19 January 2025
rejected by AGNI 1 July 2025

in cameo

an imminent disclosure event
sure, a manifesto swans down stairs
slips cubist facades and many fonts later
thinks how often, over how many years, sitting
across the table from someone, some other

who, before their eyes, turned into planes, their
limbs and tongues askance, their thoughts (by
the sound of it) askance and you copied them
while we continued maintaining ourselves
as novels paintings movies kinetic

sculptures light shows staged events
opera fine art song in a green ring
of symphonies but never (in the annals, etc.)
never a poem, I have never known anyone
remotely like a poem, my biggest fear being

an imminent disclosure event, it would have
incalculable consequences, yeah, I realise
most consequences are incalculable, that’s the
original sin of it, not greed, not the trajectory
of well fed desire – just the stupid untethering of

an ordinary day because we have been told
to go forward, just sooner rather than late