12
the solvent psalms of tespu
will wash the snot from your window
the sovereign stronk of tespu
shall helium fill your boat
your flames will be eaten by mothmen
your night birds flock to the sun
snow shall fill your houses
your wells, swell with wine
such are the greetings of tespu
he, who is friend of insects
writ his lit on your lips
and you shall speak with mannequins
your decors shall pass away
fats of your toil make you heavy
but tespu shall free you from sand
like orchids sprung from urchins
time shall melt
like cheese on coal
numbness turn into autumn
save the ant on your hand
and the scissor shall cut your losses
13
our ontologies have changed
our coming home to
fresh sections of paint above the door
blu, yellow, bright, the colour of awe
a ramp of wet pigment
her friendship of stone
have become like flesh
membranes dissolved
barriers crumbling
the hardened has softened into care
in the hall, the tv is unsure of its own genre
(or does it try to mirror my myth?)
pre-rec or live feed or docu or fiction?
medical or ritual or porn?
saran wrap, breasts, wires, machines, bodies, bed
the bombed out balcony is boarded with wood,
whitewashed and safe from high storey drops
there’s a woman shrouded in fabric
reclining on the floor
I know she isn’t corpse
she wriggles beneath the waves of cloth, like an art show
“hello auntie” I say, she does not answer
her daughter, an actress, sits in front of tv
her make up is earthy
matrimony
her jewels are shining like golden gifts
this is our house, or a house like my house
our medicine of space has altered
despite the oddness
despite our histories
of conflict and sorrow and waiting
we’re easier together
ontologies changed
our hands, in search of each other
14
we mop
all the errors we brought in from the streets
from the world, like dust building up in the hallway
we mop
with small fires in different regions of the body
all humming with pain from half remembered sections of time
the floor is clean now
we lie down
our spines are not so straight
the throb in our shoulder is fainting away
we crack
theres a mid afternoon burn
between heart and stomach
we remember several sadnesses
we seem far away
we let light into the altered world
let it find its corners, the stalemates hidden
we move some chairs around
you can sense this journey won’t end
it’s night but also day
but we’re ok
we mop
15
here are random events / objects / and (my associations / states )
-men setting up white plastic sheet tentage under my block (funeral wakes memory)
-found abstract art book in library (current creation theme) , loose leaves, folded paper, poster hand drawn black marker ‘happy new year 1976’ ( year i’m conceived)
-do I smell pee or nail polish in the atmosphere?
-the blindfolded girl and her singing bowl ( melancholia, longing for connection, exposition of dark secrets)
-spatula set (to splash / abandoning self-police structures)
-I should have sat down with her ( backpedaling / mediation of an absence)
-abscess ( representations of organic damage on paper. something to fill in the missing)
-(freak fantasy / witching hours )
-(Mind unspools the nature of evil. a hammering of hardened material. Behold, a soft bird is inside.
-language is not liberty.
-numb arm
16
I’m thinking of,
sitting with
the source that
inspires
playmobil and hello kitty
the unpronounceable name that
brings forth hentai
the naughty corner of heaven
o’ razor confetti lightning
sharp thunder static
erasing the top of my head
the glow of luminous mysteries
I listen to animal stories
cute disturbances come from somewhere
I pirate its software
I want it’s code
under my petticoat
I want it’s pastel nubility
in the tubes of my organ
I want to smoke what she’s smoking
eyes as large as UFOs
as large as sailor’s moon
Oh, diaper fetish
too much for this baby
( I’m trying to purge the mantra of illness)
I cannot
wheelchair fetish, hits too close to home
I’m sitting, thinking of
stigma and colouring books
The Word that brought forth Doraemon
or shocked old men as dwarf turnips
the girl let’s me into her room
I can smell her unicorns
I play in her inflatable pool
a pink light smiles down at me
while somewhere else, I’m erased
17
shift items in your room
and you change the grid inside your kingdom
or maybe it’s a wasteland,
dust and ashes and sand pits
or inside, near the foot of a mount
desert and rocks, moist
somewhere a bonfire
shift items outside the prison walls
and you change the hour you do not know
the way of the scourge or thorn
the tensions in the corridor
shift states around your room
and you breach the secret door
you step into the knowledge
that true life
is esoteric
18
as strands of smoke
I reach out to
monk cells in Europe
or enter old bottles of wine
buried like treasure in Asia Minor
sloshing with the scaly things
my bloodfull bedfellows
as shade
I survey the caves
a small bronze amulet
emulating dirt
not yet touched by rays
I wait for the storms to go by
salient to signs and voices
O’ Great River
aren’t my fangs also fish?
the glory of this soil I wear
the radiance of failed blasphemies
cloak my wounded shoulders
fit like a diadem of teeth and shards
as a man under a tree
I am full of misgivings
but also, like meteor
a pregnant blaze, a blinding light
swallowed by the fruits of the earth
19
of fatigue and the phoenix
I’ve taken pictures of people no longer alive
I’ve pictures of me no longer ‘here’
my ghost is native to memory
I re-visit, interact, heart raw
the presence of history reveals present absence
in the mirror of then
I’m a larvae, hardly able, errant
squirming in existence
a worm in a world of aborted archetypes
“our spirits are everywhere in the illusion of time”
we ‘go back’ with salvaging crews
bringing balm and radiations
we pull shells out of fires
a little sickened by the messes we glorified
such failure, our statements, our songs
speaking of ‘grief’ like it was trendy
enamoured by the mimicry of pain
“oh, the sorrows that will be meted out
such cups that will not pass, the true breaking you must eat as your bread”
but It’s ok
such are the streets we travel to understand their threats
such is the flare of the first blow
but see, it’s sun is already setting
we were never doomed to die
the repairs are ongoing
nightingales in the world clock
where a lantern is needed, fire will be found
let suffering be offering
the worst will always be over, even when it comes
we will reap from the threshing floor
yea
we will sift and find the seeds we need
20
mornings at the columbarium
no, you cannot touch the bones
of husbands, women and children
mother and father
nor can you hold the flesh that covered them
a hand or the back you once massaged
you can stand there
in front of plastic flowers and ceramic pictures
marvel at the ambient ache in your chest
filling you up
like oxygen in a spacesuit
far away from earth
your face might get wet
a reminder of water and flesh
when sorrow blooms in your longing body
you can remember the old house
sepia being a coloured friend
who is really no more
only a presence
a nostalgia
a sadness,
humble cocktail for the heart
you can stand there
breaking
but the conqueror is also present
the one who is there before time
the one who is there after time
the old house is no more
but there is a house that stands forever
but you have to sit now
for your legs have grown weak
and there are many decades to go
memento mori yes?
groaning in the flesh
from pleasure
from pain
all the years engraved on marble stone
babies, men, mothers
safe and tucked away
from hands, wet with salt water
21
“true black out poetry occurs in the mind
and not on the page” – anon ra
where is the blind one?
and what of K?
the wolf dog, the bed?
that mausoleum ship?
“we’ve vanished, as time expected us to”
or was the quote
“Time vanishes when you expect it to?”
it is expectation that fails us says tespu
he has become corrugated
soggy cardboard, sulking, inert
a spectacle of the retrospective
poor sods joke
last things I heard
were macaws and jungles
buzzing, doorless
wooden window open
irrelevant if
they were consumed in bad shape or bed shapes consumed them
made whole into impossible sand sculptures
cherished by confused anthologeists
tespu is dead
long live tespu
again?
maybe in another (. )
we’re going back to a time before him
coming from a time after him
post_prophetic / endless earth
one with the throne
unversed to us
difficult to follow
“his word is not for us to utter.”
“Those who love milk cannot slop on his meat”
“he’s a fucxxing nutter”
the side effects, disorient
*prepare ego death ray
22
how many times will distortion find us?
how long more till the error takes hold?
we keep adding oil to our lamp fires
anointed in the heat of night
on our knees reciting koans
we trace our steps like blind animals
fingers, delicately feeling for thread
small knots in our hearts, the stakes of our existence
bracing for the mountains to come
we hear the running waters
the cool breath of night, sighing
‘finally’ we say, but just for a moment
till the lines on our palms are silent again
23
beware this chamber
this operatic danger
a cloud in a dank room
opulent, at the table of sinners
beware this indulgence
this interrogation room
this agony of repair
beware, beware
be diligent
for the chamber is in operatic danger
time erodes the lustre of yellow
we hunger, we are nowhere
we are damned in the cloud room
beware these pretences
these sentences of mercy
these left field occurrences
these inverse magicks
beware from being
carried away
mere dust motes in the cavern
mere echoes, distant from the primal sounds
beware this chapter
these words of diversion
these memoirs of heresy
of sky and sea and under the sea
cloaked in black as if to hide
the vagrant colour of blood
24
I don’t know how many of them there are in my womb. how many who fester or are favoured, fathomed and precious. I know some who walk among the smog and wounded. Some who are infants, infinite, curled up, awakening. I am a host, and with them I visit. By bedsides, machines, heartbroken. ill with mourning or lightened by morn. I am many faces given to bodies, spirits who roam the maze and gardens. many names, tangled vines, branches of the madre tree. Who will they hang on me? Who shall be my fruits, and from whom, sheltered?
25
poems vanish
binary code exorcism
pages purged
perhaps, birthed in a forbidden book
would the incantations appear in some other world?
ready to receive such prophecies?
or will their formulas be destroyed
to prevent the destroying?
a girl from the other place might read them and weep
having found her lost live, speaking from the destinies
a boy from another time might learn the secrets and grow into that which is foretold
a priest who dreams of the closed book might wrote the next page
a murderer might pause, hands trembling
inexplicable, afraid, a loss of excitement
poems vanish
the mind unable to build again
a scatter of words, broken lines
the signature of the vipers pit, vicars chair
smeared by acid rainfall
the visions, robbed from consciousness
sent to a missing room, doors closing
keys, smelted by a pillar of fire
poems vanish because our guardians expect them to
a hand withdrawn before it is bitten
26
we are renewed on mondays
at the crossroads of midnights
birthdays, year ends, death anniversaries
gateways of precious numbers, hands on a clock
positioned to point towards paths sanctioned by unseen powers
we resurrect, framing / freezing events as signs
a photo, a trinket, a dried flower, poems written in blood, love letters unsent
they are like graves, we visit them
they are like temples, filled with votive offerings
a bird in dream, we nest in the reaching trees
we taste its’ fruits, handle delicately, it’s flowers
it’s roots reach out to living waters
we nourish the memories, bury the dead
we lay in its shade, burnt by its sun, rest in the coolness of its breath
sometimes, we stay
others, leave
but we seldom forget
for we cannot be hid from the hidden life
27
a serie of statements inserted into crevice of mind
I thought it was a love letter, but someone wants to sell me Peking duck
the torch is gone, so a dark cup of coffee leads me
the rain may wash two fridges but only lightning will give them power
the crow may not caw your name but you may give it with your paw
Maybe its a cloud floating outside my window
Maybe its a biological shape in the fluid of my eye
We all don’t really know
i’ll just embellish it from fantasy
28
I
save our bodies with sleep
curling wind, shivering
drying up wet spots on skin
I commend my body
to be sent
an insertion
a weapon like searchlight
I am the darting, into the folds
losing time here
‘in order to add’
wherever it’s waited for
now
sleep has changed
parts of my body
a hood, a heaving gesture
lightfastness
one portion of mantra
( circuit, copious )
sent downstream
“albeit risen”
like a tide, the swelling
the surfacing of
land mass
a hill
for heads to lay
(or lay hands)
and bring rest
to atrocities
29
ii
these states of mine
states of our kind
the states, these states
estates of us
fathers house
o happy dungeon
shallow gardens
don’t go near the cesspool
but drink, drink all you weary visitors
from the bird bath, or behold
water from modern concrete
hands raised to rain
the states, these states
stretch out like the poems for rivers
canon, fable, Acheron,
fishing spots
out on a boat
fathers boat
going back to sea
water cupped in my hands
billions of years old
these first states
as estates, our estates
in our states
30
“
death makes you a cliche
death makes you write sap poems
death reveals the incomprehensible
”
iii
(final form)
we point the mouth of white book
to the early days (from the early days)
to disperse blind men and golems
the virgin is taken up to heaven
(how quickly the young flower wilts)
what’s broken is broken
we are merely held together
using psalms and
the adversity of verse
melding like a blow torch
the blown fuse
the pillar of fire
nicotine, anxieties, failures, ashes, fruit
we tear pages from the white book
the boasts about red christs
the signs, the esoterics
corpses, parents
the shadow overhead that doesn’t go away
the river of sadness flowing underneath
a dislogic, a disquiet
a sense of separation
an imminent departure
our satellites decide
to leave this white book
this plane
this orbit
reaching out to outer darkness
to other slivers of light
to lost books buried in the desert
Locations lose contact with coordinates
swaths of stanzas
thinned out over
long bodies of work
we are reduced to nothing
but a hidden library, a meandering borne of
caves and sex crimes and arks and plagues
searching for that bridge , that link, that tent
that key of being to our countless doors
we return at night
to pointless o clock
marvelling at creation
we drink coffee, masturbate, smoke butterfly cigarettes
we contemplate and radiate our mysteries
we try to sleep, we try to pray, we try to write
that one more line
before we cut the boats loose
sending them off to shores they’ve longed for
Irving Paul Pereira 