I open the window see electricity bleach the sky in far off codes of silence. The air is static pent with heat. I lie watching the curtains light up in morse as if a lighthouse dashes out rays […]
PNAutumn16
Rule No. 2 of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Jane Burden, his raven-haired lover stepping out of her curvilinear drapery is a naked model for Ecce Ancilla Domini. To study nature attentively: the abiding axiom. It is de rigueur: camera-like accuracy for a pink carnation lying on an open book, a collared dove or the opium poppy for Beata Beatrix, and, when he can’t […]
Triolet, triolet
All our operators are busy. You are moving forward in the queue. Your call is important to us. All our operators are busy. Please have your customer reference number, eight digit security code, Memorable name or date, and a credit or debit card to hand. All our operators are making love. You are moving forward […]
Jackdaw
after Charles Bukowski’s ‘Bluebird’ there’s a jackdaw in my head she’s in charge of the dark matter calls the shots from the back room light bulb swinging above her desk I hear her typing late at night the quiet genius that stays behind. now and then she pokes her beak through the trapdoor of […]
This too is art
Mondays, washing days, heaving sheets from one tub through the mangle into another tub on a wooden stand. Hands placing them, spacing them on a plastic line. This is street art where the westerly wind coming in from the beach takes the plumes from the iron works’ chimneys, lets them pass through this small town […]
Shakespeare Season
Rwanda, April 1994 The red dust road opens out to a schoolhouse where banana trees spread purple flowers unfurling sunlight, ready to fruit. In rough-cut classrooms the Hutu children sing praises to Imana under orders. The Tutsi children have been sent outside and stare in silence beyond the yard through pink angel-trumpets and yellow mimosas […]