with surtitles thanks to Olivier Messiaen
Regard du Père
the membrane of the father his hand
his Saturday cheek his no and hello
hung stomachs when he drove us over
the 'dip' he shot rabbits and locomotives
smoke rings rising the geegees on 9LO
the racetrack prattle quiet beers and surprises
his sleepy dick under the bonnet tinkering
Regard de L'Étoile
on the moors a man runs holding
his unzipped viscera sirens and sailors razored
from old atlases writhe in his hands
it's his horror movie hospital it's night
the gas giants rumble in the wards
babies scream they mouth their mothers their
vacant mouths suck and slobber over aureolae
L'Échange
by the way darling have you seen
the exchange between earth and air through
the keyhole the solitary wasp lays eggs
in the fresh and paralysed grub then
seals it with mud made from specks
of dirt and spit back and forth
she flies through the house before winter
Regard de la Vierge
the empty face so full of grace
the child in the chute the blisters
on the moon the bags under her
eyes her desires her incontinent dreams her
necessaries smalls and roundelays fluttering the sword
raised to the lips of the angel
then the moment of beauty and intrusion
Regard du Fils sur le Fils
the bird in the mirror the child
dreams the mirror the bird the rays
the Valium ghost between silver empty the
shards of bird brides mirror the child
steps in a spacewalk stealing the stars
the bars of light and silence when
only the child's eyes see the child
Par Lui tout a été fait
walk on the bridge in the wind
in the dark 20 metres down gulls
beat upstream then wheel away 50 metres
down the water's black candy the event
horizon so it's back to that old
recipe for disaster graveyard of mothers the
years being stromatolites in seas of despair
Regard de la Croix
in the library the rainforest I sang
but not a human voice came out
a god not my god I've heard
her voice before turning the pages ululating
among the gums his voice was different
it split the wood in Mandelbrot patterns
spat the cream my brain again again
Regard des Hauteurs
the girl with willow pattern eyes ran
on a seamless beach it was 1964
two sandpipers kept a safe distance before
her on bright vibrating legs meandering then
broke into flight slipped over the slick
the wash the breakers as the girl
fell she saw them in vertical climb
Regard du Temps
in our son's mansion he's got this
huge TV it's never switched on but
all day long across the screen reflected
cloud tops promulgate in slow minutes while
the flare of the sun is boiled
to a dollar arcing blindingly down to
the bottom of the grey green well
Regard de l'esprit de Joie
two stroke aria chainsaw in the hills
then the shuffling silence after the credits
then Marilyn Monroe in her sewn-on happy
birthday Mr President dress wriggles onto the
stage (gasps, pauses) faces the audience opens
her mouth a tremendous voice comes out
O Freunde...
Première communion de la Vierge
and the words are my magazine and
the heart falls through milk and the
trees spread their roots and the cathedrals
vaporise and the hand the hand descends
slowly to click together an aluminium cross
on a bright hill in Memoryville USA
then panic stations for a sad sequestrian
La Parole toute-puissante
if I once had breasts then now
I slip through shades where secret tumours
hide I never stop to wonder why
books slide from shelves they're listless rumours
their saliva chokes my mouth the intransigent
past performs like seals - my parents who
once were tiny faces in the sky
Noël
while the slugs of the universe excrete
their pristine pearls the good wife slaves
under her hot husband someone a man
maybe she chose without looking too close
he'll do my womb will soon be
full and the starry host will burst
onto the screens of our flesh again
Regard des Anges
genetically modified genitalia glow in the dark
virtual sensations expand the wave front beats
into the waiting host legions of fans
scream for rock idols they shoot intimate
text messages graphics porn they flash swarming
multidimensional strings of massively redundant digitally recombinant
information into darkness the camera obscura shunt
Le Baiser de L'Enfant-Jésus
I'm Oedipus Googolplex the latest Nobel laureate
I've been licked by lions employed high
flyers set fireships adrift among galleons masterminded
missions impossible yet still they accuse me
of mediocrity I'm imperturbably opposed to odyssey
what do I want stop time when
do I want it now now now
Regard des Prophètes, des Bergers et des Mages
luminous gifts but it's hard to remember
who gave what the manger's empty the
cartoon comet's gone the camels doped the
prophets dumb and the shepherds settling among
their sheep again count their blessings while
they can - these mushrooms which have spored
strictly for one night only by demand
Regard du Silence
Christo cling wraps members of my family
they struggle to speak words come out
like bubbles they move like slow chrysalises
exposed they are films without a camera
saturated with black strips of negative wound
around them like cloth around a mummy
wrapped in light they dissolve in vortices
Regard de l'Onction terrible
tap tap I enjoy being a cripple
tap tap my stick on the nave's
parquetry strikes iron on the worshippers' ears
tap tap goes the heart beat drum
beat so bad for a mad pope's
mood tap tap the tympanist in the
choir smashes the Vatican Valhalla vampire brood
Je dors, mais mon coeur veille
to the besieged governor of the clouds
in the year of the cuckoo (after
I walked in moonlight and pricked by
the wind a particle entered my bloodstream
and proceeded by flashlight through crimson video
malls into the limbic) your call is
important but all our operators are busy
Regard de l'Église d'Amour
the view from the flightdeck's all roses
wave upon wave of full blown Albertines
emerge from the fingerprints the vacuum galaxies
in soft convoy pink under starshine they
parade their slow lips parted they sing
of the wind in the trees and
the scent of earth then and forever