Chris Brown



In broad daylight

               Burred edges
               the glass abuzz
               mote that animates

your perfect character
(complete indifference)

               /

Full prelapsian appeal at
peartree grove as other gated
enclave you are weeding
i’m riding in a veiling mist

and trying not to breathe
the mint breath and distant

close-up lopes out in traffic
and what reach all morning
same unexpected intimacy

Flash chrome grill pressed at the glass!
mirrors pulse at a vexed monorhyme

borrowed idiom shot-to-bits trompe
l’oeil tail gate all that hard-Luck genre

as won’t wash at such straight edges
nettles set in rows or glass in clover

the fashion masks at headlit midday
there’s a picture of this on the fridge

to sit staring at the sea sip and sigh
we’re so Lucky (comparisons odious)

subversion elemental at frothing surf
the beach almost slips and clings like
aerial roots to rocks and violacea

               /

               Effusive pinks peaches a screen can’t hold
               lovely off the court and even lovely on

Except

We’ll get on fine till your plural chokes
in the who-wrote-what and the pissing

               attributions

               /

Sustained longing lounging applause and
the inverse’s the Dionysian in me “icing up”?

best I cite a neural basis for
               every pleasure

               though looking at it from here
               only a real thought elsewhere
               could keep the chorus at bay



The village pieces

Some rabble moved in next door meaning us wave
anyway this side of the leafy path and light industry
rob frost fencing his differences i pass as you climb
ramps and losing the radio vanish in a monolith’s
aisles of bright nebula hangars of paint and pine
most for free though for all your cloying concern
fleet imperatives of the leisure precinct enervate
still home could plead ignorance peek through
blinds like a fallen mirror and screen it in the
underwater window of another’s lenses up
town those soliloquies peopling bus-stops
we wait on japanese friends and foreign
english cinema call our guest a better guide
But like that it comes to life like two weeks
now chat roleplay in textbook coffeeshops
cute portmanteau hybrid looping front left
leg of chair and aren’t we all real bodies at
rogue intersections just chance meetings
in world cities eclipsing monuments? Seas
tiles cells brick behind render communism
of singularities if you stop at lights to count
consider the pieces together look up walk on



Don’t go looking for the English channels

Alight en bloc and
kiss the sand where once
was scripted in absentia
give me your roman mouth o
we’re in the queue at Le Bonta
rehearsing our lines (no
code no access) “dentro o
fuori” standing
outside but eavesdropping
a foreign conversation
feels right. It’s savour the voice alone
or seek you in English on the opposing
page and plain lose the sense of it. I mean
you heard your voice above others
                              straining
                              in a next seat
               in a narrowing
alley
way
and said nothing
or fled in disguise.
                                             Look the
                                             TV’s voicing
                                             train voicing
                              bike voicing
                              street voicing
                              church voicing
                              bike now bus
                              voicing
                              (laughter)
                              dog voicing
net lagging
net lagging.
I have it on record.
And here’s a few shards
a rare collection showing acephalous
empire. Then town quietens to the
game. Abides others’ anthems.
               In the old
city and via La Commedia
I thought Australian
by birth but by disposition?
                                             Ever the trace
                                             and if we
                              go out and
               buy a prize
it’s easier
by the day.



Follower

We’re living this.
You can follow us.
Call it “shadowing”.
The intimate living
room studio at Long
reach shows us even
in our hiatus. So we
come to define fame.
I share it widely…
Intended ephemera
short on autoerasure
flies and multiplies
and turns on sender
(hauntingly). And who
should we see about that? IT??
Another number contact
disconnect another Deus
Absconditus suspended
in the ether. But the
past’s irretrievable
or knowing where to
look. Scentless roses of
some malodorous scene.
He keeps a low profile –
faceless everyman avatar
and roman a clef. One day
I’ll get over the betrayal
and thank you for the inter
vention.                Until that time.



Chris Brown lives in Newcastle, Australia. He is working on a collection of poems called hotel universo.

 
 
previous page     contents     next page