geograph

i look for words which might elucidate

among my poet friends, their books.

i dogear pages, sit in scattered

mulch of aphorisms and a confetti

of autumnal ennui.  i find nothing.

*

here he is.

he is on a mountain.

a road enters a forest, as sure and wet

as any metaphor.  in the deep forest

in the night in the

absence of the moon

he cannot see a hand in front of his face.

he must walk with one foot

on the road, one off.

when he sees the sky, the broad ribbon of stars

which might be a road he knows

is not a road.  forest and night collide
like metal.

flesh tears.  bones break.   the stars are

a lapful of worthless diamonds

and a new red cartography of damage

is already drying on his face.

is there such a thing as direction?

a bare tree is also a symbol for ‘river’.

its roots are a delta emptying

into a sea of earth.

in any landscape, scars only remain

scars for so long

before

the habit of long association makes friends of them.

light does not create vision.

*

i have built

i have built

i have built all kinds of structures.  some

for living in, others for viewing
from a distance.   furniture too, and other

accoutrements such as picture frames

and the things within them.   i have etched

haematograms on parchment eyelids:

a kind of invisible ink

to be read

when i lie on my back,  face to the sun.

this is the best position for remembering

and forgetting.  insects will

enter my ears.  mechanical,  electric,

on needle legs, their amplified desires will

become the inner groove of meaning and intent:

a comfort of irritation.

i will let the grass grow under me.

*

he has torn
down
everything.

he has torn down

houses, cities, whole civilisations of memory

just so he could fossick

broken-nailed in the rubble

for a perfect stone.  he has combed coastlines

and learned to read from sand

the deconstructed histories of continents

mountains, alluvial plains,

petrified forests

bones.

he has torn down his present

and his future.

*

i say

there are two of me.  each insists

i prefer the other.  he is more...

...synthetic.

we bump shoulders.  snigger

at our cleverness.  share make-up, raid

each other’s wardrobes.

play the twin’s game of

open-faced

wide-eyed deceit.

we fool no one.  we are too alike.

*

again:

he was in a forest.

he was inappropriate

in dress and manner.  his pith helmet

blocked his view of the canopy

until he left it wedged in roots

to gather water, moss,

the brief appreciation of generations

of the chitinous and carapaced

and the fiercely insectivorous thanks of amphibians.

his creased clothing became rags.

he filled the pockets with reminiscences

and stuffed them into crevices.

buttoned a frayed and lonely cuff around a python’s neck.

one day, forgot his boots.  left them speechless,

tongues hanging out to catch the rain.

discovered

when there are no clothes,

there is no nakedness.

he stopped collecting everything but light

and as for naming?  named nothing.  forgot
his own.  his hair grew.

sometimes he would see glowing

some brief cruel inflorescence of desire

with its attendant nectar-sippers.

he would stare until the perfect colours

ceased to hurt his eyes.

sometimes he was a river.

sometimes he was a leaf.  a tooth.  a snail.

once, he tripped over a knapsack full  of

things he had no memory of forgetting.

once, he spoke
then ran from the sound in fear and shock.

*

there was a period when i stayed silent

for some weeks.  I was alone.  it was

an experiment.  i was alone.
time
became

seamless.  it was a meditation.

for day upon day upon day things
only entered my mouth.  nothing

left it.  i did not write.  i breathed only

through my nose. I was alone.

i was in love

with a new
virtue.  i was a monk.

a tree.  a lake.  i was

made to speak.  i remember

profound grief in that moment.

naked again, bereft, i re-entered the world.

*

they were saying goodnight.

they walked towards her door.

she was behind him in the hall.  he reached back,
took her hands

and laced them on his belly, covered them

with his.  their steps slowed.

they were one clumsy creature.   he could feel
her breasts,

cool against his back.  her hips,
and her mound

a small fire.  the serpent’s tail.

he did not try to turn.  she did not try to turn him.

they reached the door.  the night air was chill.

*

there are times when,

seeking relief from symptoms,

i cram my mouth with so much sugar

that my tongue swells.  rivers

of it burn my throat until the sweetness

becomes the taste of blood.  awareness
at once dilates

and dwindles.  is this lust?

there are pills i do not take.

in the mirror, i notice how grey i have become.

in the bed, i cup my cock and balls in my hand.

in the dark, i hear the bright chirp of my phone.

i do not pick it up.

*

he would be a philosopher, if he could.

he would note in the iterations

of water and sand, the arcs of birds and fish,

the circles we must all complete.

he would use our small spheres,

the orbits we trace,

to map with algebraic certainty

the pinwheel motion of our galaxies:

in the ancient light of stars,

the nebulae of our births

the infinitely massive singularities

of our deaths.  he would say

i have never seen in a bottle
anything that i have not seen

in a twist of smoke.  i have never seen
in a twist of smoke anything
that i have not seen
in a needle,  i have never seen
in a needle anything

that i have not seen in some other's face,
or in mine.

he would say

i have never seen anything.

he would say

i have given birth.  here is my child.

my mirror.

he would say

when we meet,

parts of us speak.  parts of us

are audience.  parts of us reach out.

parts of us remain hidden.  parts
of us touch.

we eat and drink of each other

and are nourished.

all will be well.

.