At the wind drop,
tidal mangrove by the motorway,
the masts and pylons,
these are the spires of the West in a smoke-blue sky
and I was going to speak again
against the kingdom, a stifling obloquy
and commiserate the status quo,
Henderson in the valley, the road ghost and abattoir
in the mind,
but I’m not interested in its preservation, after my friends,
people whose faces are swollen beyond recognition,
with the speed of trauma, make a living
off the film industry,
after their denunciation.
In the glass apparent cars
end to end like shopping-trolleys, silhouettes
that last forever, sunsets,
the moon transparent as a lens dropped on a blue pall,
cracks white and sharp the cloud’s edge, a spot-knife
where the light sits blunt and bright,
row upon row of screens in traffic, fluorescent tubes
joined end to end down an endless immigration corridor,
highway, runway,
and the shadows of drivers and passengers shall not
deepen, nor lighten; formerly
I gave my thought fractured and poignant
to the concrete apparition of the outer world,
I experienced something like a loss,
somehow a shellfish, an oyster, hulled and discarded,
the repression of a detail, of every fingernail,
and its formation,
after the denunciation, the repression,
after the repression of names
that are inserted to lay bare not themselves
but their disguises,
the formed pink grey meat, the pearl frame
and then pull out: things that need to be said
in an open letter
as if enjoying relationship with friends and lovers
without consent, their calm distrust
of everything I sent against the kingdom or said
to them, old friends, ex-lovers, and made denials,
because they wouldn’t say what needed to be said
and conferred distant reassuring gazes
that were blank stares
on subtle messages of dissent
beyond the range of human voices, I don’t believe
I am making this up, the birds
left the trees in their eyes,
their shadows by the bedside, at the end
of the motorway, the red beacon; and in addressing
the legitimacy of a desire for prosperity and
happiness I have again betrayed myself
to their fingers digging in the bush
for real-estate. On the shoot, the magic hour,
mist round the stalks of lamps,
the hill strides, bows under a standing wave
and loose cloud that is let down
at the wind drop, in strands;
a frame perfect woman, blond hair with
dark streaks in a dry-as-a-bone on a rowan mare
led into the ford to let a car pass
on the bridge before Bethells.
And I, he said, I,
but I don’t want to talk in the I anymore,
I’m left here caught
in the world of interesting ironies,
the paucity of images
sufficient to overturning the verdict
of anonymity, a boy
in a man’s body, nervous as a blowfly,
small subversive practices won’t work
anymore and looking out is fraught
with ambiguity, to make a fuss
about the facade’s not only dangerous now
but pointless to me, I, I, still stuck.
Before the difference, the repetition before the end,
before the end of a singular solution
to the problems in the inner life of any person,
when I’m not hulled at Te Henga, instinct
with the pathos of an oyster, before
the denunciation of my friends, the sweet
repression, a return to understanding
every hollow instance of the real, then
I would’ve wanted to reserve my rights
on this movie, soundtrack, I would then
have wanted my rights to hacking the land
in its comic whale-like proportion,
to attacking the commonplace absurdity
of this country
were preferred to the kingdom.
O What’s happening now?
Can’t you hear its bones?
The girder, the steel and concrete,
these are the deep blues and purples
in the building’s skeleton
of spaces
before the political skin is put on;
open markets, they promise, unstoppable,
will soon lead to open pockets,
a red-tipped cigarette, they promise,
in the bleak religious architecture,
will soon lead to open politics;
he has to wriggle a little to stay on top
on top of his concessions,
the coloured lights, the music and the energy
in the marketplaces, he has to dance
to the tinny latin section playing on a tranny
attached to the popcorn stand,
a samba or sing a tango
and I was going to speak out again
against the kingdom but I’m going to speak
about myself in the black religious architecture,
for that
I am denounced.
