through cloud floor breaking
hidden harvest moon looks down –
porthole embers grow
undercarriage jolts –
for your own safety don’t
walk under the wing
x.2024
Contents May Settle
Unfold a step-stool. Steady yourself. Reach above the speaker. Then
take your cobwebbed alter ego down.
Caress its ghostwhite bumps and lumps,
smooth as unglazed porcelain.
Run fingers across the biting edge
of two half-moons. Your thumb around
the rim of empty orbits.
Stare into those sockets. Ask your plastic Yorick where he came from.
‘Bare of all attachment, I have
sated memory’s hunger,
carried my arcane names within.
We objects find ourselves
wherever we’re appreciated,
never in an institution.’
His three planes of facial weakness demand you look within. Explore
the sinusoidal labyrinth.
Trace its meandering sutures,
find every ditch and fissure.
So, remove the beret, black and worn
echado de lado like that Che
you once thought - in jest - to be.
Unhook the catch. Lift the vault. See a butterfly at rest inside.
ix. 2024
Special Relationship
after Miklós Radnóti
"We understand the disturbance this may cause to our local communities"
"We appreciate the patience and understanding as we ensure our airmen remain trained and ready to secure the sovereign skies anytime, day or night"
Brigadier General Joseph L. Campo, 48th Fighter Wing commander, USAF
All that far-off slaughter, screen-seen,
echoes now, heard roaring overhead.
In Airstrip One, noise warned, we know
it is not for long, and practice
low and after dark, is required
to keep the hardware saleable.
Deadly ordnance rides the sky between
production and ground-razing
delivery of payload: buildings
pancake, instant moonscape craters.
But BAE make just the tail cones,
glue them on while chewing gum.
There’s comfort in ‘the sound of freedom’:
fearless, we gaze at clouds, hear their
shadows pass. No safe zone needed.
ix. 2024
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
