We went in to check out the show | On the pavement saints and martyrs were dying | It was business as usual at the Palais | we stopped by for beer and fries | And the lights on the matadors’ suits | sparkled | like the shards of coloured glass we found on the beach | held up to the sun | we couldn’t quite | fit our seeing in | On the other side | of those instants of blindness | I heard the ocean just | doing its thing | putting up its defence | making its case | for a large | share of oblivion | or a small | pinch of remembering | if you | thought you could do it | Superseded | range they said | we couldn’t get the parts | and a tech-head shrugged her shoulders | they didn’t any longer | provide support | When the first | tear-gas was fired | the crowd began running | a species of parrot went extinct | a new | intestinal fluke was discovered | the people dispersed | most of them | the army moved in | We sensed | a certain froideur at your parents’ | it seemed to me like the beginning | of a break-up
Some was lighter, the colour of a Pinot or a Grenache | some darker | more Malbec or Shiraz | Where it falls, on dirty flags or sand | on frosty cobbles | dusty tracks | there is a world | the floor | beneath the furniture | and beneath the floor | the earth | Born with slightly deformed legs | I couldn’t run or jump like other boys | I’ll choose | a different passion | and that passion | will lead me to a different end | But nothing ends
•
from the series fp2 (on-going sequence of poems, commenced 2016)
hypergram 