Monday 26 December 2011

Mass






We always go to Midnight Mass. This year it finished at two in the morning. The Bishop gave a long sermon on concupiscence, lechery and greed. The streets are so dark, Aunt J walked straight into a wall and fainted. We carry her light body to the house. Mother brings her a glass of brandy which will never again leave Aunt's hands.

The Bishop likes to surround himself with spinsters adorned with nubile nieces. He defends the poor and sows his oats amongst his flock



Monday 19 December 2011

Wall



 A wallpaper of generals covers the streets of the town. We surf the city on board an old tramway. The rail station opens and we are waiting in the cafe. The days are bright and Our Mother sings to heaven. We pray in the morning and in the afternoon. She has a black book full of promises. Money never arrives on time. She declares we must think about the future and what to do to earn the pennies. To each what can be done best. We all look at our Sister and we know her destiny.



Monday 12 December 2011




They say if you know the past you understand the present
They say this is all there is
They say there is nothing new under the sun
they say there is a time a for everything
they say we are cursed from the day we were born
they say our friends will betray us
they say loneliness is waiting for us round the corner
they say they will never leave us alone
and minute later they go and die on us .


Monday 5 December 2011

Practice

Cousin practices the piano mute. We play in the afternoon in silence. Mother abhors disturbances, noises, interruptions. Only her steps can be heard. Father breathes in small bouts. From time to time one of us is summoned for punishment on account of unameable crimes of which we know nothing, but  like the first sin, they stick to our skin. They can never be redeemed. Our blood mingles with the earth. The sun shines high and after a while we continue playing as before.




Monday 28 November 2011





The son of the architect lies strewn on a heap of rubbish



She was killed on a Friday afternoon. Father did not dare to go. I had to. We went, the gardener and I, down to the old house. Blood on the stairs, the walls, everywhere or so it felt. The bed, unmade stared at us, asking what we were doing there. The gardener started cleaning, I just walked around. I had not been to the house since I was five. She did not want to talk to us any more.

Silence has insinuated itself to every pore of the house (She can curse us no more). In the kitchen, a few lonely cups await their fate. The fridge is grand and new. We are inside it. All of us, every single one of us.
 

Monday 21 November 2011

Nightland


Marooned in Nightland I dream of my unborn son, half man half snake coiling itself around my entrails. I wail in silence, throw myself against the walls and down the stairs to no avail.


Sit down and do not breathe cannot stand the noise don’t look don’t say.






Swollen skies swelter over my head. Walking the same old road, I pass the rail station the shops and the park. Summertime and life is easy. Ice cream in the afternoon , la vie en rose in the evening.

Do you have much to do with colour in those days? Does the fact that the sun shone without mercy grew on you? Was your mother happy? Can’t remember anything.

Tango, music.




Monday 14 November 2011

Many

You wake up in the morning and everything is fine
An hour later the world has collapsed beneath your feet





He went to the beach for the first time in the summer of 1943. The place would remain undiscovered for another 20 years or so. It was a long peninsula on the coast, the south side tide was weak and slow, the north violent and treacherous, According to the locals, it had claimed the life of many a foolish swimmer.

Every day he walked from the chalet to the beach exploring the countryside. To him all the people were mysterious, incomprehensible creatures. . He sauntered across the pine forest. The cool wind conferred pallor to his skin. La vie en rose was in the air. He wanted a blond wig.

Monday 7 November 2011

Summertime



(My body a mangled bundle of flesh squatting. Rotten dreams stream, the waters broken. Rabid dogs and long summers)


Monday 31 October 2011

Four o'clock



Four o’clock in the morning. Reading in the house of the poet.
A moth wanders in the shadows, flickers amidst the books. 
The wind gallops outside. On the sofa I smoke,
inhale-exhale, inhale-exhale inhale
inhale-exhale,
inhale-exhale,
inhale-exhale,
inhale-exhale,
inhale-exhale,
inhale-exhale,
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
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inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
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inhale-exhale
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inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
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inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
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inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
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inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
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inhale
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inhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
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inhale
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inhale
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inhale
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inhale
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inhale-exhale
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inhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale
inhale-exhale

Sunday 23 October 2011

W


Wandering in the night, the air tastes of freedom. Gentle breeze brushing the leaves. High in the sky the moon glances, on the lawn a pair sweats and sighs. They hardly know each other.

She has embarked in her long journey of the flesh. She visits her friend in the small hours, sitting on the verge, fondled by an instant.



The house lies in silent
I shout your name
The night circles you
I shout your name
I love you, I betray you
I shout your name
A monster now
I shout your name
Old and bedraggled
I shout your name
It still burns me
I shout your name
I built hotels for lovers
I shout your name
I fuck everybody around
I shout your name
I hate you, I despise you
I shout your name
Abandoned and sold I should pity you
I shout your name
Your memory scalding my skin
I shout your name

I crawl, I stumble
I gnaw ignominy and servitude
to be near you





Monday 17 October 2011

Rain



Woman smoking. Waves of heat. The rain should come soon. Hens cackling outside, the maid is trying to corral one for dinner

Woman smoking: inside her the seed is growing. Blue sky, white sheets, high up the ceiling

Woman smoking the seed is growing. A supply of hard bread, flour, pasta and salt comes every week. The words stream out of his mouth. A spider hangs from the ceiling.

Woman smoking, the seed is growing. Thunder precedes the rain, the armadillo strolls around the veranda.

Woman smoking, she has installed a ghost trap. She awaits. The air silvers with light, dogs barking, birds dancing. Earth holed up with water.

Woman smoking seed growing. Up the trees looking down the world, she sees the woman smoking, cowered, bleeding., up the tree only the skies and the birds






Monday 10 October 2011

Life



The last ten years of her live L. has spent it staring at the ceiling. Embroidery magazines pile up around the bed. L. reads them every morning





Today is Friday. All the dogs are barking. I lie awake. Fear is all over me. I knew they will come in the morning. When they arrived, I felt almost relieved. Their boss comes to my room. He makes me open my nightie: a good look, hey boss. I am ordered to turn around very slowly. After a while we go outside. I am sitting on the table, legs apart. He bangs his truncheon between them, and threaten to punish my brothers. We go away into the night



Monday 3 October 2011

Unthink






You look around and this sea of negativity buries you in its maelstrom. We survive everyday, thinking: I need to change my bed or get some food or some whatever. You are hooked up to the hill and with your lover roam the street, finally you rest on the railways and while you live your lover dies and that is it. Your story appears in the news. One day an artist finds the newspaper, and writes about you while listening to gypsy music lent by a French girl. The world has become confused and tortuous, (yeah you may like it but is not enough). You want to do work but what is the point of a poetic object? You think about home, and what do you do read: an article about Russia and the demise of the intelligentsia in one away or another, and their trend to take things to the limit of the impossible. What is that: the limit of the impossible? The monkey of the dissenting books must be laughing its guts out under the stairs on hearing you. In the shantytown they are showing ‘The werewolf of Pago Largo’, a theatrical version of a radio program you listen to in the afternoon. Your kind aunt has taken you to see them. The very poor company sweats the lines out in a makeshift theatre under the tropics. She also has taken you to see the Great Leader (at a distance). Forty years later you are reading about a painting called I also saw Stalin. The artists now live in New York. That is home, the werewolf, the glimpse of the Great Leader and the thought of artists living in New York.

Sunday


The woman embroiders in silence. 





We arrive on a Sunday. The airport, a sea of dust, swelters under the midday heat. A dozy soldier flickers through our papers. Our luggage disappears under a hundred helping hands. We do not have enough coins and barter. The road, a riot of red dust, makes the trip slow and heavy. Green, red and blue are the colours of our new country. The city is not far away: at its entrance a flock of women in black shuffle behind a black carriage. A silent weep traverses the air. The horses, old and scrawny, wheeze along the humble road. The dust settles imperceptibly over the women. In the car we feel our slow death has just started.
Our new house sobs with sounds we do not recognise. Mother drifts along the corridors musing about the desert and yesterday’s lovers. We clean, order and cook in silence. The dog grumbles at its meagre fare, the frogs chant in the afternoon. They start slow and small, by dusk a whirlwind of sounds drenches the senses. Mosquito towers rumble over our head.



the universe halted







The universe halted
Black light cruising
you say goodbye in furs
40 degrees in the horizon
black light cruising
you say goodbye in furs gleaming with amphetamine - fears
a whole lotta love


The car parked for three months, a grief memorial. It is her car. I don't care.