Deadly Pollen | Page 2

featureless, not the disorganized
weather it truly is, as much a part of

the breathing stars as constancy of rock.
The 'Mr Whippy Man'
weaves
Greensleeves in and out of suburbia; a
caravan in search of
a trade-route -
via the village that never existed.
8
*
How is it the floating island
detaches itself from horizon in dream -

its first appearance, otherworldly,
but of this world, a wheel loosened

from the world's ratchet, out of time,
riding above it and inhabited
by
folk fixated upon a particular
theorem-thought; elevated
imponderables,
whereby you access this island by door
set
underneath as you sail under?
Islands, a dream of round towers!
the
sudden rush of water under hulls.
*
Mediocre raiders lie in wait.
Teeth clack in sleep, dreams fraught

with ambush. Orders intercepted,
encrypted to the house style.
The
litterateur tracked back through
his ISBN to no man's land -
the
robotic verb activated, sent
in under barbed metaphor strung out

where trees once stood as
camouflage. The voices from his

hill-bunker a wind turbine. Accusations
tumbled in the night. For

months he
heard soft hammering, mimicry;
they failed. Could not
beat back the
weather on his chosen ground.
*
Time passes - that pressure in
space again - return of the unoriginals

tinkering with the power-box -
such fine work - setting traps out

for darkness. Time passes -
talons curve and hook - how the
mouth
chokes with ash. Feet drag
muffled under dungeons. Time passes -

that pressure in space again - a
new proclamation from Semiotic City
-
this custom built dome and
aquarium light, pulsing: henceforth,

no corners to hide around - no zone
permitted for surprise to leap.
*
Hugely, our indifference squats -
unleavened as fear, blood is
contained
within news footage. Archaeologists
stop digging deserts
because of
landmines. Camels wait for sand dunes
to drift into
ridges - blue flags flutter
back at Fort Apache on brave
white trucks
(what gets through
is the scent of coffee). A footless boy
hobbles
past, bargain hunting,
a life at odds & ends - smoke drifts
over
Manhattan, out across the Hudson
river as from a Bedouin campfire.
*
Circuit; right hand wise,
homage to the sun - as did ancient
Celts,
Scythians, too - host to
the Milesians on their last leg to
Ireland as
the first Celts castaway -
whose home precinct the Black Sea,
the
right hand to the centre;
memoried in standing stone circles.
Yet
homage to a sun as walking
pillar of fire, with hell for a coronet?

The world's breath and mystery
end here, earth's innards engorged -

sprawled redly coast to coast.
*

If streets had cobblestones
blood would flow in tatters - torn
flags
to a revolution lost. Streets
smoothly ease to drains. The cut deep,

and blood wakes from its blackness,
crushed as berries in the runnels

of a wagon, oozes its oil from
the body's casket - til flesh becomes

porcelain, perfect surface for moon,
ice, the glass-edged sky to
play upon;
in silences deep as birch in the
bayoneting dark - and
leaves finally
resemble paper money piled up
under the turbined
lamplight.
*
A Public Works draughtsman
spent thirty years designing the City

Sewerage Reticulation System
he eventually hoped to escape through
-
a masterpiece! A prairie dog would
have been proud of it.
Complex of
accented runs, angles, drops, sluices,
pumps, ditches,
endless unbowed
archways, treatment ponds breaking into
sunlight
- the architects of Athens
would have been proud of it.
Only on
paper - not one trowel lifted!
miles and miles and miles of it.
*
Pyrrha, your dewy hair,
yellow, scented, doubly wreathed
in
Jasmine, fresh from the trellis
this morning - your new lover yet to

arrive, breathless. Your tantrums
are as sea-storms, heart-wrecking

for that unsuspecting voyager - maybe
as survivor, I might warn him

against your squally lust, he won't
find safe haven in your arms!
This note
is record enough - that I set down
against your lubricous
hold.
See: Horace's 'Pyrrha' ode. I,v.
*
The flames above the wall,
private show for the Gods, the city

burned three days, at night, smoke
warmed the stars. Border forest


shifted with shields - scritch-owl,
a horse's impatient breath - the
hawk
wheeled under a pennant moon.
In the grey dawn men turned
North.
The druid notched these events
onto trunks that lead to
deeper wood -
envisioned - silence, incantation;
the God found
within the stone.
*
Once cradle of civilization -
now crucible, a sandstorm of tanks,
a
battery of rocket-launchers
each one bright as a guiding star
slams
home to its birth place, sand sprites
leap dervishly, limbs gad about,

horses buckle back upon themselves -
empty out like exhausted
bellows.
A beggar (in nameless rags) calls
out in either prayer or
curse to
the desert night first refuge for saints;
Cross and Crescent
belch fire.
*
Forty thousand tons. Space
dust, diamond and sapphire, snips
of
light, collect on earth yearly.
Dust breaks bread on our too dusty

planet; on our twice dusty planet;
on our overly dusty planet made

available to wind; dust breaks
down glaciers. Broken deserts from

sand storms deliver dinosaur dust,
highways loosen tyre dust, your

home a time capsule - our earth bent
dustward forsworn to decay.
*
A giallo antico moon framed
within cratered ruins. Country turned

up at the edges like a dirty postcard.
Poplars, broken spars of pine,

cypress. Dusty plane trees rubbed raw
by abrading tanks in the
market
square. Two ambulances shoved aside.
Kabul. The Republic
of Georgia's
snowy mountains [backdrop to some
desolate soccer
field]. A few lean
men shouldering grenade