Scroll for a soundless experience.
I
resonance of Europe
on the wing
this charge of dark light
across the channel
seepage
awash the oil gleams
from the stations,
outwards,
a world on the wing
on the air
a brass one
grazing the swell
its waning wake
leaving
the free seas
unmarked
westward bearing taken from
the high lodestar
(never dipped below the waterline
dry eye turning
still on earth
gaze no sound betrays
only
the cowling judders
in a baffling mist
the cape shrouded
and the metal flock
shrieking over the cowed terrain
emission from the land-mass
taking off
icy pallor of the pilot
over the horizon
whole constellations distant:
we laid waste, we
burned, we plundered
we
destroyed houses and trees
out of this land we bore
the rites of death
their dead and scattered parts
II
In the occultating light
of theory, a turning
gaze
trembles
over this
numbered terrain
the dull charge of Europe
(indefensible!
presses in darkly
against the light
waking exhausted
pooped already in advance
bearing its dead weight
(so much possessed
by debt
waves of air
of the proper length
for the redistribution of energy
(head of stone
detached
off the air
propagated in accord with
mathematical formulas
of a wave on the wane
no visible vibration
in the fabric
unique number
just
without measure
of the uncounted
scattered broadcast
(as a large flock of white sheep
at rest on the face of the hill
marble feet
and matted heads
on the broad unfolding wings
of a great wind
taking off
from over the horizon
as a chord struck
the loadstone prised from place
falling
rock evaporating
into mists
a terra terra remota mea
III
o land far from my land
my west is not your west
(so she sleeps)
the Bloody Foreland
a red wash
in the air
mantled in mizzening rain
the peter-patter of lost things
tracking the wheels
bearing
(scattered broadcast on the waves
worlds on the wane:
murmurs from the sunken lintels
freight the sod
that deep accumulation
of occupation deposits
a stranded vessel
filled with sand
the sunset reddened and
drew blood from the cliffs
written with red chalk
the sea is oiled silk
from their sendings
from the bottom of the wreck
still
harvested cargoes
from the kelp beds
to live on
this shattered edge of Europe:
involuted
interface
the voice
had an extraordinary sadness
going out into the world
solitary
unanswered
breaking against rocks
so it sounded
taking off
through this hook of death
I have pulled and pulled
and now the cord grows tight
thread spun from
a black fleece
snapped
grave earth will not hold us
IV
who could bear
these sheared pasts
compassing
their
scattered shards
in hand
at hand
unheld and
held out
across the breaks
arche-
pelago
strewn seawards
islands evidence of wounds
frayed rim
unstuck
from the margins of imperium:
vortex
cast
scattering
from the hand
out from the landmass
skips
out in the widening
arc of islands
(all the wave-washed islands
shredded upon the water
the cadastral swells
arriving
breaking
down
stone
salt borders
sap the enclosures
and the long haul
through the narrows
(I bring to this point the thickness
of my historical being
bridging
the there and the here
a terra terra remota mea
the sea breaks
and conjoins
the constellations came unmoored
flecked the brassy wrack
a wing on the wave
sheared the wake
islands ocean’s scars
(imagine yourself
an archipelago
of red republics
threaded along
this ragged rim!
(all the wave-washed islands
spume
over the air waves
mottles the sheets
the poem
is not targeted
aimless phrases found
their way to you
still
abundant
work of abandon
not taking
(taking up
taking on
the burden
of bearing