THESTRAWBERRYALARMCLOCK…
tips its thin-stretched shadow
across my face
the jug boils
and the worm in the night
sambas by lamplight
syphons the air/
2
the quickness of life
homes in on the heatwave
of a town’s excitement
the jug boils
and time leans sharply on its axis
the earth’s voice slips on peoples’ tongues
it flashes in eyes / which speak of
wakefulness / intent / of
going to Te Mana o Turanga
3
the strawberryalarmclock
lip-reads my thoughts / tracks
my movements up streets
past boys and girls / the high jinx clatter
*
shall i enter the self portraits
of this house / the
wooden look-alike carvings
the dusty
atmosphere
of used-by names
the descending axis of time leans sharply
4
under this roof
the adzed hydrocephalic heads
follow the wand-like shifts of my hands
i touch
the features of a father a mother
their son
with his curled nub of hair
5
going to Te Mana o Turanga
is a fern-frond experience
unfolding known guardians /
is a community
holding hands and never letting go /
like today
how delicate the veils
of narcissism / how
dangerously delicate
to live
within the window dimensions
of a red-stained pool
of brittle flowers
6
the strawberryalarmclock
leans sharply on its axis of time
the jug boils
and i imagine someone methodically
shuffling courtesies / i drink
a cubist’s perception
of a cloud in coffee
BELONGING…
is how light grips
a comet’s cranium
fragments itself
into the hollowed-out horn
of its keeper /
clouds burst
on an early sunrise
i hike the city / the length of the river
the homes the apartments the butcher
baker and his dog dancing
after shadows
i continually think of your lips
which register your pout of the day
which spell out reactions
sensitivities / various intakes of breath
which express a one-sided argument
you seem to want to give substance
to imagery
unlock it
show it
a conjuring circus of wild life
is exhibited
by your wishes
to belong
focuses on the totemic priority
of who pushes down hardest
whose words
are squashed / mangled
dropped
into the dirt / then resurrected
you’ve slipped me into your envelope of silk
into a dreamer’s prophecy
you’ve a method of loving /
holding on
to your abacus
of rituals
the blue shrine which grows amongst the hibiscus
which unwraps its future for public inspection
sheds its golden dome every winter
the blue shrine’s doors never close
i assimilate the early-bird pervasiveness
of a fragrant fall-out
i think continually
of being with you
of how to drape myself around god’s astral neck
and spin new prayers from the tongues of bells
the pageantry of morning resumes
the waking of sheep cattle the man
the woman in the street the child
tipping the first clear parable to her lips
the blue shrine illuminating its gates