If there is the poet (and) a gait of words
If there is some mode of address (I) silence for it
If there is the quiet cool abstract for such heat
          (let go of me)
                         like spring snow (once) indexing fire
say 'I love you' (works) the gate
say 'I can't let you go' (drifts) this ever-folding shepherd season
then walk through me (I'm) open there's
          (and) the edge-bound gorgeous verb
touch the bark of the sequoias (snows) the instant
tag the emptiness (with) 'metal names'
+ steels the corral of passing

+ (it) is the interceptor, sudden, always
+ (it) seems such brutal nutrition, + +
plus I didn't expect this additional summer,
          but I longed for it, I thought of you
+ the broken technique of objects, a biography
+ the new sign
+ wakes the death of new signs, throughway,
          peak, the blossom of amnesia
plus the too-local heart, the mammalian surge
          the seal-fat weights, the sound
          of someone crying
+ Emperor Moment at play
+ the minus–plus of this
+ the sublime addendum
plus the still-sound
          of someone crying
+ the boy in the doorway, forgetting's
+ butterfly in a shit-stained cocoon
          of a splitting sleeping bag
+ lightning, a true story
+ lightning, a false story
+ lightning, and a kind of call
+ that same call, the one you love,
          broken, waiting for a voice to be
+ the still-sound of the lightning
          of someone crying
+ meaning, our common home
+ meaning, the rain
+ meaning, the building
+ meaning, a human dwelling
+ meaning, the way through
+ meaning, the rain the building
+ meaning, the rain the lightning the running
          for shelter, the still-sound
          of someone crying, and hearing, and home
+ I love you, this is what I made for you
+ let's not be afraid anymore
+ life never lies: let's live
+

+ we could call this 'childproof', or the 'last poem'
+ 'of' + the house, I must
+ 'the house of meaning is always empty' — enter
+ the luminous semiotician
+ the gorging mind
+ the revision
+ the luminous semiotician, saying:
' Yes, but the house of meaning is always empty' — enter
+ the edge where the end began
+ the ending
the neverending
+ subject + verb (in situ) fix
+ 'I must have' +
+ the edge where the beginning ceased
+ I must have + objects (fix)
+ the nocturnal dance of toys
+ I must have (I) fix (please) + there must (objects)
+ more I must have (fix) please, there must be
objects for the subjects (please)
+ fix +
I must have
surplus +
the ending
the neverending
plus more — plus more and more
+ more, endlessly
+ the athletes running
the luminous semiotician, saying (the house
of meaning) + (is always)
plus dust in the cities and dust on my shoes
+ nubile ghosts
+ the dried lightning of old men
+ History, that new thing
+ the labouring necklace of mothers + that great futile
          clasp of human beings (ring)
+ a golden Hermes, trapped racing in an obsolete position
+ a bracketed silence ( ) + white noise
+ Victory
+ oblivion where clouds
+

Everything is sudden

Copyright © Michael Ayres, 2003.

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