Leave. By the same door. Pass back across the old entrance. The garden vestibule. Ahead of you. Sixteen paces. // Into the library where you stretch to see paintings. Crouch to read the titles of books
How do shelves of books become a library? Why does reiteration become a style?
At the sarcophagus desk your writing will be prophetic. What it will be. When it is done
You write here with your back to the day. Or night. The distinction is absolved. The library is haunted. But what is it? Someone will slouch in your creaking armchair and frown at your fresh words
Open the third volume of Sterne's Works. What is it? One of its marbled blanks. Desiccated copy of Byron's Poems. Dropping brown powder from its limp spine. Dust. On your lap as you turn the pages. Curtained secrets. Of quiet decay. Exposed to light crumbles. Breathless wind-chimes
The sensation of being in this building has no exterior. You unremark it, although you remember the empty bell-tower. Hours ago years ago. If you were looking for a remarkable symbol. Trudging the wet lush green lane. To the doors you have forgotten
What is it? A blocked window. Ingress to fill with pictures. A silver glow behind the nets. Illumines the desk upon which the bills were paid
She holds a letter from the Dean. Another from that rich archive of illegible documents held. In such narratives. She is pure provocation
Ribs of blushing sky over a crepuscular riverine council. Of peasants. Drained to mud paths. The drought. So perfect that any blemish would turn the day septic
This volume's spine has been stretched and creased a thousand times in unrelenting consultation. What is it? The title has sprinkled from the book. Gilt tinkling on the air. Angel dust flaking from the walls of a fresco. During a riot. Reiteration. The machete blow of illumination. Revolution
Watch the colours of night with your eyes sealed. Something. To be something. Must be darker than the darkness. Seen only by being less visible. What is it? A rustle a vapour an intruder. It is one of the sons of god. The psychopath who controlled the newspapers. The football team. The only one you are implored not to worship
'Parrot-coal chatters in the grate.' Holt's fireplace. Depicts the depiction of the only Madonna and Child here. The accompanying viol burns its half-learned madrigal
You glare at the pictures. Plot to shift them around. Blame them for not moving. While Hopkins is spat at by your Protestant stevedores