Ethnic Rinse
You say: they’re lost in the tunnels, under the fields
You say: now is hardly the time to be waving placards
tell me, loam and clay thickening between your toes
what brick-dust and glass feel like underfoot
Evil accelerates
froths from skies and circulates with the coffee
in cataleptic delirium, greentext trance
the walls, the ships, the moles as high as a a
complete collapse of metaphor, parataxis
drip, run, hide, dodge, read the morning paper
lost in the screenworld, the glue between the lines
the summer corn as high as Stalin or Pol Pot’s eyes
~
Powers of the Water
her frozen fingers
work her hair
into a fishtail braid
waiting for a letter, one-sided, wondering
if a single word, like love, might not be redacted
on Mapledurham Hill
the moon is a sun
seen through five fathoms of water
and kicking our legs like frogs we lift off
candles lit, swim up and up and up to
too soon
or not too soon
journeys are hard
come in from the yard and wash your hands
your face, before you sit at the table
mutinous
hours too soon
unmarked cars
the rap on your door several hours before dawn
mad but not mad enough
to write
dust in the night
bats in a rage
wheel and scream and the rising sun breaks
like an egg across my face
scratched ankles
on rough maple bark
a vixen barks
walnuts honey and wine, her treasure always
one snowflake in a silk-lined box
~
Geoff Sawers
