sleep for everyone /
a millennia of rest and absence /
from the waking history that is /
a communal closed-eye effort /
slumber through fires murmuring /
in the streets every day /
spreading their singe in weeded neighbourhoods /
lay a head perpendicular to the rising effort /
to make rest a gated attraction only
there is a tired message on the recording /
clicking the seconds off /
tooth on tooth /
unwinding the day’s length /
shut down eyes /
so they are only bulges below skin /
sleep soundly /
not waking up to any language
how to tell the difference /
between rain and the rain /
one is many and /
one is many one /
a rare errand to count them all after falling /
still spotting where each drop burst /
to know where every thing is lost /
one by one accumulating /
is how to receive rain /
and the unexpected knocks on all doors
almost like eyes /
thumbholes in fresh dough /
baked onto the skull /
all is light rejecting the surface /
no more common sight /
rename particles allowed to enter the retina /
a sun in a marshy ditch thrums /
thin, tremolo strings illuminate bands of earth /
each a different thread /
of colours, shades, textures /
shaping a unique scape around
to want means the end of this world /
the colour, the sound, the scent /
tucked up under the wing /
and dropped in the night sea /
where dark water is up and down /
filling the sky and weighting the land /
the head always arched up /
looking for waves of light /
and the blue where we walk
marry this handful of water /
dripping daily from the eavestrough /
plotting its stain on the morning ceiling /
the sky is the oldest splatter /
spreading beyond any simple gesture to contain /
place a hand along the table’s edge /
fleshy dam stopping up the flow /
from being lost along another named street
some new combustible /
some thing beyond fire’s lick /
some body born in the char /
pulling a new planet forward /
some many seizing light as focused /
as a blade’s edge sharpened endlessly /
pointed into an infinite /
some figure, a living multiple /
shaping above the city’s line /
breathing out unrecognizable names /
of the constellations to come
ever the last, old engine block abandoned in a canola field /
your charred grey hulk has a pale yellow glow /
from the rapeseed bending over the hollow cylinders /
wind is a whistle through your cracks and rods /
finally cooling after a life of controlled explosions /
the petrol resource has run dry for you /
your bores now overflowing with slick rain
another new limb today /
two blocks long with eleven thousand index fingers /
each with an irradiated fingernail /
capable of melting a 3/4 inch hole in cinder blocks /
and carving uneven shapes in floor to ceiling glass /
the cut-outs falling inward splintering /
puncturing in constellation patterns on the soles of soft feet /
is verse always aboil? /
a root fire burning without smoke or sign /
in vacant lots of refurbing neighbourhoods
time is too small to believe in /
said the extra spilling coffee /
on the 35 mm camera /
film exposed too soon /
before the image makes its case /
for worldly residence