CAMERA LUCIDA

 

There are no

lights – only pale

reflections that

point inwards.

 

A subtle twist of

fingers and images

accumulate like

merit in my mind.

 

This black box –

second skin, third

eye, fourth wall –

is a kind of loss.

 

 

 

HYPERLINKAGE

 

There is only one rule in hyper-

linkage, to wit, you do not refer to

yourself. Keeping that in mind in

this paradise of cut-and-paste is

an endless deferral. This is a poem,

not a website. Outside it is raining.

 

Your words are always blue and

underlined, not the blue of an eye

nor an atmosphere. This freedom -

now any word may be a sign for any

thing – disturbs me. I weary of

traversing Edens. Contractions.

 

I stroll through the nearby garden

(sky’s another shade of blue now),

I book a reading room in the library,

I wonder when our paths will next

fork towards each other. My novels

talk to each other, making essays.

 

Who can speak in hyperlink?

I can only say a name, sometimes

Sounding like the ozone breeze post-

pour, sometimes like a knife wound,

furtive, again, like a touch typist alone

in a room, again, again and again.

 

 

 

S U N R I S E  AT  C L A R K E  QUAY

 

“... Something imminent about the coming dawn”

you slur as we stumble out, away from industrial

thrum of strobe and speaker, exhausted, withdrawn

to open spaces. I marvel quietly at the existential

loosening of this poetic tongue through the fire

of drink in your throat, your truth. Too late we fought

a clockwork world – poor substitute for time itself – mire -

d in staccato drips of transcendental bliss we bought.

 

This forsaken curb is where we’ll make our home

awhile, drowning numbness in moonshine of evening,

as neon lights reflect our souls through grimy foam

of yesterday’s footprints washed out of the flooring,

clinging to this violet shroud of night with bate -

d breath. The earth revolves slowly while we wait.