For Geraldine

 

                                /

the sentence gets longer the more you cut it :: develops its own

momentum, like a plant on fire, doing its own thing :: as dark sign

it reflects on form of its going, furtive,

energised as crime :: side-stepping the fifth

republic it launches its core imperial project, out there in

the sands :: passengers get queasy as turbulence fries their daemons ::

one says to other, the clouds, see, are digressing, clefting, balloon-

ing over desert, puffed up by simoom ::

there's a gesture sprouting off palm, fierce bloom ::

its syntax troubled, broken at (sigh) suffix, subjunctive, mind a moon

in a whirl of mistaken case, erroneous semes :: the dubious light

intensifies heat's force as it builds up,

the verbal text-heart about to unzip ::

little lyric cuts its own ice, don't you think, lightens up the blight ::

                                                     
                            //

the songbirds stiffen as the water dries, but that's all right, we store

field recordings :: she's looking right at you, from interstices, where

the colours they flash from thickets :: bastions,

outposts, trig points, meshed networked landscape droned,

bursting with deletions, constituents:: the goddess in the clau-

ses resolves the contradictions as cool as the metaphors :: she

has her admirers, connections good, socialistic :: phalanx cre-

ating relations, shell-shocked & scary,

a space of passion outside their snobbery,

in the shrubbery? :: as the sentence inflects, shines lights on mystery,

secrets of others in the crypt :: take care, shelter, mannerisms

cut short, economical with the truth,

for the word & name seek you out yes both

of you:: such blessings to be stalked, yes :: it comes the end in spasms

 

      

[Adam Piette co-edits Blackbox Manifold with Alex Houen. He has co-curated this special section with Ágnes Lehóczky.]

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