soft shroud

1

once a thief stole from a thief –

stole the thief’s ring, so the thief

stole the thief’s finger to get the ring back.

the ring rattled on the bone, the bone rattled

in the hand. the hand rattled in the hands

which rattled in the arms of the handless thief.

a thief came to scoop up the bones of the thieves

who were stealing the silence of the night

with their clattering and cries –

came to scoop up the bones and put them in order,

sorting arms from arms and

ribs from ribs but the rib bones

hooked at his own rib bones

it’s still raining. floodlights go on

under the bridge so that the excavation

can continue through the night.

we dig so deeply now that the skulls

are black and heavy as stones,

and sometimes the stones

crack open like skulls, empty.

the rows of tibias are arranged.

the femurs are labeled and arranged.

the piles of hands and feet

bleed their mud; these will take some time.

traffic proceeds on the bridge above us

and the bridge     shakes in the air

soft shroud  - kissing the freeways quiet

                                    raintrees float, islands

wild burial grounds        I carry you here

years when the shroud wrapped the wound

it was vague, scratched out pill-shaped

blank on summer stairs, a white spill

in the fragrant night, outer warm whispering

drunk colours & at immunity’s edge

the white flower

shriveling up

white persuades

the mouth white

sealed the pinched

face blunted anaerobic

WHITE tachycardic gulp

face instanced on the STAIRS

WHITE force gape squared tongue when

the pill is in a fork extracts

wet marrow scrapes

through

corrugate

clean up

sealed

sarcophagus speech slides off it

thought effectively

slides off it

white is a vitreous

relation to the world. K Rd’s

freezing wind at the crossing

encases thigh bones

hips adhere to their own

sealed up

mouths

isolates frozen

we don’t remember this together

your inner ears

burnt black

your funny mouth

stitched closed

women come to the sunlit lee to volcanic ground women with heads down hips shoulders en bloc women carry the serious body

women come to the sunlit lee to volcanic ground tethered to dumb adductors inch through stone skies women carry the decaying body

women come to the sunlit lee to volcanic ground arms erect encrusted women the bones raise onwards through the ether of the former body

women come to the sunlit lee to volcanic ground sustaining the very last syllables long beyond the given road

keeping even the well’s very last tears drawn through blood’s black dust

to wash

for the turn of the waist, its easing

for the relief of the lime enclosure

we don’t remember this together

inner ears

burnt black

drunken beast

in yellow plastic

roaring operatic

roaring door

open to the night’s

drive and

this is what you did

you do this paintcan

falling

from the roof

splattered

drive destroyed

attendants wheel

the motorbike over

the bridge

is operatic

coins on dirty carpet

stripped wires by the socket

here you write as a woman

name hovering drunkly

over a piece of paper

& come

to give the things away

not your

dirty things

hands and imprints

overlain

name hovering drunkly

over a piece of paper

appears to be your name, you bankrupt

it is not

it is not

hands and imprints hovering

hollows of crashing dirty skin’s

best shudder how was that

for a fireplace how was that for

your love hurts so I push up

into its chimney-ice face

drips my full mouth

will we seal it off and listen to a bird die in there

banging tin walls echoing Christmas making

the cats go crazy in their lustful listening

hand over the opening the white eyed

skin speaking dumbness

attendant stumbles

across a full wet field

under a box of books

greasy shawl sun-cooked

heels slice grass

into the mud’s suck

coming to the pavilion

to give away your books

if I carry you here

you’ll germinate in green stars

through shroud unwound

wound unwinding as pelagic sky.

a skeleton arm

hangs from a star

the fingerbones

droop to my earlobe

touching a sex arrayed

 as small blue fish

twisting gorgeous at the waist

which doesn’t know you

or your death

on a balcony of iron springs

wormeaten wood

spills into woods

a carpet for sleepless roots

here rest’s the waking

skin as an eye

blue as a bridge of small blue

fish tremble the fluid between

studio full of stiff-hipped women, wriggling like blocks of wood. like someone pulled one log from a pile of wood and now the rest fall into the same. no no, keep your heels grounded, your knees straight. straight! not locked! what is that? where do I feel it? how do we live like this? how do we fuck like this? unable to feel the difference between one hip and the other, unable to tilt the pelvis or lift the chest. where's baby's nose? here's baby's nose. no, that's not your nose! that's your cheek, silly!
woman born under a pile of wood, grew up there. never knew the colour of her hair.

if something, then something he does not have. there's a whole ground of it right here. existing outside ownership.

the cloth that covers the dead... wrapping it and wrapping it around your wound...

under the bridge the twinkling

swollen hands encounter the twinkling ground,

fingers root in disintegrating remembrance,

funnel that opening up to rain

& there comes the wash of exhaustion

down from the shining leaves to rest

amongst skin’s neat clawed-petal clasps

-

years later, wondering - what was wanted with you?

not your inner ears burnt black

nor your funny mouth

stitched closed

 - that figure stumbling

across a full wet field under a box of your books, greasy shawl sun-cooked

heels slicing grass into the mud’s suck

– she came to the pavilion to give your books away, and who wants them now?

fireworks into the damp bushes, awkward

pauses in the pub

you becoming unknown, plummet

through rent discussability

-

pavilion’s hot and stuffy or cold and stuffy and the floorboards flex.

couples step enclosed compulsions, systolic circuits against breath,

sweat, talk, - yes, like this,

learning displacement

(throw one beat out, skip it across a green surface

into the jaws of an eel)

in the space in your chest desire falls

dinner with YL - at my place is a rice wrapper, and written on it a line that the woman next to me translates something like - the cloth that covers the dead... you wrap it and wrap it around your wound...


"YL I have to say you are the happiest poet I've ever seen-"
"-well, the first thing is that poetry isn't made on the face"

& then there's "nightmare inspiration"

an ocean of the dead    like iron, giving off a fishy smell 
the rusty sunlight has passed by 
sniffs at you like an old dog 
a dog staring    the scene is particularly clear from the bridge

over and over you wrap the shroud around your wound - 


hello again Carmen of the cream skin your hair cerise then violet then umber then fuschia, weekly, daily changes framing silence we're 13 silence in french class if you have to your accent is better than anyone's

when we're 18 there you go grafton bridge

hello Carmen the accent of your past, mum and dad soothing bedtime tears with weed, green weeds linking so many feet together

hello dog, dear friend, hello dog

under the bridge now do I kiss, whose swollen hands becoming ground and ground becoming  - a language, rooted in inchoate remembrance, opening to rain, rain washing the black carbon, sulphur, exhaustion from the shining leaves. now do I kiss who, who, who.

shining, leaves.

hello you.

I wrapped your shroud around my wound many times. your ears, on the inside, were black. you were fried but the make-up was good.



slow images bubbling up in front of the drowsing fingers - the motorbike, the motorbike
the red motorbike in the driveway, this meant nothing

till I remembered the motorbike I sold
till I remembered the motorbike you said
I'm going to drive it off the fucking bridge
(easy easy)
drunken beast in yellow plastic roaring no,
no you don't, if you loved me you wouldn't treat me like this

operatic

tentative fingers darling plumb your old helmet


prepare it for sale



check the tag for size



& on my fingers comes the smell of rancid skin


 (I pours like sand in a funnel into itself. am I ok? am I ok? embellishment of sand, a funnel for sand made of sand. of course I's not ok. wants to stop here, in a tragedy of gagging in the sink

only, nothing stopped there or started there, more questions, open your eyes

It was at a conference in a school gym. I was about to leave for the southernmost city and we fought. I told you how much I hated you - was jealous of your intelligence and hated my stupidity. You knew and understood and said some things back, and some things about being older - it was enough and we embraced - you wrapped your legs around my waist and I held you like that for ages and ages, we cried, we kissed passionately, not sexually, you were light and I supported you with my hands on your back - I could feel how lively you are in your whole body, and this energy like a frustrated rocket forward into dark, nothing to do with me. The conference went on wrapping up behind us but the little kids were running around and playing where we were - R was in the background, T took a photo, M's little daughter, now a toddler, came and talked to us about why, why, why....

after listening for a while I was sure the sound was from either a radio or a television - not live people. I didn't remember a tv or radio in there but now I felt safe enough to open the door. the mirror was almost still, reflecting just the net curtain. speakers - the sound was coming from the two dusty black speakers on the empty bookshelves. a local radio station. it was soft and fuzzy, much quieter than it had seemed from outside the door. there was no radio attached to the speakers, just an old amplifier. perhaps the speakers were picking up the signal through electrical interference. it was a quiet conversation about a WWII protest action, the recount of someone who had helped to turn back the Fascists on a suburban street.

the streets were wet, running with water, shining with coloured light. the drains were full and gurgling. I hd an idea of the route Lacey would take on her morning walks with Jose, down to the park by the lake and I planned to follow it. There were so many ways she could have been caught along the way, or even distracted.

construction crew at the end of the street