ANTIBARBARUS

1.

The fine powder

picked off an uncertain finger

possesses the tongue, enters

its rooted restless life.

2.

From felt-tip or a thorn,

a straight trail across the skin:

crystals tiny as an ant’s body

or short dashes set down.

3.

Scrupulous to the elbow

they lift away a dark slab,

discover a worked joint

and keen the femur’s pestle.

4.

Such angularity of purpose,

such bleak drama seems

conferred by lightning, leaves

the world a smaller place.

5.

From an outlet, steam, meaning

difference; a run-off worked

hard as raised letters on a road,

stoic in the unfinished evening.

FROM THE WINDOWS OPEN TO NO AIR

Compressed to distortion by design,

voices travel, A to B,

where B falls within

a locus of intention,

this time a stairwell

he led himself down –

the stairs and their negative

sunk into near-silence, cement,

and currently obnoxious with gloss,

the white walls alone

a selfless achievement –

and sockets no longer spilled,

the faces distributed

at intervals throughout

the will-be office space

(in which drawers close cleanly

to the pristine furniture,

with the anomaly

of the scent of sea-shell,

in likelihood the photocopier);

A, it should be made clear,

the means of transmission,

and B, all points:

interference one aspect

of its reception.

the evening blue, immobile,

like a gas altered

to be detectable

by the nostalgia

for no past event,

the future nostalgia

for no past event,

by the scent of liquorice

dropped, as it were,

by a sycamore,

and buoyed by tar

angered no longer

by the sun on it:

the good time will come.

Copyright © James Peake, 2009