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[amyhoey]

[amyhoey]

[amyhoey]

Interstice

We knew this place once When things made sense We blew through here like celluloid cowboys riding fast to an unseen point Now it’s all a television on in another room seen through a gap in the door without sound Every mouthed word triggers sentences I cannot follow In a now unfamiliar city with borrowed friends bitten to fit Remember us On the back stairs in the valley Yelling to hear how far our voices would carry and if they’d come back Remember us In the flat lands watching dry storms crawl and contort illuminating at random your smooth features strobe sharp I remember us on Cicada days Their clock keys turned taut to tick back to stretch the sky thin What separates us then? Nothing! When everything is sound displacing air heat rising I smile at the angle of the stamps you stuck Pressed between pages a mnemonic a found sound Did it fall from your camp in the lamp black? From the crux in the sky for me to find? Or was it there before this puzzle piece? Concealed in my breast pocket one wing from a pair Cicada’s

[amyhoey]

Harbinger

I saw myself purple Picking through a rock pool I chased myself and ran away

[amyhoey]

Ancestors

Summer afternoons on terraces Passing through the high leaves in pockets of green over the surface of pools then evaporating The Sun is shining they feel like walking silk weaving through mountain passes Trading patterns abacus tapping tessellation perspiration beads talk on the breeze Sometimes they make a start in the garden with one door held open another will slam At night those doors tremor clench in their frames Teeth grind loose of their gums become heirlooms on the nightstand Jade and Gold hack out forest roads Sap sheened blades Heads pile high A Shaman's drum rolls stone spheres through the saturated air

[amyhoey]

The Gift

Piero with the light comes in through the window From his pocket a model aeroplane with a tip painted pilot “Elliptical wings, curved on top. In theory it should fly.” School Sickbay a sealed cube water jug cone paper cup Up to the window he climbs ties taps against the world suspended on a string Slanted banking at an angle to the horizon “Reconnaissance. Cameras where the guns should be.” Sea sky cloud camouflage “Supermarine. Practically invisible.” Pointing painted pale fuselage “I thought it might cheer you up.” Jumps down “Fly high! - My sisters in Rome.” He mimes his hands on small heads “Sorelline. I make them toys too.” Outside there’s shouting, laughing, chasing a ball We play the only game there is Nine Men’s Morris “You look better. After dinner I’ll sneak you dessert, bring a message from your friends.” Red phone bell rings across the yard Scramble to the sound I squint at the sky Left then right The plane moves without moving Rhomboids inside rectangles overlapping frames mapping 6 miles a minute green planted shot up Fallow Yellow Brown Ploughed Referenceless Blue Gliding Ditching Floating “You’re awake, how are you feeling?” We look out to the orchard Up to the church Left to the girls’ house right to the boys’ Someone throws a ball through the shadow of the spire “The ceiling and singing remind me of home.” He arches his arms over our heads Back to his book 6 years above Finding values and volumes Sine and Cosine I sketch the churchyard, the yews, the meadow from memory He points out declining, inclining planes Clouds in the East, Sun in the West. Vanishing point. “See you tomorrow, Piero?” Gone with the light out the window The Spitfire swings

[amyhoey]

Syphilis gave birth to the provincial orchestras

We were born blind Sent to special schools to be of use Gifted ear Perfect pitch Taught to lace cat gut and horse hair until they sang My sons picked their way south with all I could teach them Fruit wood bodies vibrating Violin Viola Cello Bass To see what I could not To teach and share a world filled with colour

[amyhoey]

To cut out and keep

At the beach a girl cuts outfits from a magazine Carefully around the tabs to attach This one is for a man without shoes blue jeans solid stripes stitches wound The pieces laid out without a body will be taken by the wind

[amyhoey]

Remainder

I think I just missed you It feels like you just walked out the door Waves remain in this room Light moves across the solid wall

[amyhoey]

Break in the clouds

There is a thread to everything you say There is always somewhere else you should be or could be Gone Tomorrow When I first saw you a comet out the corner of my eye I asked "Why aren't you talking?" You said "Why were you walking in the middle of the road?" We are all balancing something like sparks Monarchs Metalmarks Light refracting through a crystal found washed up on this tide a hundred years from now

[amyhoey]

Night Loop

Stretched plastic Distorted pitch B B King and Lead Belly roll in the tape player that turns itself over Magnetic fragments incarnate coil The flow of the light rail passing all night This city is stitched at the seams encircled by sound No-show solace Stolen pit bikes the police won’t chase So, I am not the only one awake

[amyhoey]

Without question

                                          I

  Who can be buoyant when the moon is low in the harbour?

Winds through palm leaves remember

You layered varnish into translucent sound and sang

Buttoned down

your jaw still wired

  I heard the last time they saw you

you were playing

a big man

on a child’s bike at dusk

  Your own youth

a wasps’ nest in granite steps

Every single father-figure hell-bent and climbing to the cause

  That evening I felt the coming rain

a long way off

You’d made it through beaten November only to splinter in June

  Trailing hope in a boat’s wake

You just slipped away

                                                    II

  I could see only bad blood and abundant black

Slipping

I’d steeled for so long on glass floors

  At the Observatory they saw my brightness

I was made Caretaker of the lights and mirrors

I polished lenses made from tears & focussed on the Beyond

  There were flashes in the sky all night

Daylight broke on the wheel

in revolution

I just

turned my car around

  You know I wanted a good life but it didn’t want me

[amyhoey]

Collision course

Iced up coming in Flying on instruments Pattern and symmetry Precede screaming metal Exploding glass

[amyhoey]

In cherry blossom Hundreds of birds divining The man without fruit

[amyhoey]

Infinite approximations

Take a shot in the dark A preconception of our conception Gas becomes a star Star becomes a rock Rock becomes mineral Mineral to bone Bonehorse The horse shakes its mane into a bow The bow scrapes a sound Sound sounds until the air gets sucked out The Strawman with a horse's mane Freefalls Falls short An incarnation in hiding Shrinking back into snow and stone

[amyhoey]

Still Life

The blood orange sits on the ground where it fell

Then in a dish left somewhere

on the side

  Something in the volcanic soil

blushed it through

Neat

Inanimate

  Abrupt changes

cold nights

shocked it

Sweet

Resilient

  Teeth bared to pierce skin

squeeze out

Clean cuts

fresh segments

A white plate passed around

  One garden over

doors open

Identical

rows of doves repeat their reassurances

Heads dipping for sunflower seeds

White wells

Alternate

  One takes off

Its orange eye sparked

Flying straight

Triangulation

  Its shadow over marsh and sand

as sure as sundial

Absolute

like Pi in a pyramid

  Magnetic North

Red drops on white wings

Syncopated snowfall

washes away

[amyhoey]

Where are you now?

When you were in the desert

I made a 30 foot antenna for my transistor and listened

When you were in the jungle 

Where a heart of Obsidian gleamed

I grew 

A Jaguar from within

When you were God knows where

My eyes became accustomed to the dark

I picked a patch of the night sky and waited for a sign

When you were lost in the Land of Winter

I didn’t even know

Strangers ruffled my hair and talked in code

When you were practically on the doorstep

I just needed to write, shout or tap out “Komm zuruck!”

When you came home

I wanted you to teach me how to fight and thrive

The world was showing me 

To kill and survive.