Tim Wright


the continual


being borne away
of water, memory 

of a cast of sky — 
surprised

by a sudden gust 
& a door blows open

the unpredictable
summer still to come



short novel


                                       wind moaned in the trees
                                          with a secret turbulence
                                             - Angelos Sikelianos

1

   dry words with i wake up
                                swerved too soon
       fluted shoulder     two weeks unwritten
       green sliding scale hills

                                           erring pools
              browning apple core almost gold

                              should’ve swerved later
                                                          Begin here

                   landing’s afterthought    
             whose insistent return
                               the coldly oriented water                      
       road coming like honey off a spoon
                         my left leg like a wet stick
                                              your casque d’or

2

          a can melts into the crowd

   seagull trace drift lichen human life air resistance

                                slight pull of what was
                                fog-bound window scintillates

   five fluorescent shirts on a line
      chorus of loud gravelly mooing

                                       we’d swum in and
                    we would have to swim out again

                                              swearing to effect

                       what will i do 
                       ‘amidst this grocery’?

3

     that primordial chord change
     moving from right to left
           mollusc handlebars

         the flow avers, lumbers on
       it sounds like bowling pins being collected

            as someone’s housemate’s friend once said

                      The elastic desiring to leave

                 rinsed horizontally amongst backs of old flats

4

         Stimmung Bitter
                                         catchment area

             I cut up my mood and scrape it into a pan               
                staring at email like a cat   
                it’s as if no one was ever meant to float out this far
          splayed tramtracks    cut
           desire lines
 
                   Or the air moving through the sluices of pine needles 

           we seem   to be expected to queue, to enter booths
           even to offer an obscure kind of thanks

                      languidly the revolving door unpeoples itself

                                                      “Neurosis Mineral Water”

5

                       dead cyclist        /   tyre swan                     
                                                                                           ‘deep in Glebe’

                         smoking rain — a room long enough to sleep in

     those flaggings down ago   
              
                                                    the night piles on
                                              a face blends into . . . from years ago

                                                               black pelt of water                 snow coloured surf

6

                                       that tee-off spot
                                       beneath the apartments

                                       enclosed in mesh
                                       a Murukami set piece

                                                  one rows out to meet them

                                      everyone remotely

                . . .for it to rasp against, tongues                cute ice floes

                                     vague rapid embankment
                                      
                                                              being hosed down ever since
                                                                                   
7

                the orange of the ground            scratched away showing where

                                                      athwart the exercise equipment

                 liquid calm                    a blot rushes in      almost shyly   astir

                       night ‘leaving off’

                                  the striking notes  of film music

                                 above the pub

                                                    waiting for the flood to boil

Tim Wright is co-author, with Duncan Hose, of the 'dog's breakfast' play Madrigaux. He is a supporter of the postal system.

 
 

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