#124 The Kiss

The marble
was far too
heavy for
this land-
scape. Was
taken away,
but the
encapsulated
concept left
behind.

#123 The Hesitation Waltz

It might be
embarrassing
not even having
two left feet
to get around
the dancefloor
on, but the
apples have
mastered

the complex
pauses of
the hesitation
waltz so well
they now
are forced to
enter dance
competitions
in disguise.

#122 Memory (2)

She
        stepped
                      down 
from her 
             pedestal 
& ran off 
to join 
a circus. Not
what she
remembered
    from her youth. 
    Centuries
of standing
    still
meant
she was perfect
as the
          knife-
thrower's
assistant. Never
scratched.
But outside
the show her
    refleshed
perfection
             made her
target for
the freaks 
    who filled 
out side-
show alley & 
they drew 
    blood.

#121 The Art of Conversation II

 

Of late
my dreams
have been so
heavy
          I
find them
hard
to talk
about.

#120 The Palace of Curtains, III

I
see the
sky reflected in



this single word
you've left
me.

#119 Le Musée d'un Nuit

It is
an over-
night stop, a
motel of
memory,
where some
of the guests
have the
provenance
to dis-
play them-
selves &
others
stay hidden
& wait
for room
service.

#118 L'Eternité

Everything that looked
on turned
away,
even
small birds
whose eyes acquired

only outline, not
the detail.
Fear
frays
the hem-
line of eternity.

Who
comes to
save us now?

#117 Les Fleurs du Mal

Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre
Charles Baudelaire: La Beauté

Sometime
I must check up on
why the statues
of antiquity
had no pupils. Would
have been easy
enough to do, a
drop of paint or
use the chisel as
an apple-corer. In-
stead left blind.
Deliberate. No need
to see who calls. In-
duce the dream of
flesh beyond the
stone through
flower wide open
& eyes wide shut.

#116 La Belle Idée

I start to tidy up
the tapestry. The unicorns
worry me. Not the one
all gleaming white &
shiny-horned, it's the
other, the one with
the shades & lycra bike
shorts who's lurking –
can unicorns lurk? – who's
hanging out then, there
by the castle gate,
waiting for some corn maiden
to come tripping out
on her way to the
fields where he will follow
& (impale her)². Only
just then the Lord
of the Castle comes
riding up with his entourage
who all have earpieces that
drift down into their
chainmail & steely eyes
that scan the crowd, a-
lighting on the unicorn
who pretends he's looking
at postcards in a market stall
before sliding back off
into the background &
back to his nighttime job
in a porn theatre where
the prurient masses pay
to watch some corny maiden
get impaled by a quadruped
with a condom/inium on his head.

#115 Memory of a Journey III

 

I know we sidetracked
to see where the
troglodytes had
lived. Other than that
think bridges gone
over, under, or
danced upon. & lines —
train, coke, telephone.
Somewhere we had
antipasto, & drank. Not
too much, just enough
to make conversation
easy & company
complicated. Towards
the end the waiter
brought a bowl of
fruit. We peeled the
oranges & fed the seg-
ments to each other.
We left the apples.

 

#114 The Interpretation of Dreams

1) The Acacia

The arid regions
of Senegal
act as an incubator
for the
gum arabic tree.

2) The Moon

A soft
moon shuffle
by the light
of the
silvery shoe.

3) The Snow

The bowl of
night is
black
& filled
with white.

4) The Ceiling

ceiling
wax
lyrical

5) The Storm

The sky
has that angular
clarity that
often precedes
a change in
the weather.

6) The Desert

Only when the
last nail
is put in place
does it be-
come apparent
that all along
it was a
mirage that he
was building.