rustling, caught.
one floating rib wedged between branch and flesh,
breathing in the residue of a skinned layered bark.
shoddy whiteness rolls
over,
into,
onto,
in-between
the thud of
your wingless scapula,
and outstretched forearm.
the cable ties, wires and strip light
ask if we can
address,
redress
these marks made
as
acts of being.
where does violence sit in the caress of our touch?
held out,
balanced:
on your knees,
in-between your thighs,
scratches press and unfold struggles
imprinted,
fatigued
and failed -
not through want of trying but through trying to want.
combing leaves as strands of hair caught
between
what once was
and what must be.
when did we start and how do we stop?
untangling,
caressing the besmirched ponytail until it’s pulled,
picked and
severed from its branch:
scattered foliage leave traced trajectories of
spun out,
fleeting,
fragments of loss.
light faced,
light facing,
splintered cracks,
wooded thighs,
the pace quickens -
caught now between your arm and stomach
a sharp
jutted
out
splintered trunk
holds you
pinned
to your right shoulder.
knowingly
body re-members
the teeth,
clenched,
biting.
bark peels and lifts,
gut pressed,
anticipating the oncoming repetition of actions:
tip toed,
high heeled,
sawed for them,
sawed back and forth,
seething,
seeing.
we saw
(and felt your image)
head on a string, drag-necked, your shadow casts flagged, motionless, floating corpses.
how tense is the string, how complicit are we in witnessing the outlines of paper crossings drowning in asphalt and chalk?
hazard tape, red tape:
the mallet will strike you if you let go,
but if you hold on then you asked for it.
cycling around and against the passing hands that lay scattered
in the middle of the numberless tarmac-ed clock:
wide eyed and circled,
does your hand gyrate at the same speed as the mark that winds itself around your neck?
knees high into your chest where each hard pedal has them almost reaching your chin,
water marks dissolve in the circling speedy tracks of
cumulative instances
and
unrelenting process:
Clock In
Clock Out
weeeeeeehueyweeeeeayeweeeeeeweeewe
when it fails,
when it drops,
when it won’t be caught,
when you bind your hand to the second hand as the first one lays restless on the ground,
can you feel it vibrate into your stretching skin as it passes through you?
and yet I’m surprised at how silent the black slender linear block is
as you ride over it,
until you try to
reach it,
touch it,
move it,
kick it,
grab it.
circling around it
incessantly,
compulsively,
predatorily,
again
and
again,
a-round
an (in)finte loop.
0
0
0
0
ribbons caress the rose-meal as you stop and stare - is it a 1000 yards yet?
one eyed,
tinted glass steadies the stance of knuckled up phalanxes that graze the sand.
pressure points stand to attention
and salute left chested roses held as armour,
as a lover lost,
a rifle passed.
the skewered stems are poised:
ready to lance water whilst the ribbons drag in the sand.
1
4
2
1
a fifteen minute break after five hours:
objects don’t bend here, they fall and spill into footprints and tyre tracks.
necklaced ghosts follow behind your regimented figure, here shrouds defy carbon dating:
if decay is constant - what are our half lives?
4
3
1
2
4
2
1
3
Rolled paper on concrete,
untexted pages of cemented desire lunge towards the cycle at the entrance,
spiralling out onto the borderless edge,
sprawling through a peripheral surface seeking solace.
(la soglia)
a seed floats on,
lightly balanced.
your paper sits precariously on your left shoulder
at the threshold of the doorway.
the wind carries it away,
slipping and reaching out into an opening
before it rebounds backwards,
ensnared by its own circularity and looped memory.
stopped short of escape.
i heard you cradle a fallen branch
holding it close,
gently wrapped into a sarcophagus,
hidden,
dark,
cocooned inside its womb,
before it was cut out,
in a carefully dissected impulse
felt through generations past, and lovers present,
leaving only its casing
in the shape of an instrument tuned in G.
what does safety’s sound feel like?
in chords,
in bark, ,
in leaves
the vibrations spread fasciculating through excited particulate dances.
tip toed chair, low lying wood,
the drag, the drag,
(it’s been 100 seconds to midnight since the first month of this year)
(your sanded memorial is piling up and the layers are yearning for softness).
circular crossings in front of red yarn:
strung out - walled in - brick backed -
wrapped up limb by limb and packaged,
the outline of your mould is cast and laid mummified onto the concrete floor.
what shape does longing leave behind?
on the ground:
when gravity bends time,
does its taste leave a pattern on our lips?
close to the ground:
if gravity distorts space and time,
and the force of the pull depends on the distance between you and i,
could our touch dissolve the measurements between language and bodies?
into the ground:
if time is a numerical order of change,
could we lie within its meander,
swinging from side to side,
between flow and erosion,
when it fans out, losing speed, and its restlessness dissipates within the meeting of
an-other wet body?
as time spirals out into an indeterminate dierence between traces,
the lingering unlanguage of formless space cradles us all.