A lake like stew

Your eyes saw colours that your brain could not yet understand

Shades that register only as
shimmers under the skin,
that pulse in the subterranean parts of the body.

Parts reserved for processing things like
opaqueness
and the edges of light.

like a storm that might be coming

like something cold
has bubbled up from a deep well.

i counted the cracks
in the windscreen
of our hire car

a landscape
riveted by insect carcasses
powdered
with a film of earth so red
it leaves the taste of rust
in our mouths.

we are children again
melting into the back seat,
the windows rolled down
and i tune the radio
to the frequency of
powerlines and rabbit fences,
the perfect broadcast
for a journey that

starts out with a promise

but quickly becomes
interminable.

it is the fundamental law
of movement
– of course –
to be always not quite there,
and not quite here.

in fact,
the further you follow
the thin white line
the faster
it disappears.

you wanted deliverance
but instead we came
to a ghost town

“home!”
“let me go home!”

some where
the landscape moves so quickly it
interlaces
and you tell me that
this is how you see through time.

i concentrate, staring out the window,
colour pixels
rendered in rose quartz
and honey ant yellow—
those mineral shades that
are always part-way
through some kind of chemical reaction, alchemy.

i let my gaze become unfixed and
think about “continuity”…

our car is always
a movie camera
and each window
the perfect frame.

on this road
there is no beginning and end
and beginning and end,
only the part in the middle,
the part
happening now.

there are pieces of us every
where
and only this simple
ceremony
can gather them back.

i could think of
a hundred ways
to explain it in images
but nothing in words

maybe it’s
something like
that single straight hair
detached from a body
that keeps finding its way back
to my bed sheets

or maybe it’s
the weather this week
reminding us
that some things are
undeniable

a dream message

that tingle
at the base of your spine

right now

somewhere
in the world

a revolution
is happening.

another day on the road
and the street signs
are beginning to take on
strange significance

like fortune cookies
or one word horoscopes

everything becomes a map
we can’t understand.

i said
not this. not right now.

and there was something
explicit
in your touch.

and the heavens
were only just beginning

to open.

a stutter
of train tracks
crisscross
like a
constructivist film

a new landscape
coloured by iron

and redfern,
just a memory.

and i allow you
the perfection
of doing
the only thing
you know how

the tyranny of language
is the moment
it doesn’t exist

and everything
i’ve told you
you already know.

a memoir of a garden,
a useless landscape
left over to words

a text message
on your lover’s phone
always a poem,
always a ghost.

my hot breath
kept the
cold windows
moist
as the inside of a ribcage.

you were on the radio
most days
you played old love songs
a broadcast to no where

i kept the motor running at night
nothing careful, nothing tentative
about that constant hum.

something
found
in translation

inventing
new words
for old memories

and a question
i should never have asked.

you begin
by working
backwards
but become
stuck
at the end

like a travelator
in an airport
or an elevator rising & falling
in slow motion

we write words
that turn time
around

it took me
a full minute
to realise i was
shaking.

i photocopied your poems
& handed them out
like pamphlets at
a peace protest.

~

i thought i’d found
a whole world
in your words,

but the pavements kept pressing up
between the pages
until everything was unfinished.

~

one day i noticed
the street signs
of new york
all spelled out
the letters of your name

and as if that was not enough
of an omen i kept walking, walking.

~

your voice
whispering
from the tops of skyscrapers
the perfect city

your tongue clicking
like needles
a pure hit of metaphor
and the comedown
like waking
from a dream.

~

nothing was dangerous
except for words
you wept yours
down a thousand
empty sidewalks

& i was left with amnesia
and a new language
all those perfect memories
slamming against each other
like a pile up
of cars on the interstate.

~

and you’re passing
through me
even now.

we drove through
a city of lights
and all around us
silence

somewhere
in another room
someone is being sick

we had herbal concoctions
to last us a lifetime

a desk job
an endless time-sheet
and sick days to spare

we worked out the odds
and went the way
of the lighthorse

***

a time capsule
of fragrances

and the knowledge
that everything must end

the possibility
of an archive

the promise
that something
will be remembered

a future city
full of children.

you were tall
and eternal
and i was
falling asleep
at the wheel

Later I was in a gift shop in chinatown trying to think of something significant to buy. There were charms for health and prosperity, but nothing to slow down time. And definitely nothing to stop it.