Thursday 12 May 2016

from Blackwater Quartet, selection 107



Episodes in Omega

A trace of willow brightens
on the banks. A thinness of green
meanders in the current. It is spring.
It is April without compromise:
only fools like us believe life just.

There are seasons
escaping from the calendar,
no-name seasons. Their weather
is various, between summer’s brunch
and the consequence of leap year.

The girls at the cotillion
lacy, moving in practised repetitions
to a completeness only mothers
could imagine: obscene, I was removed,
centuries to sober.

Our lives are confiscate, phrased
with convention and the artifice
of getting-on. A broad blade opens
the belly of the supplicant.
A surreality sets the scene, insistent.

He followed them
through the back roads, caught them
where the lovers park. His ex, begging,
considers her situation, other lives.
The shotgun removes the head.

A voice from the flats,
raw with indignation,
what business
what business is it of yours—
I paid everything.
I paid everything.

I am under the car.
It will not wait. People are waiting
and it will not wait.
There is pacing and a voice
I cannot fix.

Between the carnage of the morning
and the carnage of the afternoon
they rested, ate boiled beef,
paid off the whores
moving between camps.

The lame crawled to the grotto
visited by the Virgin; walked away.
Ripe pustules receded. The blind
named colours, one by one,
lit candles to replace the sun.

Interference interrupted
the game show, first visual, then the rest
and no explanation.
Everyone hoped for the best,
hoping it was enough.

No comments:

Post a Comment