Michael Pickering
from aerogrammes from an empty sky
1
The deeds of a flatdweller,
the quiet breaks of summer,
aerogrammes in an empty sky.
Bits fallen, from which
a mystery
is gently composable.
2
An exhibition of Chagall
is always somewhere;
for instance,
in washing on the unusual diagonal:
remote, yet convivial.
4
Pressing pencil to paper
dims each light
puts undanced feet
in pedantic fetters -
only saying brings fear.
But the makers fret
at unpointed brick.
10
The blond trained optician
flickered behind
schizoid face masks:
astray, astride, astir,
we dodged many devices.
The fierce everyday
seems tamer
when light words
froth not dance
but spindrift
over the beach-shore
before tested eyes.
13
The white noise and
faintly yellow office light
lay up - like hungry house plants -
nutrients
to whirl in the blood
for passing the ears at night
for the dark - at the waterline -
15
What if
in just this fold
of the moment,
any moment, I can be free,
and even the storm
gathering reflections
in my mind, stretching out
cracked time like a soft mirror,
reveals perished sponges,
rusty oddments,
or other horrid homeliness?
Over it, thank God,
the poem’s soapfilm stretches
soft bands, light bands.
Hate is only unfreeing
deliberation,
the dead other, surfacing;
love is only opposites’
cohesion deepening.
Page(s) 131-132
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