close
precursors to a smokeless
ruins of which
onto,
eviscerated
pearls are
cannon fodder is
drag my
to my
the crumbling mortar and eroded
on
back at the icy
the
nitroglycerine and powder that stick to the spores on
::
inhabiting
housing
the
clamber
the
of
whose
which
i
peculiar
into
brick
biting
stored
misplace
as
still,
still,
still,
contact
walls
propellant,
i
into,
within,
insides
shells:
cast?
used?
loneliness,
hauntings,
clay.
brick,
wind,
chemicals
memories
ledges
standing,
waiting,
wanting.
close
precursors to a smokeless
ruins of which
onto,
eviscerated
pearls are
cannon fodder is
drag my
to my
the crumbling mortar and eroded
on
back at the icy
the
nitroglycerine and powder that stick to the spores on
your echoes press into the found bones i wrap with feathers
singed by the conflict we celebrate in memorials.
this calcareous frame, numb and cold, drains the colour from fingers visited by pinned needles and splintered nails.
white on grey: ghostly traces shiver - deep marrowed - and apoptotic cells continue dividing until there is no more blood.
necrotic debris falls softly from graves beneath my sighs.
semicircles on the sides of the builder's line trace an ephemeral witnessing,
sensed through a body putting together a future felt within the touch of concrete.
here, collisions are replaced by caresses, and stones - by pressed chests on each other’s breath.
within the fumes we are claiming our house, our building, back from the burning.
it’s freely given by intention, by trust, by compassion, by the complexity of our humanity.
we don’t need perfect symbols, we can be - messy, leaking and obtuse and still get it
- together
and gather
our inner contours, in lips unsealed, in half opened recesses of folds expanding, possessed by defiance, becoming unstuck from
the familiar pain of loss.
( and the distance they place between me and you shortens through the desolate landscapes coating our epidermal layerings.)
:: 15 minutes
As the anemometer reads the trajectory of airborne droplets between your breath and mine,
it registers an incomplete situation -
- but i keep re-membering,
putting back together the parts of things i thought i knew -
and each time they emerge differently,
each story as multiple versions of feeling sense through shame.
entangled and confused, you pathologise my queerness when you can't love it in yourself.
this is a gesture for these stones, holding out for rainbows:
we become our own witnesses, forgiving ourselves for the marks made by ancient bigots.
the wind’s laminar flow
levels through trembling strata,
into this space of holding,
where silent engrams await for recall
and the body takes over in a process of cellular interventions.
(our doing proceeds the conversations we can’t have with words.)
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
after
wall after
wall
after
wall
after
wall
AFTER
WALL.
ghosts rise from the cordite fumes,
glass shards tear at the plucked feathered down and hushed glossal scratchings.
roofless, inverted triangles form gateways that flow between liminalities and libidinal impulses,
rendered visible through being seen.
their formless words dig through thought to find bodies that yearn for the softness of quivering membranes and viscous, mucoid borders.
on the horizon, dry tongues tie to a popping sherbert language,
laying down their desiccated words onto fluorescent rice paper saucers.
(sheep look on and follow us with herd like amnesia - until they realise our hands can't feed.)
pillow cases laden with ash from the tarred feathers we carry
make space for communal emotive dreaming:
we are lovers to ourselves and each other, to a future, that was here, an hour ago.
:: in less than 6 feet
the burnt embers between my thighs leave skinned imprints in the form of willow chalked sticks cradling dull aches and lost fragments.
(of cold aluminium and steel edged moss)
breathing in this lichen matter, the hard particulate scratches at my pores, grazing the fine hairs erected from nerves autonomously responding to
the drop,
the trace,
the fear.
phantom pain radiates from truncated limbs waiting to be found.
elbowing my way towards the strangeness of atmosphere and the floating phantasms that sit on these collapsing walls,
i talk with memorials and my amnesia expands beyond the familiar forgotten concrete.
dialogues lurk, under, where xanthoria parietina clings, loosely, just before i come to the full stop.
flying,
with failing rusted rods,
raised by flanked arms,
fixed on a point between the horizon and my gaze,
fear, memory and hope triangulate on concrete structures witnessing the scars of conflict.
in grey tights,
on frozen ground,
the sting of iced mud begs my feet to stay on the cement.
trembling fingers, concentrate on the tie between line, phalanx and rod.
the hairpin tries to unsuccessfully secure the orange outlines into the ground by found femoral hitting.
laddered up onto the dividing wall, thin cracks appear across a slapped face with rectangular openings:
the duvet, stuffed on the steel rungs will not cushion my fall as it hinders my ascent.
(the last time these flakes fell so wide i was losing what we had just created.)
as your ghost passes through, the chill leaves an indelible mark.
these feelings coalesce into a voice hurdling over the expelled pieces of longing i carry inwards.
beyond half way, still on edge - just here- precariously - the tension- unravels time that has already run out before i began.
clutching the nylon braid, the reel hangs at a slow spin between what was and what can be.
cordite dreams
Video: Matt Mahony-Page