Black cerulean 1999
the Cross is present
in its absence
cut into
the lacquered iron
scrolls of the underside
suggest hidden light
rough cast
embryonic rivets
soon the day
and all else will clear
Ghost dance
in the lodges
of the Hunkpapa
the Oglala and Minneconjou
buffalo fat thrown on the fire
in a good year
flared as high as the smoke vent
so the fine cow skin
glowed on the outside
like a tall conical lantern
emitting last glimpses
of a dying world
over the empty prairie night
as do our small
truncated grimaces
travelling out through space
interrupted signs
that the word has been lost
between mouth and ear
the drunken captain
and his vessel are foundering
lights on/ full steam ahead
Winging it
Algiers
the Hollywood remake
of Julien Duvivier’s Pépé le Moko
replaced rugged Jean Gabin
with sleek Charles Boyer
and wheeled in (any foreign
accent would do) the not so frosty
Austrian Hedy Lamarr
who married six men
between 1933 and 1963
and incidentally invented
a radio guidance system for torpedoes
later adapted to early drone flight control
but meanwhile back in the Casbah
long before it was rocked by the Clash
Charles B as Pépé winced his distaste
at being surrounded
by so many uncouth gangster types
and might have preferred
the company and conversation
of the suave gendarmes ostensibly on his tail
still the film then as now
became a reasonable success
played mostly for laughs
though the dark truth
of the inescapable self
is its undertone
a different proposition altogether
Pontecorvo’s 1966 Battle of Algiers
was a truly terrifying movie to watch
if someone left their bag
as people used to back then
on the seat next to you during an interval
Centenarian
1
alone on the ice he hears
the celestial telephone ringing
but doesn’t answer
a blue vent between falls
reminds him
of his last woman
under him the beating earth
liquid in format
teems with creatures
he knows he’s been dead for years
but those are the ones
that don’t count
now the brown mammals at rest
in the distance ahead
are his foster children
the crisp prints of predators
around his sleeping place at dawn
his only scripture
call me up he says
to the reluctant heavens
or equally down into the depths
each luminous breath
each snow-booted step after step
an anomaly
no one else belongs in this
or else he has forgotten
his characters his journey
the pulped unreadable log book
tucked into his armpit
scribbled over with star signs
the rocks he wrote on
appealing for succour
lie far behind him
likewise his language
other than the mute cry
like a sea-dweller’s he offers the cold
its inscrutable reply
enjoining patience
promises the nothing he already knows
white silence
pure and remorseless yet unremarkable
given the blunt trail his travel has blazed
2
in the mother’s chamber
they are gathered for the feast
they stab it with their steely knives
but they just can’t kill the beast
others approached much closer
to the mark
females better equipped
to tolerate adversity
or simply to identify it
accurately when it arrived
unfussed and undemonstrative
though not always unheard
words interspersed between
parturitions and as welcome
the living voice
once spoken unalterable
except by an editor’s quibble
or a discovered later draft
but it’s the length of time
utterance lasts we rejoice
corralled out of a given day
to become eternal
still yet still moving glide
of dust in light
light on dust
time when we move out
of time is a comfort
when descendants
not necessarily of our blood
will tend the spark
coax the flame
draw water for every
function of existence
all those durable nomadic
metaphors we love
culminating in our innocent hope
the river will still be there
3
somewhere on the shelf
between Nostromo
and Eyeless in Gaza
the book is a summation
compact but satisfactory
the attendant biography
offers facts but no flavour
out of a lifetime of acquaintances
each of whom
requires a footnote
the problem always
that one life stands out
as if others didn’t matter
and the ending’s always
more or less the same
there are articles and reviews
to agree or disagree with
and the jury of private opinion
so elusive and exact
though usually hung
better by far (as the
jingle goes) to stand apart
from hyperbole and illusion
facing the one in the mirror
unappeased/unopposed
only thus the full story
infant to incontinent
visions rendered
commonplace by repetition
among the general run
what must be let go
is any sense of privilege
of purpose that cuts above the ruck
who need you only in so far
as you need or speak them
whatever honours can be
given can be taken away
medals and prizes
appointments and regalia
paper wreaths
the order of white
silence again
first class with knobs on
where all sound ceases
all sensation numbs
no one here and now
or then and there
can lighten the load or lift the lid
on what is to follow
great darkness or great light
Tony Beyer lives and writes in Taranaki, NZ.
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