after Paul Bowles
‘Where the music leads, I follow‘
although it does not lead. It circles and swirls
until this evening is elsewhere.
I descend stone steps at the call to prayer
beneath a sapphire sky.
Seeking adventure and auspicious fate,
I court the whore in her tent, who pretends
that she’s a princess and a constellation.
There are murmurings from the other tents
but, even now, I know where my wallet is
and my name remains on my passport.
What value resides in experience
when, in time, the mind goes blank,
its novas and starships vanished from view?
‘Amass it nonetheless’ say the sages,
‘because you’re helping God to be’.
I add to the archive with this woman,
showing her my wallet as I leave...
then kicking at her friends as I scale the stile
on my way to a rumpled, unmade bed.
AT THIS MOMENT, TO THE NORTH
I bow to the black beast in my skull,
the blank beast that is aftermath,
a death that erases then erases itself.
At the Pole, there is tangible dark.
I think myself north to deep-iced waters
and flickering sky-wide lights.
Death stalks me in its silver fur.
Plunging into its eternal night
I leave language behind, red marks in snow.
Here, the lights wheel slowly.
I stare at trapped Polaris,
at the distance that it carries,
snowdrop-white.
I think myself to a nakedness
that is harder to sustain than death itself.
THE CAPITULATION OF THE LOCUSTS
There are miniscule gaps in the air
where the insects used to be,
prefiguring larger voids.
We await our own extinction -
the future is veiled
and horizons frown.
I rest my head in a recess
of a polished rock
and describe these tribulations,
the slave of a voice
that speaks of earth swept clean,
of penal fire and judgement.
Nothing will remain
but the signs of that judgement
in primary colours -
the panoply of earthly things
decanted into void,
a failed experiment.
Nothing remains for now
but to shop myself to death -
the future is over
and all legacies in vain,
my art mere noise
amongst the other noises.
The silence of the insects
that do not exist
is what is heard now
in the sterile fields.
Apocalypse
need not be grand.
‘Where the music leads, I follow‘
although it does not lead. It circles and swirls
until this evening is elsewhere.
I descend stone steps at the call to prayer
beneath a sapphire sky.
Seeking adventure and auspicious fate,
I court the whore in her tent, who pretends
that she’s a princess and a constellation.
There are murmurings from the other tents
but, even now, I know where my wallet is
and my name remains on my passport.
What value resides in experience
when, in time, the mind goes blank,
its novas and starships vanished from view?
‘Amass it nonetheless’ say the sages,
‘because you’re helping God to be’.
I add to the archive with this woman,
showing her my wallet as I leave...
then kicking at her friends as I scale the stile
on my way to a rumpled, unmade bed.
AT THIS MOMENT, TO THE NORTH
I bow to the black beast in my skull,
the blank beast that is aftermath,
a death that erases then erases itself.
At the Pole, there is tangible dark.
I think myself north to deep-iced waters
and flickering sky-wide lights.
Death stalks me in its silver fur.
Plunging into its eternal night
I leave language behind, red marks in snow.
Here, the lights wheel slowly.
I stare at trapped Polaris,
at the distance that it carries,
snowdrop-white.
I think myself to a nakedness
that is harder to sustain than death itself.
THE CAPITULATION OF THE LOCUSTS
There are miniscule gaps in the air
where the insects used to be,
prefiguring larger voids.
We await our own extinction -
the future is veiled
and horizons frown.
I rest my head in a recess
of a polished rock
and describe these tribulations,
the slave of a voice
that speaks of earth swept clean,
of penal fire and judgement.
Nothing will remain
but the signs of that judgement
in primary colours -
the panoply of earthly things
decanted into void,
a failed experiment.
Nothing remains for now
but to shop myself to death -
the future is over
and all legacies in vain,
my art mere noise
amongst the other noises.
The silence of the insects
that do not exist
is what is heard now
in the sterile fields.
Apocalypse
need not be grand.
A TIGHTROPE LAID ON THE GROUND
These days, I walk a tightrope
laid on the ground from breath to breath.
Sometimes, my heart seems to shake with the effort
of proceeding from moment to moment,
from day to day, from year to year,
from life to whatever comes next.
I see myself falling to the ground,
the tightrope to one side or the other,
thrown from myself in a moment -
a solid shadow cast on linoleum
beside the photocopier, startling
the smartphone-cradling students
into turning away from Instagram
to read the last rites from an app
they’ve installed on the chance that, someday,
they’ll witness the demise
of an old man like me.
Born in the year 2000,
they know neither Reagan nor Thatcher
or a world without Putin.
It’s their turn now and I must pass on the torch,
however charred or lukewarm.
So may their endings be as calm
as I heave from breath to breath
on the newly polished floor,
finally seeing my face
as the face of a stranger
after all this time.