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From Moths (1999)


Part One: Ip


bees settling at sundown

bus to the blue dark to the dusk
so this is dusk says the shoes
disinclination choose my way of
privet smell over green against puncturing
rouge of promises summers all already
in the bag water climbs an invisible slope
women pass go they smell
of perfume men pass come they
smell of perfume of women
looks up at high windows you
are not leaning there in your man’s shirt
yesterday is still honey coats
love pain because it’s lonely and
well we all miss the bees I guess
sky will not go from me now turns
so this is why questions came all the way
out here water comes up like containment
an amputee livid over access
in another country the formal garden
take a turn for the worse around
own mazes fountains go fishing for permits
on women’s cheeks men’s lips simmer
they hold in their pockets bronze coins and realms
it will stroke the mole you have there if it
wants hirsute is like a little bee buzzes
stings when it is pushed and the astrakhan
elevator comes down in its trousseau anyway
all that is is saying is mannered in
a garter on the truncated thigh of—

-----
catsndogs

in the evening light!
birds settling for cats and the rush for the subjunctive
might somehow white space of the chestnut tree over roads as a verb
in the silence speech
cars cruise past upon the grid decreed
green pods where it gets the chance to be
dismal and people fight each other naturally
it is as good a place as any to face up to the tenth debacle and in facing down its lyrics prove to be no more than you are
come over to me when you feel you are ready to or by surprise and what a surprise that would be a biscuit of a surprise a buckle of astonishment the very very
blue limit of the red estates’ creep-off
a shocker saying kicking off your you
your shoes preaching “this is as good a place
as any” gorgeous concurrence white blossom drops
take us on the dalmatian of the birdcatdog
“and” is carried away by “chrome” to the people
the people who fight who are good
people who use their utility as they wish
green pods popping under foot the calm of vowels before
the sky of space is hemmed by stucco endlessly flaking
(how I hate stucco the stammer of it very)


-----
wintering in the midlands

as I come I see a nottingham
bat of light across my stiffened wrist
it hurts feeding there confusion rubbishes
and look at what’s left of it needs enunciation
we all do of my hobbies not much
it must’ve been my heart’s entreaty the curtains take
a walk and leave me to it parting myself
I could not say what I should
not say I never say I am
nothing if I am polite and
this in the tendons of the wrist
is what I would now like to be
it is the penguin’s bitten puck
in a way colours are really simple
and heat must rot the skin somewhat somewhere
(I pick off scabs minding my paperface is a full time)
and I wish I have a velvet bat too
pet during these bland catastrophes you
call on afternoons I am stuck on a zenith
stuck on you too as I come I feel
the uncanny closeness of a ballymoney shot put
out like a cat keeps from its dopplegangers
broke in heart results in


-----
four teens

fourteen clouds are drawn down stretched and hardening on the frame of their entrenched refusal to be only to be known they are fourteen japanese paper screens behind which are fourteen flowers in vases half smothered by thirteen discarded kimonos of fifteen colours. behind each screen a woman’s silhouette which you may be chasing showing a breast in outline as she twists the jug above her toilet and pours out
not water but the shuttle-cocked seeds
of boastful yellow flowers
I am not some crazy bastard I
just want some answers to some questions
and I am indefinite about that
pale beauty of dublin sat
beneath the clock a cat might
slouch up and love your offspring
werecats and caterwauls catatonics concatenations catastrophes new categories asail upon a globe like lake
the catamaran almost flying water
exploding from the double bows in cataracts and going sideways
spend your rationale in all national outlets
I leap above the strict no of the net
to catch the dove of the sidling shuttlecock
a paper mocking in the breeze a
rasp vase turning its back to the crabby rasp
falls off the embroidered silk one petal falls
onto one other and they meld like they’d be
love is a woman’s laugh can always be enchanting
you too were my felid not at all spiteful
all your amenities are soft and cloud left
how the victorians loved their guttering
because I also still intend love at you
my one tear falls atop it no
buy flowers grow it joins the water is a cycle

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