Too late to put an end to it | Touch the bruise as if | dipping a finger | into a pool | feel the pain | ripple | to heal | Placed a building | in my glance | stone doorway | no record | of the people who | entered and left | that way | You open | the fist’s | flower | in a long-lashed eye | aubergine and café noir | charcoal and ashes | hint | of flamingo | peach-skin | dawn | The doorway | waits | Life | flings | you from your own | uncurling | fingers | and thumbs | Ice | is good | They didn’t know | any of them | where they were | couldn’t | draw the contours on the journey | The stone | either side of them | the clock with its | temporary stage and wings | the calendar | the quarry | the parameters… | Some thought | they were about | to leave | Some thought | they were arriving
I | put your lipstick on | because | I want to feel | close to you | Envelopes with news of deals | needing | Sure, I’ll… deal… with… | Air in the wardrobe | Blood, I’m afraid, on the mirror | and the dresser | and the chairs | It seems | I am | a gangster of Europe | Old | letters in a rack | drained | airmail blue | stamped | franked | with dry | visas of passage | Shadow | under the bed | Centuries | in the washers | It seems I am | related | to other | hard men | to street punks | to all the | pointless | bravos | to gangsters | in America | to yakuza | and most honourable | gangsters in China | White suit | florid tie | diamond links | heavy | gold | on my fingers | pull up | in the heart | of the financial | quarter | Why do they | insist upon | a different | order? | Go their own | free way? | Threw a door | from my glance | and felt my muscles | tense | before the lightning | sighed to | hit | You cannot | leave me now | no matter | what you think | You will have | a hint of | dawn | round your | long-lashed | eye | and your look | clings | a moment | to what | the lightning | lit | I want this | to go on | and yet | I put an end to it
from the series fleeting pixel (series of 1,000 poems, 2012–2016)
(this poem, November 2015)
hypergram 