Tuesday 24 May 2016

Explorations





note: The Red Sandbox
is the invitation to sketch


‘Watchmaker’s sweepings, Juggling Act, Souvenir of Monte Carlo, Chimney Sweeper’s relic,
Thousand & One Nights, Mayan feathers, White Landscape, From the Golden Temple of Dobayba (conquistador), Sailor’s Game, Venetian Map, Mouse Material’



an elegy that dares to celebrate
itself; a cursive
sleight of sand

thrown like a bad pun,
like a blessing
or a convalescent hymn
coaxed
from the parched lips
of an elderly relative
(not quite recalling your name)

“this was dance itself”
bird’s eye view upon a panther’s skin
explorations of pink slipper lace / silver hairpin
these gold borders, queens that flower like a dedication
crossed out and drawn anew: a glass of iced tea

through which to symbolize mal du Suisse
in the crystal palace, hoops in barred windows
guessing at the premier of an inn
er family.

Escape not with Tom, who left home,
but with Laura, who could not.



 note: Medici was an underwater
lineage of  orphaned princes
& a gloaming cabinet for the princess,
her face the snowed blank side
of an unsent postcard 




two children are threatened by a rubber ball.
slumming with the rudiments of talk –
a nightingale frames

play
jacks
up

in the shooting gallery
whereby a harlequin differs
from the usual copy and edit.

these eaters of oak and sandstone –
we walk and walk and dream of mountains


(…sigh…)






note: we desire to CATCH UP


i collect a breed of mausoleum.
clingfilm tight over the matchbox
so we can pay our respects: the earwig has a daisy
slid between curled limbs, as though in sleep it gripped the stem

(the flower less than half a thumb in length).
                       
an open casket funeral, very dignified; quiet, still.
some took solemn pride in the gravity of their loss
and made sure to observe: she lived a full life.
it was made known. we said our goodbyes and left.





 










sketching burials in the air – as if they can all be held
together, suspended in their rightful orders.
emptying pockets for a magpie’s prize

these moments 
coveted like marbles
are staged
in the closed orbit
of a chalked circle.

too scuffed to shine, almost emptied       blind
but at the right angle – a glance between them

            opens –


  











pausing at the gate, i cannot identify the grave
but the moss, pouched across its gothic script
suggests something
between distance and a shrugged proximity
(overgrown monuments ask that we remember
in the act of forgetting, or that forgetting
is the foliage of trying to remember)
until some form of now pins “back to life”
to a passage of recording
in the moth-dust, burnt, left in arcs across the bulb.

in its storied absence powdered
touch flustered on the glass
it might
return me to a brighter distance 



  

these are stars that patiently braid aerials
and we let it happen through a window.

before us in the long grass,
a kneeling translator fluffs the message.

books transcribe
a rippled dance of iron filings;

fanned in brackets, outward from a moment’s pulse
but confined to knots and innuendo

hidden in the footnotes. though
there is an honest and pained desire

to get it out there, faithful to the tangle
and somehow flavoured with the breath

of how it happened
and how we felt it happened –

the two are waltzing, parting, and, in the fold of evening
storming off to separate lives.





leftovers
might audition their worn and humbled selves

to be loved again,
if only as relics.

on this occasion
we turn our backs to the stage,

not knowing where
the real act is scheduled

or if the curtains
ever raise.