three: K

the ghost

(connect trans.)

Telegraph

of my | breakfast

is singing on | the radio

fleets of armour

belonging to Germany

or China perhaps

a forest

of humming prayers

of witness | of balance | the books | the tie-ins | the star billing

of the honest

eastern prayer of 1943

portray them cow-eyed,

ushered

(from rum & coke

- tremens)

(o)

(&)

(disconnect trans.)

[open the white smile

of the news

I remember you

in Lodz

between photo

polish & grain

under cedar trees

or was firs]

Fragment ends

[was firs,

wasn’t it? the cones

or amongst them

in them

- mouths full of them]

(connect trans.)

in New York

you leaned against

the white box-van’s

graffiti’d flank

& pointed at the moon

or was it the reflection

of the moon

in the glass of fifth avenue

& you asked me

to give up [smoking]

(o)

(&)

(The Bronx ghetto

used in an early ‘70’s

movie as a stand-in

for the ruins of Berlin, 1945)

(o)

(&)

(flawless snow & cold beer)

(disconnect trans.)

He had been in carriage No. 162; his name was hidden in a pendant. His mother came to Rostov & recognized him & took him home.

(o)

(&)

(welcome home, Kolya. Welcome home.)

••••••••••••••••••••

this house is too big for me alone

At night they play music very loud and laugh at my discomfort

bitter as wormwood.

this is silver music over salmon rock

in amongst last autumn's leaf colour

look

here is the shadow

at the windmill

••••••••••••••••••••

In the Call Center, we are asked to redirect those souls whose bodies were burned in the big fire. The problem with burning deaths is that those who died this way tend to feel more entitled. Don’t ask me why but I suppose they feel a certain amount of purity in that nobody was required to dispose of them. What this particular group of burners don’t understand is that they were riddled with plague and that is why the offices were bombed. It did not have to do with the rogue protestations- it was a simple Alliance maneuver. We of course keep our voices neutral and only give the most basic information, affirming their deaths and advising them to call in two weeks for reassignments. In all likelihood, they will be assigned to a group whisper project in which the various names of God are released via the collective whisper into the higher winds. This is done as a sort of comforting measure to the citizenry below and has no other known uses. Group whisper assignments are often tedious despite the spectacular views but they don’t know this yet. It appeals to their egos, makes them feel like proper saints and why not really?

Today has been madness, so much so that some of the fetish angels have been asked to help out. They are, all in all, useless but they make the room livelier. One of them even brought a box of lurid pink donuts from some crime scene, which they keep tossing at each other and giggling. None of them really ever sit down and they get the death codes all mixed up. We keep telling them to enter DBF/PLG CARRIER for this batch but they prefer IMM for immolation because they like the operatic effect. It is irresponsible but what do you expect from fetish angels? They see so much gore on a daily basis that they can’t help but be irreverent. One of them starts humming “The Ride of the Valkyries” and the rest join in.

Since the great fire, only the mouth of the Statue of Liberty floats on the water. Riders on the Staten Island ferry blow it kisses when they go pass. Nobody knows how this trend started, but it is not intended as a joke apparently. Mr. Hegel says to become free is every thing but to be free is nothing. I wonder how this applies to the floating lips if it does at all. He has not been calling here lately. For a while it was every day. I think he is angling to have some phrase of his group whispered. I told him that this is not done, but I think he also just likes to talk to me. He likes to talk about Schumann and Berlin. He will talk about the Alliance sometimes, but all in all they don’t impress him. “One secret note rolled up and hidden away is better than fifty cameras”, he tells me, “and that’s why they’ll never succeed”.

••••••••••••••••••••

I wait for the call that will be from her, but it never arrives.

it is in the barcode

some lean slight to the left

others to right.



6 hours to do 3 hours work

so in between I remember you in a boiler suit

your hands the colours of christmas wrapping paper

whisky in coffee.



black and white the light scans

the rice pudding

her apron

the photograph when

stood at the front of the cottage by

the new electric lamppost.

It comes back most when the leaves are rotting away

the pond is still

and green

and the bubbles in the ice move.

I love the noise of moving ice.



--------------------



I stand at the garden gate and look towards the house.

the pig sty, the hen house and the orchard
of small tight red apples
shook to the ground.

the clouds were ploughed grey
ash fallen from the grate eyelids
powdered. everywhere was a storm of green
red crocosmia in between daisy white

it wasn't far to walk across the field to the church.

then it would happen

the red slate
s would slip but t
hen we would

walk straight
towards the ol
d oak.

the smell of hand cream
warmed on hot water bottle

the foxglove purple on that bank
where once they tied horses.



here
i always take a taxi. we like taxis. we like taxis very much.
we like being driven around
new york

••••••••••••••••••••

zargzap •
heaven hot as coins •

whiteouts roaring • husher, surgical • stuck-o, on wreck

• all that year’s pop song • songed in the attic •
grassy • revolutionary
violence •
communiqué • an asleep in the pub; a god •
•• attentive. tongues coilingnail
scissors, scratches
. the eye • PROPERTY ••• •• drumming ode to a nightingale onaspine • • • antic:

cannibal hats cry in out the night •

freaks + majesty clingfilm cop • •••magnetic ••exh~ibit, outland nark, o.ordinary street waves o••••••••f••••purplNOe •

• procession. >a thin sheet covers her thighs to her throat

her legs blades
her feet the lost night
•
terror enact speechlessness •••••••••••••GOODBE••••••••• ••••••••••••

her eyes alone



The texture of the room
fake.
QuFiet boy in cold s•o•cks at a window with metal shrubs rattling R
to take him in their arms. His sku
All OBSERVED dearchived in mirrors of paper • blotting
thMe storm continues,

a communiqué • i’
m learning to talkeEd. & radio dust on the floo.r •
scratch the way to the bathroom. i.n sun, let’s be freak . call the

Exterminator don’t replay& the door
shut & never.hallucinnation:owstrangers nshutme down

“robe so pale to rub with fire
human inhumans economico units
the darklings & their guard
word
Then” begins to howl. Hesitantly at 1
st, all the world there is & obliterate
units, zuzzing, in cold socks thumps

the shrubs cackle back. warehouse siren/miles away.

specimen texts: 1.they could not jail us for we did not exist
2.by cause it calling out the name it called
recoiled summarise unillusion sweet
stinging jug of ash trespasses corres
ponding postindustrial storm-hammer,
a gut brace of instants in love powder
s draining from her acrobat blanketed
operate the zero droid blüio bluïo
law efflorescence immanent flappy
angels hurtling teeth on teeth sidelongly
zephyrised coveralls, unpathed mazes

sign

••••••••••••••••••••

the voice of Tom Watts is somewhere here [there]