We once found a word we've now forgotten,
explaining a concept that drifted away
like vapour
& left us,
in the same way
that everything
eventually must
decay.
We were dreamingabout perfect expressions of language,
about harmony between anguish
& affirmation;
wishing
for what can never be achieved:
a gift from the gods that may or may not
exist;
a gift
We are mirrors.
We see ourselves reflected
in the gaze of others,
& what we see
is an image;
an idea
apperceived by another;
a collage
of constant conjecture
& depth deception.
We are mirrors.
We need each other
to learn from & uncover
the hidden centre,
but
anamorphic perception
Through the Forest,
through
a thousand years of struggle,
I finally find the clearing
but see nothing,
only
empty space & the remains
of all those who’ve been here before.
There is nothing here for me
so
I’ll continue to wander through the trees
until
I can see
the sky,
where
true beauty &
These trees swaying
in the wind; whispered
strange communication between
the unseen,
green
above & soil beneath; a gift given
from one to the other, not
simply objects but
their shadows;
the echo
of absence within presence.
The weight
of silence
behind words that define us, thoughts
now flowing forward surround us
like pollen, like fallen
So many rooms in so many houses;
spaces within which the walls have waited,
unseeing,
uncaring,
as I played various roles
in minor dramas, some
of my own devising,
some not,
& most
being incomplete.
So many days wanting to stay away
from this mess, this reluctance;
the daydream
of purposeful action
abandoning us with
every movement
Each anticipated day arrives &
elides into the past,
as we wait,
again,
but for what?
How long will it take
for the pattern to change?
When will the cycle end?
With no past the future
becomes a desert &
the desert grows,
surrounding us
like the slow
creeping
of midnight mist…
with no future
Drifting through a forest,
lost
between the dark leaves &
frost-encrusted moss,
chasing fleeting insights
like
cinders drifting into the night,
from a fire now furiously bright.
Stunned, we wait
for the after-image to fade, uncertain
& afraid
of what to do when
the light leaves us again.
So we wait
until morning, then
press fingers against our eyelids
Forever out of reach
it exists as if,
born blind
they presented you with
an audio description
of a visual medium;
permanent distance, something
missing,
no way
of knowing
how to affect the movement.
The desire exists
but the idea resists,
a furious rebellion
against simplicity,
insisting on
To see and be the ugly things of life.
To know there is terror in the sublime.
To be
a biological organism,
a bipedal mammal
with opposable thumbs;
witness the animals as they come together
to gather round the fire
& make their greatest mistake as
they take the communication system
moulded from noises and turn it
into language:
a feed-back loop into which members of the group
will descend when
they discover how
to talk to themselves
Somehow, at 6 a.m,
or whenever it is
that the Sun returns again,
the taste & the smell
of the air hitting at the back
of my throat, always
fills me with hope.
Sometimes though
hope makes everything worse.
Is belief in
the sentiment of love & of
revolution
a contradiction between
singular & universal:
must one sacrifice the other
or
is the distinction no more than
a mistaken understanding?
To what extent
are the things that we say & do
beyond our control?
Even though
the choice to say “No”
is always present,
radical freedom
Consider that colour is given to us
in plentitude
from games played by light &,
that the liquidity of water is
a feature of a particular performance
between specific particles
bonding with each other
& yet
no individual actor has
the property of ‘being wet’.
What does that mean to you?
If it means nothing,
congratulations:
you can thrive in this world, but
if you strove to find any semblance
of pattern