10 January 2024
6 December 2024
rejected for Cordite 116: Remember 28 March 2025
magnetic whiteboard 900 mm
the catalogue of the dead
the embassies in which their names are bartered
the stolen magic sheet of once-was-memory
the burden of the interest on borrowed minutes
the life pressed from one’s chest, yes
there is a video of a life but now there’s no life
extant
there are columns
that rise from the sea floor
they support stationery ships
your imagined life
consists of their voyages
implicit
is the svelte loneliness
of gently entombed pages parallel in silent books
but it’s only this page
you can read
above water
also there is wailing
in high clouds
not normally heard
by failed Olympians
they’re mock gods
their arrogant games
a child could do better
if you removed
their blindfold
even so a
still voice says
I am I am
a recording of which you hear now because
the door to life has no hinges
it is held in place by time
a particular time
not the present
not now
think of a line its infinite points yet above and below
and in front and behind
is imaginary space
so it is with time
and here I am
at the door
and you
on the other
side