"If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise." WB

"It is a body poetics. I am in the context of those before me who worshipped a goddess whose eyes were mirrors. One eye reflected the "inside," the other the gorgeous and dark phenomenal world. Take your pick. Both, both. She, the muse, puts an invisible protection cord around my neck to protect me from ego. She exceeds my aspiration to disappear."

Anne Waldman, The Iovis Trilogy

I'm on an ocean liner in a Bangkok river or bay. From the top deck of the ship we can see the whole city - it's gorgeous pink and black in the lit-up night - 'that's why it's called The Pink City', we say. We're in a swimming pool - me, my friend and her husband. I can tell that right now he is more interested in me. I wonder if we'll have sex - the two of us or all of us.

There's so much activity around the boat and on the lower decks. People are celebrating, there are fireworks. And there are small space shuttles, brilliantly lit, like LED kites, launching from the ship. They rocket up into the air, powering out in the night sky before they leave the atmosphere, crashing back down to the river. I think this might be the last of the earth's spare fuel. I think it's wondrous that we are using it like this.

I need a toilet. I go down into the ship's interior to look for one. it's empty in amongst the cabins, no people around. I find a sign for the toilets but once I enter I see it's really a luxury bath-house - disused and outdated but spacious and with many lovely spas, vanities, seating etc. I go to the toilet and think about bringing my friends down here - we could fill the spas up, bring champagne etc. As I leave I see a small creature running through the room - large cockroach or a mouse - as it runs away from me it takes flight.

soft shroud 4

                                    people, go back and shelter in the church remains

                                    leave the garden empty (& white tablecloths

lengthen my neck below behind the foothills

unmake lines of stone     haze  

my jawbone    go back visit them there

drop everything from the hands push open the window push closed the window push open the window. something happen to the air   flakes of ash. wear a coat take off a coat wear a coat. wear your hair and pat the skin with ash

in the window    plant life    radiate outwards and radiate inwards

thick clarity in a thinner humnet of motorways.

motorways in the future     arrest.    plant life, croach up the road works push apart the concrete.

arrest to a point    an east-west palm in all these countries

radiate out and radiate in       with         all  

 to navigate keep a finger place in the ocean       a point in that “taxonomic feeling”

the fingers, press down into the membrane of the floor.

read it coming up. blue fork veins. come up. come on up heat.

read a man in the gully with his gumboots on.

man in the gully with an egg in his mouth.

read pieces of the bridge on high, haze unmake the lines of the sky stones.

read the gully on a man. weight of a wedge of air.

walled at the gully mouth rising blue. blue be higher (no where is a gully mouth blocked. block painted blue. static. please hold the

egg in your hand and up in the air. floor river heat up. river through the gully go, hot organs of a mountain. mud flow strip the gumboots.

strip the ankles. collect at the concrete wall. rise there against the wall. water go on. ashmud come. shearwaters lift with the lines of a bridge

is it near? mouth-wall collect us against you. go out lights. well let the ankle bones let us lie. wrap in the softest you wore. those little ankle bones go. toe bones go let go jaw go. be cased. cat-rounded in a blue corner, and blanket, and mountain shade 

beats live heat in the legs

beats bees in the live heat of the

blinking knees

without saddle the horse towards heat

spongiform taste already the hooves in the loam,

print already the loam the taste of an apricot grove

ashclouds tumbling forward into the past

our present delight pressing the form of its already passing in waves

breaking exquisitely a form of walking the mantle to the burning peak

and which way does the mantle fall? it always falls away from you

uncovering

black dilation

I'm going to stay with Bill who lives next to my old flat. Bill's not home so I pop into the old flat and Gig Ryan is living there. We talk and hang out and I feel weirdly welcome and comfortable. I find I can just talk normally and I have things to say. She tells me I'm doing much better than she was at the same age. I know my dad and stepmum are coming for the night - it's my dad's birthday - but I haven't actually made any arrangements yet. I thought we'd stay at Bill's but I haven't asked him yet. I think maybe if I can't get hold of him I'll ask Gig if we can crash there.

When they turn up they are drunk. My step-mum keep stuffing things into her mouth and swallowing them - not just food but anything. They are so strange that Gig is amused at first. But they are angry with me that I haven't made any arrangements. My dad says sarcastically 'thanks for the special day.' I try to explain that we will probably will stay with Bill. At one point I want to talk but there's a weird taste in my mouth. I spit and my saliva is red. I start to hook this substance out of my mouth. It's a head of flowers - the little red ones that look a bit like jasmine.

There's a kid around who is a bit disgusted. My stepmum keeps swallowing things and then throwing them up - paper, objects, anything around her. I keep pulling things out of her mouth so she doesn't choke. Gig looks at me and runs her hand across her neck, the 'kill it' sign. At first I think she might mean there's something wrong with my stepmum's neck so I look to check. She's in the middle of swallowing a plastic bag full of confetti and other things. I try to pull it away from her. They are angry at me. Gig wants us to get out too but I still haven't made any arrangements with Bill, who is not home.

goodbye Maurice Sendak.