Spare Me

the vanity of those who seek to end history
by scorning the claims of the ghost story.

We who live by mystery
have no business trespassing
on the last myths
of the blue universe.

Take the late mist of a dying princess:

the torrid blush, the fluttered lash
the camera flash
the visual challenge
of the smoky glass;

the broken heart’s commodity.

The wounded driver a flame
in the eyes
of an astonished girl.

(field of landmines tiny legs a mirage on distant sands)

We who live by mystery wait.
‘I’s cast open, eyes half closed
while the lights smoke in the tunnel
and the car’s a wreck
the heart a brain
the palace shattered glass,

beauty shy of time.
*

Ade Jackson

"GATE"(7?.) (reiterate)

 shut in the brain and step  0   here was heaven at the first
out,stop,down step - We thought about it
it ends in rooms,I . and there was a car journey -
put rooms here We ended that wondering is
only running out by my that anyway to go and thought
own design,enclosures . a heaven would answer "Love"
here,hear "bark" things or a means, - means of "going
hungry to clean up . or any way,where on"

"GATE"(6?.) (all at once)

away from a hallowed gate,        0              light, that
away again bigger funny thing?
away from the gate or fun
shocked to pieces - 3 to the end
light passes on the lightened up
real world a mist, beauty
tulip, mildew, and 6 of a day after mist
all light passing through the ending

"GATE"(5?.)

lock in a system                    the bed as it
all loved things appears in a dream
expansive, joined on
place the bed as it all sides
appears in by a bed
commotion under 5 impinges on
something sweet
fed on loves us

"GATE"(4?.)

      heaven by high                  infinite
road dusty elements
the magic about the head
car of the driver
in the elements 4
the magic car 5 by hook
how far ? 6 or crook the
- the distance 7 long drive

"GATE"(3?.) (solo)

 a mass             0       a path
of fuzzy problems bodily
taken
3
twin lip two
tautly they
6
#.(one added on

"GATE"(2?.) (accompaniment to 1?.)

 "All the nonsense in the 0               or all
world greater the gummy branches
than all the nonsense" 2 the body done
the world in
milked added on
him or his a thing
bed his body
place 7 peripheries

"GATE"(1?.)

 funny furnishings      0           exposure
he would see 1 to all in the mind
heaven 2
as funny 3 makes way
dreamy furniture 4 to all
wavey lines 5
moved it around 6 and all
a bit 7 or

a year past


(i)
This man's eye sockets protrude
their ridged roundness showing everyone the view held
by all chimpanzees
barking laughing
from high jungle branches.
He shuffles with red ribbon scarf against winter's teeth
and the hooded youths mock,
aping movements as they part on the pavement.

(ii)
This man places four clocks even
along a shelf he made himself
from iron and wood
salvaged from the scrapheap
where he patted a friendly dog
and spoke jovially with the owner
of simpler times.

Each clock was different,
times carefully set to mark
those hours and minutes in the cities
where his lost loves had breathed their last.

Alexis