Explorations

note: The Red Sandbox

is the invitation to sketch

‘Watchmaker’s sweepings, Juggling Act, Souvenir of Monte Carlo, Chimney Sweeper’s relic,

Thousand & One Nights, Mayan feathers, White Landscape, From the Golden Temple of Dobayba (conquistador), Sailor’s Game, Venetian Map, Mouse Material’

an elegy that dares to celebrate

itself; a cursive

sleight of sand

thrown like a bad pun,

like a blessing

or a convalescent hymn

coaxed

from the parched lips

of an elderly relative

(not quite recalling your name)

“this was dance itself”

bird’s eye view upon a panther’s skin

explorations of pink slipper lace / silver hairpin

these gold borders, queens that flower like a dedication

crossed out and drawn anew: a glass of iced tea

through which to symbolize mal du Suisse

in the crystal palace, hoops in barred windows

guessing at the premier of an inn

er family.

Escape not with Tom, who left home,

but with Laura, who could not.

 note: Medici was an underwater

lineage of  orphaned princes

& a gloaming cabinet for the princess,

her face the snowed blank side

of an unsent postcard 

two children are threatened by a rubber ball.

slumming with the rudiments of talk –

a nightingale frames

play

jacks

up

in the shooting gallery

whereby a harlequin differs

from the usual copy and edit.

these eaters of oak and sandstone –

we walk and walk and dream of mountains

(…sigh…)

note: we desire to CATCH UP

i collect a breed of mausoleum.

clingfilm tight over the matchbox

so we can pay our respects: the earwig has a daisy

slid between curled limbs, as though in sleep it gripped the stem

(the flower less than half a thumb in length).

                       

an open casket funeral, very dignified; quiet, still.

some took solemn pride in the gravity of their loss

and made sure to observe: she lived a full life.

it was made known. we said our goodbyes and left.

 

sketching burials in the air – as if they can all be held

together, suspended in their rightful orders.

emptying pockets for a magpie’s prize

these moments 

coveted like marbles

are staged

in the closed orbit

of a chalked circle.

too scuffed to shine, almost emptied       blind

but at the right angle – a glance between them

            opens –

  

pausing at the gate, i cannot identify the grave

but the moss, pouched across its gothic script

suggests something

between distance and a shrugged proximity

(overgrown monuments ask that we remember

in the act of forgetting, or that forgetting

is the foliage of trying to remember)

until some form of now pins “back to life”

to a passage of recording

in the moth-dust, burnt, left in arcs across the bulb.

in its storied absence powdered

touch flustered on the glass

it might

return me to a brighter distance 

  

these are stars that patiently braid aerials

and we let it happen through a window.

before us in the long grass,

a kneeling translator fluffs the message.

books transcribe

a rippled dance of iron filings;

fanned in brackets, outward from a moment’s pulse

but confined to knots and innuendo

hidden in the footnotes. though

there is an honest and pained desire

to get it out there, faithful to the tangle

and somehow flavoured with the breath

of how it happened

and how we felt it happened –

the two are waltzing, parting, and, in the fold of evening

storming off to separate lives.

leftovers

might audition their worn and humbled selves

to be loved again,

if only as relics.

on this occasion

we turn our backs to the stage,

not knowing where

the real act is scheduled

or if the curtains

ever raise.