Londonistan
america fundamental
'get me out of here'
Arms up, it comes
out onto a balcony
Naked almost
what it aspires to
Self-abolition
a dissolved sign
'Come out of there, and we . . .
We will not shoot you this time'
A man wrapped in paper a paper man
Wearing remains of an immortal book
'Yes. We can read you like a book!'
Hands over its flesh,
Was once a warm embrace
And did not want to touch
Something so shrivelled, it
speaks
To fade
With its dignity into the ground
English, like a curse
As if I'd invented a person
Alterior voice
And I had begun him
Is it naked on a balcony
Is it a word or a man?
Whose wounded appetites remote as music
These are the sounds of the air
A compound man already
Haunting the future —
Being all potential's
A gathering-point of forces
And half-way to being in another tongue
Where exile prints its name
Shallow
magnificence
Twinkling of an eye
It is like an illness you'll discover
Just go out there and scream!
The night speaker
Uneasy exuberance of its streets
Were what I had to cross, to a room full of presence
The curtain swayed evening sunlight pouring in
Pulse of the city beyond
Out here is your ground
As if waiting
For there to be less
wretched afflatus!
And yes, the
Relief of less
Look in there you can see him
He begins to write as if something depended on it
And if I could come to rest
In you this final hour
After the rain
An awkward gleam
A minor alteration in the air
Dismembered with a prayer
Harks back, to the original sacrifice
And a sort of redundant vigour
Here he is the thief of voices
Furtive imprecations
Gutters swimming with sewage
stories
I mean
The man's impossible dignity
Cornered in exile
Is what fails to disappear
The weaver of uncorrupted cloth
Feeding the plants' thirst
Feeling their solitary thirst
He grew up and sang
This I wrote and wondered if I sang
Dumb partner to the animal
And said to the reader, vanish
Turning the page
pulled down the lid
climbing inside
The water in the canal is fairly clear
swan family their
bliss of extended necks
and the way a column ends abrupt as that
a failing arrow gathers speed
and the future's almost here
as if straining for effect the fruit hangs down
blunted municipal mosaics
tagging miraculous inscriptions
the water comes alive with light
on the underside of the bridge
is where the water prints itself as light
aspiring respiring trees
imagined fruit
almost touching the water
such ripeness descending
It sinks beyond reach
buried in its reflection
in passing shop windows
empty clatter of leaves blown over the square