distance from his chair to the door 

extra

extra   

Imago in the background  

sitting in a life at a table busy with

 

untouched food    the dregs of wine

a man awaiting direction  

 

cue laughter   take 5   cut

part of the crowd   always

 

crossing a road on the way to somewhere

walking out of the frame

 

man getting off the bus

to join a queue as man with wife

 

the camera panning away   always

shifting the mise en scène

 

in the end credits

old man alone on bench

 

and that one time he looked straight into the lens

his lips moving   not even making the final edit

 

equity denied

I was alive when Kennedy died 

a thin disguise

Manor Crescent (aged 12)  

 

Imago remembers sitting in the window

he’ll be there a long time   just watching

 

the discovery of other people   people he knows

suddenly disconnected having lives outside of himself

 

himself as observer   this is a new trick this invisibility

the radio is playing    he is sitting on the sill

 

knees drawn up under his chin   he’s

perched on this surprising sense of his being in the world

 

how he is in it and how he is not the centre and how his

seeing it makes it real but is unnecessary in making it so

 

the music is invisible too and only seems addressed to him personally

and is therefore perfect for the illusion of the imaginary connection

 

how the world shrinks down to the size of you   just to fit you in 

just to leave you on a shelf   wrapped in the thin disguise of yourself 

cold war

 

cold war (Berlin)  

 

he has told the story often enough

around the age of five   Christmas time

he was losing faith in Father Christmas

snow fell that Christmas Eve on RAF Gatow    

his dad was elsewhere eavesdropping on Soviet plans

for troop movements over the Yuletide celebrations

and his mum took him out onto the balcony to see Santa in his sleigh

being slowly driven around the streets of the camp

leading to the urgent declaration

“I do believe   I do”

his mum told him this story   her truth of it

made it a memory   over time

music was added   carols   the sleigh stopping

just yards from their flat and Santa waving   waving

to him    and the flakes of snow

grow fatter and thicker falling and settling

and covering his tracks   and he did believe  

 

later   years slow then the rachets slipping   days to decades

when they talked his sister and he and he said Dad …

his sister stunned at the idea that his mum their mum his dad their dad

and it was her mum and her dad and the remembering and experiencing

and remembering the experiences and experiencing the remembering

were all topsy-turvy    a turvy-topsy truth of who was good and who was bad

a mummery of the time and place   the shaken and the stirred   the decayed

 

and the Russians moved their soldiers here and they moved them there

(but mum’s the word)  

carry on

carry on teaching (excerpt)

 

(1^st and 2^nd years not beyond   and not

an age preference   just defence

by thirteen you’re a different animal

another self kicks in   kicks against)

 

he knew who he could touch

experience   a skill   a radar of recognition

the blips on his screen   one of which was you

he would have picked you out

called you out to the front to his desk

to question your sums   your figures

whilst the others were to carry on

 

there’s no trauma   forgotten by playtime

just the memory to parse   a boy’s grammar

not a moment   nothing written on the skin of time

his hand resting lightly unmoving on your arse

your own tense muscular reflexes feeding

the electric current of his impulse   pulsing  

 

and at home alone in his study marking

his wife upstairs in bed alone in front of the TV

the children doing their homework in their rooms

the Polaroids in his diary   the days blank with wanting

in one there’s Tommy Atkins across his knees

smiling into the camera   you’re all smiling   posed

the teacher beaming his hand poised for the slap

you press the button   snap   and you’re all caught 

in a bit of fun for his uncle/brother/friend in Australia

the picture in your hand develops slowly    remains

unresolved   your story   what this says about you

then and now

 

in the bathroom he washes his hands   washes his hands

before going into his kids   the kiss goodnight

tucking them in safe and tight   don’t let the bedbugs bite

his hand resting lightly on the softness of a cheek

the warmth of the breath on his fingers

undeliverance

undeliverance  

 

the cart stumbling over the rutted track

losing a wheel   the world keeps on turning

the letter not arriving   distant gunshots 

 

and no difference

 

except maybe the tiniest of tears

in the fabric of time and space

the inaudible hiss of air escaping

the world unmeasurably smaller

 

an eternal unnoticed silence

pushed to the side of the plate 

on the near death of Dostoevsky