When They Came for You: Elegies of resistance [1 ed.] 9781743053546

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CHRISTOPHER BARNETT

when they came/ for you elegies/ of resistance

Christopher Barnett began writing poetry aged 14. He participated deeply in the movement against the Vietnam war; that political commitment has remained. From the early seventies in Adelaide to France in 2013, in three continents and in over 20 countries he has conducted writing workshops with communities in difficulty. His theatre work is performed in Europe, Australia & Latin America. He and his work have been the subject of French, Swedish & Australian film documentaries.

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when they came/ for you elegies/ of resistance CHRISTOPHER BARNETT

Wakefield Press 16 Rose Street Mile End South Australia 5031 www.wakefieldpress.com.au First published 2013 Reprinted 2014 This edition published 2018 Copyright © Christopher Barnett, 2013 Christopher Barnett asserts his right under the Copyright Act 1968 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher. Cover image courtesy Tony Oliver Introduction courtesy Mark Roberts Cover and text designed by Annette Hughes ISBN 978 1 74305 354 6

Wakefield Press thanks Coriole Vineyards for continued support

For my brothers & sisters in struggle; above all for my collaborators of these last two decades Thomas Harlan & Stephane Anizon

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FOREWORD

I met Christopher Barnett once or twice at various performances during the 1980s, once I believe at Montsalvat in Melbourne and another at the Performance Space in Sydney. I think I may have told him that I admired his work. Robert Kenny’s Rigmarole of the Hours had just published last days of th world and other texts for theatre and I was somewhat in awe of him. At the time I was the arts and reviews writer for Tribune, the Communist Party of Australia’s weekly newspaper. I was also editing a poetry magazine (P76) and was active in the NSW Branch of the Poets Union. I was trying to find a way to combine poetry and socialism and I was hitting a lot of brick walls in the poetry establishment. Socialism and poetry it seemed, were uneasy bedfellows. That is not to say there wasn’t some interesting work being produced and some interesting groups being formed. In Sydney a number of feminist writing groups and collectives were meeting and publishing, the Poets Union was aiming to function like a proper (labour) union (and distinguish itself from the plethora of amateur “poetry societies”) and there was a writing group associated with the weekly Behind Enemy Lines venue which saw bands and performances in the courtyard of the Communist Party offices in Dixon Street. But Christopher Barnett’s work, especially ulrike meinhof sings, blazed like a comet on my poetic horizon. I had never read/heard lines like: ................we have a story about martin schleyer...... this mass murderer turn labour expert was going to australia..... to teach their rich.....about industrial democracy.....well we plucked schleyer out & we left him in th back of th boot of a car.....we wanted to show australian workers how to teach their rich.....that is an interesting dialectic even for marx This was not just political writing/political poetry – this was writing with a rod of political steel at its core, each word, each space a

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demand, a statement, a political stance. But it was also incredibly good poetry in the context of what was being produced in Australia at the time. And though ulrike meinhof sings is a text for theatre, to read it out loud one quickly becomes aware of the internal rhythms – the patterns, the sounds – which drive the text forward, making the mouth and mind hungry for the next line, the next page. Writing and politics are at the core of Barnett’s being. His revolutionary approach to both poetry and politics drives his critique of the late capitalist society we are living through and shapes how he reacts and rages to change that society in his writing. His identification with the poor and dispossessed and his political reaction to their struggle can perhaps be traced back to his childhood. In an interview with Ruth Skilbeck, Barnett spoke of the poverty of this own upbringing in Adelaide: The primary impact of my childhood and adolescence was poverty. Profound poverty. I witnessed in a rich country the vast inequalities of opportunity in housing, health and education – these affected me quite literally. My father was in a tuberculosis sanatorium except for the last nine months of his 44 years. The youngest boys were placed in a orphanage for a short time because my mother could not sustain our care for a moment. This abandonment, even short, was enough to seek another family. That family was the Worker Student Alliance – W.S.A – and then to the Communist Party of Australia, (Marxist-Leninist) a clandestine organisation which involved both clandestine activity and voyages in the seven years I was in it.1 At the same time he began writing. His first poems were published in a school magazine when he was 14 and subsequent publication followed rapidly. Barnett, however, was not embraced by the Australian poetry scene at the time. While on the surface the 1970s and 80s were a period of upheaval in Australian writing, with John Tranter’s so called “generation of 68” suggesting at least an affinity with the radical political movements of the late 60s. In reality, one

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orthodoxy was simply replacing another. While Barnett read a number of the “new” Australian poets – he has mentioned being “touched” by the work of Michael Dransfield and Charles Buckmaster and having great respect for a number of other poets such as Kris Hemmensley, Jenny Boult, Bruce Beaver and Tim Thorne – he has written “it was a world I felt little kinship with”.2 Rather than Australian poets, Barnett was drawn to revolutionary poets such as Vladimir Mayakovsky and Nazim Hikmet. He saw himself “continuing a tradition of Mayakovsky and Hikmet to read to people publicly – to confront people more than to console them”.3 More importantly Barnett started working in experimental theatre in 1980 with Nick Tsoutas and Peggy Wallach. Here his influences were writers and directors such as Meyerhold, Piscator, Brecht and Artaud. This lead to the texts for theatre such as selling ourselves for dinner, basket weaving for amateurs, th last days of the world and ulrike meinhof sings which, at least in Australia were, until recently the work for which he was most well known. Then around 1990, Barnett disappeared. Along with many others, I had no idea what had happened to him until I came across him on Facebook in 2010. Barnett’s decision to leave Australia and enter a “self imposed exile” in France grew from both a profound disillusionment with Australian society and culture and a feeling of being “more welcomed” within a radical European cultural tradition. Barnett speaks of his sense of disgust at what happened in Australia after what he refers to as the “coup” of 1975 – “I thought Australia had been given a rare historical opportunity and that it surrendered in a way like Chile to a soft and to my sense more depraved level of governance”. Ongoing events during the 1980s “made Australia a place I no longer wanted to live”.4 While Barnett’s work was being widely performed in Europe by the end of the 1990s, his major activity over the last 20 years has been working with the forgotten people in homeless shelters, prisons, hospitals, cultural centres through the Le Dernier Spectateur Theatre in Nantes, France. I became aware of Barnett’s most recent work through his posts

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on Facebook where I first saw the poems that are now collected in this book. It was the first time I had seen poems published at length in a Facebook status – the poems run down the page like a scroll, often in French and then English. They constitute an extended elegy for Furkan Dogan, the Turkish/US national murdered by Israeli commandos when they attacked the ill-fated Gaza aid flotilla in May 2010. Angry, emotional, deeply moving and beautifully written, the work is composed of stunning images and carefully measured words. As in Barnett’s theatre texts there is also a compelling internal rhythm to these poems which often found me reading them out loud as I sat in front of my computer. The decision to use Facebook to “publish” the work was an interesting one. Barnett explained it to me as a way of allowing colleagues around the world (“South East Asia, Africa, Latin America, Scandinavia, Australia & North America”) to read and respond to his new work. Beyond the power of the poems themselves, there is something paradoxical about a monolithic social networking site such as Facebook being the original vehicle for the creation and distribution of such a beautiful and subversive epic poem. But having read fragments of when they came/ for you elegies/ of resistance on Facebook I was unprepared for the impact of seeing the poem in its entirety. The current version of the poem you are holding in this book is epic in every sense of the word. It is an elegy for the murdered Furkan Dogan, but within the first few lines Dogan becomes a symbol for all the other heroes/victims of oppression and imperialism: when they came for furkan waves wept for such a sailor does not come often enough this night i imagine

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four holes in furkan’s head & weep not only for him & the other heroes the other naturally the other is multiple & resistant the other always the other juin 10 At the core of this poem is a sense of collective memory – a call to remember the sacrifices, to remember the struggle, and to remind us of what has been and is currently being done to us and our colleagues, friends and comrades. We-the-people (the poor, the working class, the dispossessed, the forgotten) are not in control of the information – what is seen, read or remembered – and for Barnett, memory is central to the struggle to resist the imposition of ignorance on the collective consciousness. they think we remember nothing remember nothing remember nothing but we remember everything juin 10 And Barnett’s memory is encyclopedic. Dogan’s death triggers a conversation between the poet and the dead boy/man and though him, Barnett remembers his own passionate engagement with the world, his influences, political and cultural – names such as Paul Robson, the Irish Martyrs from January 1972 and a long list of writers and poets when i write night

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i remember chawki abdelamir when i write sleep i remember taha muhammad ali when i write poem i remember faddhil al-azzawi when i write tenderness i remember abdewahab al-bayyati … when they came/ for you elegies/ of resistance demands multiple close readings in order to extract its essence. At the same time, it can also be dipped into as most of the poems stand by themselves. The work’s strident voice reminds us of the battles that have been fought for us, and to remember the history that those “who rule/ from roll/ of dollars” want us to forget; stories of those who fought in Spain against the fascists, against the war in Vietnam, the brave young people who marched in the streets and defied their government to end conscription and the war, those who disrupted the apartheid rugby tours, and those who today are prepared to do more than liking a cause on Facebook by standing up for the rights of the asylum seekers against the insular and racist state and muzzled media and those who refuse to be silenced and demand justice for the Palestinians who have spent decades displaced and attacked. Armed only with words, Barnett marshals his considerable command of language and imagery to bear witness to the unfolding demise of capitalism and the threatening rise of global fascism. each poet an army août 10 Mark Roberts May 2013

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NOTES 1

Christopher Barnett. Interview with Ruth Skilbeck (http://artsfeatures.com/ 2013/02/01/ruth-skilbeck-inconversation-with-christopher-barnett).

2

Christopher Barnett/Mark Roberts – facebook conversation.

3

Christopher Barnett. Interview with Ruth Skilbeck (http://artsfeatures.com/ 2013/02/01/ruth-skilbeck-in-conversation-with-christopher-barnett

4

Christopher Barnett/Mark Roberts – facebook conversation

Mark Roberts is a Sydney based writer and critic. He is currently the editor of Rochford Street Review (http://rochfordstreetreview.com) and has edited P76 Magazine since 1982. During the 1980s he was the arts writer for the Communist Party of Australia’s weekly newspaper Tribune, and was secretary of the NSW Branch of the Poets Union.

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text set in double columns

when they came

no longer escaping sobibor defending leningrad but holding siege to city where you will always be furkan always be furkan always be furkan

for furkan waves wept for such a sailor does not come often enough this night i imagine four holes in furkan’s head

juin 10

& weep not only for him & the other heroes the other naturally the other is multiple & resistant the other always the other watching waves & winds i imagine you that night watching waves when they came for you furkan they were going after what they were not any longer fighters from warsaw ghetto but were pale imitations of icons of another time they were

& when they came for you furkan they didn’t know what was lost in that moment memory mingles already with memory being lost to all out to sea is expression i cannot use tonight i teach myself memories that cameras cannot configure but of boy about to be man he became five israeli bullets took too much already too many nablus jenin

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sabra chatilla worlds we will never know & be known to any other than you furkan i think you knew all that earlier than imagined world ehud barak poisoned with promises of victory that shall not be & have no right to be

furkan four holes history will have to find it/self through or be never ending juin 10 i’ve slept as you haven’t furkan right to sail seas in search of other he knew as he watched waves wander sea that stole him stolen five israeli bullets certain of trajectory young boy becoming man on ship taken down as they say language so crude commentators crawl around news desks denying this death & many others 1400 for example gaza cast lead lead of some sort staining lives of so many too many

furkan you entered the nabka so you shall never be forgotten & the nakba should never be forgotten (& that is first step to peace know nakba like your own history whole or nothing)

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losing lives led complex & tender as any you can name in chicago athens lyon sheffield sydney ankara tel aviv though their names holy evidently they are able to run their course furkan not yours

apart from this another to heart to make sure this innocent innocent who has made our nights poor of this star cette seule étoile dans la nuit pauvre désolée you are dead dr furkan dogan to be you aided others while waves wept & soldiers shot & shot & shot again to be certain you were innocent

you will become symbol human in your burning to become just another man just another man just a man a just man

juin 10

juin 10

furkan i don’t know why your murder touches me so deeply it does & that is all i need to know you knew nakba & wouldn’t forget families everywhere your family you refused to forget what others cannot

it is said today one of family said you wanted to become doctor furkan dogan witnesses sd you were bending to ground to aid other when four israeli bullets battered & blew yr beautiful head

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remember deir yassin for example amongst others key left in door for time to come back they never came back to future generations living if it can be called that in camps for 60 years now nakba you were just 19 when bullets broke you apart from learning there can only be justice or it is all worthless not you young comrade doctor to be you are worth all our struggles for breath

that has become their only truth told over & over again & again the same shots the same shots went through your head furkan dogan they went through your head & some unknown light left leaving only branches you held out while waves wept & skies fell in on themselves skies fell like sheets on all of us who are left poorer than night defending sad museums of grief for you young doctor (tonight i witness ways they begin to demonise you as martyr to make less of human flesh of head blown apart from this one to heart

juin 10 when they came for you they came with force

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to make less of this of young man they don’t know an inch of you comrade) who heals in being just in being just

who wanted to become doctor you didn’t imagine five bullets from israeli guns would stop that healing in less than 30 seconds in less than 30 seconds they took from us this glorious youth while waves wept & are still weeping

juin 10 we shall all have to become little furkan dogan we are obliged to become little of you brave sailor who wanted to become healing doctor but was cut down five israeli bullets shot within few pace you never took it seems you gave you gave & got five israeli bullets in yr head & heart at least you were formidable my frightened sailor

juin 10 furkan dogan the five israeli bullets hit you from 43 cm israeli bullets hit you in the back as with all our comrades hit in back & they will be surprised when people hit back juin 10 when they came to take you down

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on deck four israeli bullets in your head one in your heart & i am obliged to remember shoah by bullets in east bullet in neck when soldiers not drunk which was mostly not case summary executions ravine to ravine but here on deck summary executions of nine men to add to endless list you have learnt when death was german gentleman now israeli commando death in any language dead or living you were clearly great heart (one bullet) furkan dogan it is evident in your glance & i hope i am not

out of line to tell you your eyes glint as poet nazim hikmet’s did i imagine that world far from you but it isn’t never has a poet been so clear about justice having spent most of life in jail or exile he had eyes as you had eyes of tenderness & force a little mischief mostly heart pumping we would say here where heart not pumping in way i’d want to remember you furkan dogan as waves do when they weep juin 10 furkan dogan lost

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to us who have gone to grids & lines missing mostly sea you became missing sea you became with five israeli bullets in your head & heart whole with each injustice we become less so much less than we thought impossible a 19 year old turkish teenager became just man before us despite drapes netanyahu’s murderers have placed over screen & sky for moment or two but in this time tales told do not last so long & lies even less (& to be polemical for a moment

i am astonished at indecency state of israel styles into its survival they have become race killers every bit as hateful as heydrich) so much less much less history has way of hollowing itself out & then in its manner moving humanity to change circumstances they themselves do not control karl marx sd in 18th brumaire of louis bonaparte &i believe him juin 10 furkan dogan not yet one week since you were taken from us in an act of common murder that was

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called summary execution on eastern front jews gypsies communist took bullet in head & heart shot in back standard operating procedure for criminals back then it is now so present resonant how other is eliminated from being present in this world furkan dogan is no longer present he has become future you always have to contend with that configuration future you understood knowing nakba not forever you were called to prayer that worlds wonder when going wrong to higher level fred hampton demanded in some street in chicago

he told us not to be forced by fear into not being alive as furkan dogan who is now wandering streets of our resistance juin 10 when they came for you fugue 2 fugue 2 it is now so they say time though feels as if centuries pass from you to us today injustice bhopal union carbide whomever they’ve become freed in courts & countries they own down to last minister holding out hand in this moment i want to hold your hand

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furkan dogon for you never to be forgotten as another fact you are you are for me 19 year old teenager with heart & head five israeli bullets finished for israelis but beginning for me & waves of others who weep & from those tears construct configuration of which you are part furkan dogon more than that history is hollow without you certainly catastrophe dans mon coeur for someone so young seeking justice moves me more than these crude attempts at loving what it is

possible to be even in world gone wrong gone terribly wrong as world can be possibility furkan dogon created on deck of boat in mediterranean (i will be vulgar for moment hearing of this bhopal verdict i am reminded yet again the principal responsibility of capital is to blame the victim & you were only too familiar with that i cannot tell you how disgusted i am at lies they tell to cover crimes worse they damage hear all our heart tearing away at it tearing away until it

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it is a rag or a flag blow head apart until we cannot tell truth from tale but in this hour your breath breathes on me washing away winds washing away words becoming breath breath becoming

you are here & there that is certainty i collude with visions carefully constructed conversation about another poem by nazim hikmet he still here pounding his poem to paul robeson giant & giant who would not being what you became as teenager that is permitting power to pass though you as if nothing at all to write home about to father who now cries for his beloved son whom he expected to come back with sand from beach in gaza & an amulet to keep as memory you are living at this hour i see you

juin 10 i refuse to allow others to forget other i refuse to forget you furkan dogan other i know i as you or any other who breathes & in breathing resists whatever it is they call present you are presence appearing & disappearing throughout this

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speaking so slowly to another comrade on deck telling him how you wanted to be doctor you were bending down to him after he hit you were hit four times israeli bullets in yr head one israeli bullet in your heart & you became eternal comrade with other who fell we all fell we will all fall if we forget you furkan dogan

possible but it is necessary to be blind to what happened last week furkan they think we remember nothing remember nothing remember nothing but we remember everything & if that is all my art is remembering relentlessly remembering who you are who we were last week i remember details dread & dumb terror at what they will do to hold on to lies & lies which make up in this world & that reason for being so they say clash of civilisation conquest or caliphate

juin 10 & now furkan they want to prepare us for war with iran if that is at all

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whatever it is that they are saying over & over again & again & demand belief when they are words injust in creation & terrible in intent once i had duty to horror to live within it but today elite enunciate common catastrophes venal in way to vanquish is venerated only by oracles who have nothing to whisper always shouting always stuffing studies from think tanks that don’t think into silence of your breath breathing furkan you breath breathing cutting contours

in this silence so i can see i can see juin 10 you are precious to people who breathe juin 10 it is clear to me you were going to be gallant man old word to use in this slaughterhouse where they reward sin so sordid there is little difference between crime & celebrity no difference at all so your act untranslatable unless you struggle day to day to breath in this way out that way juin 10

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furkan i am listening to wires being pulled straight from heart because murderers eat our sadness so it is sung by bodies so broken i believe everything they enunciate they cannot tell lies except with ephemera they transform into magic object of this to say to you furkan dogan that we are all wire & string & power cannot break that thread of threnody i assume here & now night in nantes talking to you knowing you are there & here disappearing & appearing to me

clearly so clearly as in all songs ghosts make melodies we wrap around ourselves in time of tragedy & your murder furkan dogan is tragedy the song of the goat tragoidia we hear through you our song of not wanting this world gone wrong gone so wrong i love you juin 10 & i love you furkan dogon in way i used to love paul robeson when i was child he held hand in heart i remember this black giant who was

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the first man who taught me courage who taught me tenderness in force he gave concert to building workers when he was broken into bits by those who rule from roll of dollars they broke this beautiful man down man down my whole heart knew he was more so much more so he held humanity in his hands so beautiful voice that vanquished

this city i am alone thinking of you furkan dogan how many nights you deserved to walk in this & that city to find its heart & you would have i am so sure thinking of how you bent down to aid another when you were shot five times by israeli bullets how everything becomes whole when becoming man you would have become all of that you would have synthesised so they say but bullet put end to that & for that they are my enemy steals sadness placing power above all things & things

all we became when baritone rang like bells in empty city it is empty tonight this city i would have liked to walk with you taken café & told you histories of how slaves built

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are what we are no more no less such wondrous things we are when wondering

beyond juin 10 & this day i witness perhaps in way i didn’t want to see such scenes tho this threnody thunders through thuds of boots as they went to kill you on the deck you were lying down helping another they went about business of killing their profession 19 year old turkish teenager who wanted to be doctor healing & these professionals of violence stained your shirt with blood staining themselves to end of days they might not think that today

such wondrous things we are when wondering juin 10 this threnody i cannot stop such a song is what we are & we are forever singing breath by breath brick by brick we build resistance from contours of our bodies wire & string we are beautiful beyond words furkan dogan you are beautiful

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but i certain of that certain as copernicus they will rot from with in & out certain as copernicus pourriture by profession & i mean that with all my heart such just children demand our counsel not five israeli bullets in head & heart not five bullets by goons grinding their gods on deck of boat in mediterranean furkan dogan your responsibility means so much to me knowing power takes & takes & takes but never takes responsibility for their murders at least 1 million dead in iraq how many murdered in lebanon burying bomblets bought in boston from those

who rule from roll of dollars they take & take & take but never take responsibility 1 million indonesians 3 million vietnamese in holy hell how many in glorious latin america where voices sing both past future since i was boy the same age as furkan i wept & wept & wept as a child when they slaughtered that songbird victor jara i did not want to believe men were monster though marx clear that they are when wanting power over us commodities commodities who cry deep into soil deep into seas

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where waves weep witnessing today the murder of furkan dogan i cry & cry & cry because i don’t want to believe men are monsters but they are

i feel but in a breath i can tell you how much i love you furkan dogan for being just above all other things you thought on deck i imagine but do not touch skin on sea you are to me as natural as these elements elaborated only by breath between us in this hour of hours in this song of songs

but they are juin 10 when they came for you furkan they came as if imitating beasts they had seen somewhere some screen dividing difference dread & death determinant for these professionals of violence in mimicking monsters become them watching them frame by frame i do not know measure of hatred

juin 10 & yet again they prepare us for war iran or anybody who won’t stand down

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to those who rule from roll of dollars whispering within walls washington wherever it is they gather to grind people down ô people down on deck almost everywhere poor pay price & are weighed down with symbolic disorder of this world gone wrong where waves weep as if forever weeping over you furkan dogan there are many amongst us everywhere who are being blamed for all that is falling to kingdom come falling to kingdom come sit with me for moment so i can

speak of this world gone wrong you don’t have to be nazim hikmet to witness terrible events everywhere here in nantes teenagers like you who will never leave ghetto to heal others but will break down break down in port augusta australia aboriginal kids furkan dogan who are being slaughtered softly so they will never grow up & on mexican border they shoot boys 14 year old boys being shot down as if it is nothing at all i am not being polemic these events touch me

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terrible knowledge possessed & never to be forgotten

because they have never understood blood of arabs blood of persians blood of turks blood of iraqis blood of afghanis that blood can cover oceans & it does not mean anything as victor jara would say blood equals medals murder an act of heroism & i understand it was after call to prayer mavi marmara other men not to know they would not see dawn breaking across waves weeping for furkan waves weeping for furkan & others who live until order given to bleed people to death on deck mavi marmara firing from

juin 10 i have not wanted to speak of how an israeli bullet tore head apart furkan dogan it is difficult to write it here & now beautiful boy broken & blessed on deck mavi marmara you are still here & there for that matter we all know furkan dogan his journey & murder by israeli bullets sometime sunday morning murdering you furkan dogan in cold blood as editorialist enunciate in remorseless editorials

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helicopters leaving holes in people in people’s lives every bit as valuable as you &i being blown apart on boat sunday may 30 2010 it is possible it is still possible for israel to get away with murder & it is not polemic to remember sharpeville or soweto it is not polemic to remember the cries of the people of santiago or sarejevo it is a long line of murder that keeps on getting longer seconds after seconds someone is being torn apart

for foreign policy of well heeled gentlemen wandering corridors of power mostly in washington mostly that is where murders planned & if it is too crude to say that then i do not apologise because murder of 19 year old turk furkan dogan is crude the murder of men who it is clear to any soul sought justice & perhaps adventure in middle age but they now dead their families forgotten but today friday in turkey there are tears that will never be reconciled never be forgotten in the way

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the west forgets it’s bloodiest crimes made into movies to make what little we have become even smaller

obscure colour of their tears obscure colour of my tears rocks in river euphrates or tigris barques carrying weight of souls sent to wherever souls go when phosphorous burns skin to bone skin to bone we have become here in west abyss looking back to beginning of whenever that was song of songs so they say supplice of sorrow waking within silence to see projection on wall some scratches carved in collapse when night is at finish point of this to tell presence flourishes when waves weep leaves grow on stones we carry in pocket

a bloody rag with which to wipe these eyes these burning eyes juin 10 these eyes burning soul a desert this day valleys before & after history’s impassable mirror not memory not in any sense alive to this murder of furkan israeli bullet bought in bazar worked out in washington where night is at point to finish bedouin understand that clear enough

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with these tears i have carried for days now whenever that is know these tears never betray boulder building within what you might call this body broken & blessed

that minute hollowing history out & in this threnody to you furkan dogan whom ever you are here that much certain in such seconds as i breathe in & out remembering you

book by bed poems of muhammed ibn ammar al andulusi perhaps a prayer or another stone to carry into waters

juin 10 another time others patrick (‘paddy’) doherty (31) gerald donaghy (17) john (‘jackie’) duddy (17) hugh gilmour (17) michael kelly (17) michael mcdaid (20) kevin mcelhinney (17) bernard (‘barney’) mcguigan (41) gerald mckinney (35) william (‘willie’) mckinney (26) william nash (19) james (‘jim’) wray (22) john young (17) john johnston (59) another sunday sunday bloody sunday

juin 10 perhaps a prayer or another stone carried to ceremony where we weep over what has been done over what still to be done deals done as in robert johnson song of songs howling in head this hour

juin 10 finding it difficult to define

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crude cartography i install in text to tell what ought to be evident isn’t word wrenched from form i shall name furnace in its way exact ungaretti understood problem of pursuing heart through horizon bent by belief in possible worlds wrenched from axis so it is said to me here & there a conductor on bus barked this today in town nantes if that important it isn’t just another city collapsing in its simulacra of scenes edicts & treaties blood & bone essentially that yes

essentially that i walk boulevards built by slaves triangle it was some centuries pass into present as always as always no escaping history here or there for that matter death young turk furkan dogan still scene witnessed in one way or another way i watch waves weep this summer cold as hell juin 10 cold as hell comments created by bhl a name here or there normally of no consequence at all but he barked a moral army

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carried out crimes against furkan dogan & 8 others a moral army so depraved it destroyed in minutes myths or morality constructed from other crimes performed in western theatre of operations where 90% of man’s crimes conceived enacted & forgotten by bhl who would prefer palestinian as principal actors deir yassin for example forgotten i want to be brutal here & now crimes committed vilnius riga lyon re enacted in ramallah & brutal as those words are they are in essence truth told

by the survivors of all that has been done that will be done juin 10 i am trying too hard to forget whomever i am & i am not capable of forgetting forgetting furkan dogan because he is forever here beside me this night that day when i bend over in pain that will never go away now my heritage marked by memories including night on mediterranean when fools flew murdering men turkish men eight turkish men & butchered

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this man to be this young doctor to be this studious son who wanted to be better man whole holy perhaps but that private concern as it is in most mostly you were being better at being in way sadly only buber understood & said but no one is listening i am sure of that you were listener you listened to almost all so you heard killers fall on deck pull out guns made outside tel aviv who came towards you from the front & back

& murdered you an autopsy could not have been clearer who heard what you did that night early morning five bullets that hit multitudes you are being furkan dogan there are nights furkan when broken bones least of problems there is hurt so harrowing & it is suffering of others not of self gone somewhere down south you are becoming better at being & in this i can identify with 19 year old boy becoming better at being becoming as buber

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might have mentioned to benjamin who was cleaning glasses with shirttails mentioning messiahs perhaps but knowing only people people decisive factor as we leninists used to say maybe in melbourne before throwing ourselves into police lines that defined what that country was to me only people people property never pursued anything more solid than these tears of steel

dead & living for those of us dead & living who wrench witnessing from words in texts such as this or any other written 1970 2010 they are built to be constructions holding breath together when body gives up & down ô yes down here dread dances dreaming of you furkan dogan way world gone wrong so they sing old blues ballade that is repeated again & again while waves weep space between history there is hole & we all

juilliet 10 when words spaces between breath this day & any other in languages

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keep falling down ô we are going down ô we are going down

et matérialisme dialectique pp 302–303 knowing furkan dogan another warrior whose words wrought in practice humans hold wire & string they are little more than that in most circumstances clear even tonight chaud nuit nantais juilliet 7 to be exact & we are so much less than exact when falling to kingdom come to this furkan i mention lin & tran not to note but to burn into whomever i’ve become lineaments of line followed forever

juilliet 10 this breath built in this heat welding words to thought falling to kingdom come to this & that holding hegel to account for states rotting from within that cannot be worshipped except in wreaking havoc in hell late capitalism becomes it(self) in way lin piao learnt yearning in yenan to change all this & that which came before page i’m reading tran duc thao phénomenologie

juilliet 10 & reminded of her this night alison from adelaide

41

angel of materialist kind & tough in way work entered through skin & sought absolutes that were not to be in this world or any other for that matter may be more than this though i uncertain subject or object almost inexistant skin & bone some breaths you wouldn’t recognise repetitions researched this way that way i work here & now whenever it is thinking also of her alison from adelaide beat beauty from this furnace you might call man but we all know better

than that muscle i use to turn page after page never finding you who went within wind so they say & i believe them after all all & that our poverty & perhaps fortune who can tell through this threnody i am talking to furkan of others lost to others whoever they are they are not alison from adelaide who beat beauty from this furnace i am so much less than that enough to enunciate words she whispered adelaide 1984 whenever that was it was another time whenever hegel helped out with spirits

42

& other misfortunes i slept out on streets you wouldn’t know half of it & that too much gathering grief here for history doesn’t matter when it’s all fallen to kingdom come to me she said softly as serpent i bit through to get to her whomever she was alison from adelaide demanding demolition teams to take all this blow it up so she said strong so strong sorrow sewn from steel still steel i am that & this even under circumstances where body barely there or here for that

matter maybe that is why i still study hegel helping out when hell too much to take in this world gone wrong furkan dogan i mention this so you know battle i’ve been in this life & any other offered since storm when waves wept witnessing way we were in our times lost to rain passing through us juilliet 10 watch way wheels work & you will understand how i am juilliet 10

43

watch waves weep from where you are to this point not so far perhaps getting further far further than you thought possible better man & socialism or barbarism this still so still centre of this & that what we name work here in hell bodies broken bit by bit in experience i’ll call praxis for that is what it is even under these circumstances described in detail 18th brumaire it remains holy book for me furkan

perhaps you have another perhaps something precise & i’ll tell you as falling man abstractions don’t arrive easily clarity comes a little too quickly for this man this broken man to trust so scheherazade is more meaningful to me than you might imagine here & now after israeli bullets shattered shape on deck furkan dogan & another & another nine men dead boat to gaza those implacable facts feeding resistance in this hour 9 h juillet 2010 juilliet 10 alison from adelaide you emerge

44

in this threnody beautiful as bell in empty city somewhere down south from where ever we were welded it is said by sculptor sewing skin back again & again debating with doctors whether hole in heart will lead me back to whomever we were before war began

as any of sharman senior’s troupe i taught how states go down to wherever they go down on street acquainting faces with pavement i would have said back then hole in hell on that side of earth unfixed as in upanishad some other sacred text friederich engels on origin of family private property & state & revolution lenin certainly cover to cover trying to tell words between words breath within breath

juilliet 10 turning away tools taught day in night out here entering emergencies on hour every hour burning bridges building barracks borders passed all frontiers to this & that site stolen sixteen adelaide street fighting police bare handed

in such cities cartography coveted for escape routes to anywhere hell on earth preferable to putrefaction

45

planned in degrees given by gods who knew nothing nothing at all apparent at this hour when guided by ghosts through an archeology where i’d prefer to use spade searching for these sentences

to use empire prepares for war continually contingent only on appetite for accumulation something marx sd in theory of surplus value & now surplus lives taken here & there from drones down into villages families forgotten forever some sophomore targeting this & that who are human all too human this & that human too human perhaps in pakistan but it is acknowledged afghanistan countries circumnavigated with carnage & carnal addresses in washington where monsters think tanks any armaments that can take life away from all that this night

juilliet 10 working way through threnody enveloping waters going to ocean & not coming back to boat where five israeli bullets tore you apart from us who needed you furkan dogan so many need you now as war being prepared for war whatever words they want

46

end of juiliet 2010 in iran certainly anywhere else empire offers to change worlds destroyer of worlds & you within it watching waves weeping

this moment & that where they desire to take us down further than you thought possible when you marched some street sydney ho ho ho chi minh dare to struggle dare to win i am reminded of this this hour when worlds wreak havoc with heart as history fall back into barbarism that is not breath not breath not breath

juilliet 10 as we walk into waters knowing we will never come back sewing skin to flag held as high as comrades in commune fist flew into airless cities

juilliet 10 where we wounded & blessed bargain for breath taking tyrants who with each descent reveal bottom of bottom where we are

all love songs borne in asia minor wash over me this day that night always night on deck mornings never come for furkan dogan

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he has become beginning of another night we enter

to light skies on nights as dark as these juilliet 10

juilliet 10 holding historical materialism as means to see though mess world became after attacks on ports hanoi haiphong not yet sixteen i wanted to take tyrants down by any means necessary malcom sd & i believed him his hate purer than love being offered as order under capital i have held in contempt since cradle & that was too late it seems silhouettes & shadows conspiracies & collapse phoenix programme school of americas salvador option

waves weeping words such as these threnody torn from tears watching whether heart pumps in way that it must so they say in journals clinical & otherwise walking away from all this & that whatever it is it is so much more so much more than that or this heart pumping so sadly you imagine whole worlds wavering on axis able as abel with his brother burning decks

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whatever these words fuck people & fuck them forever collateral damage actionable intelligence bloody bloody words such as these scribbled by stenographer who serve those who rule from roll of dollars crude as that

juilliet 10 exile enunciated each step stolen so they say in institutions of higher learning where grande culture disappeared long time ago another time another moment grande culture found in streets & on deck of mavi marmara dead five israeli bullets head & heart

yes it is crude as that juilliet 10 mother land left long ago so long ago another time another time burden revelation running through it to this moment here & now whenever that is it is holding me back from barking wailing at winds or howling as bears do when crying

juilliet 10 & i wonder as children do how deep is the deep & i know now there is no measure of how far we can go down we are forever going down 90,000 files

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revealing firestorms our lives became dark ride when cheney circled again & again on little scraps of paper picked up by obedient barkers wolfowitz bolton feith yoo liddy addington who crawled from cave by ass & knuckles beaten against chest when word went through them to torture us in eternity i am afraid us in eternity

how i miss that form not given much to messiahs but i am beginning to understand benjamin & bloch how far down we’ve gone very far down where epiphanies extinguished deep full fathom five & we are not coming up juilliet 10 & i wonder too how deeply we can love the other the people the masses (the crowd the mob as journalists want to call them) i have loved & been loved by them all

conceiving only crimes to create consciousness at 16 wearing ring made from fuselage of b 52 bomber given as gift from tender comrade from hanoi how i miss that form of clarity

50

my miserable years & it is their heart that keeps me going going

wherever you want to place pin on map suffering has signatories who work from new york & washington these not fabled cities but centres of terror centres of terror aimed at all

juilliet 10 down here deep in waters you weep in way seas wash through you furkan dogan to this point somewhere south of wherever we are we are oceans of others always & that implacable fact haunts elites this night that day wherever they work against us & those who think that fiction have not felt boot at throat as i have as most have here & there

juilliet 10 just like night haunted by histories that are present here & now as skin i carry all way to waters that are enveloping enunciations uttered breath by breath built as village huts once were home/land i have never had piece of earth peut-être that particularity helps me

51

perceive palestinians brothers & sisters under skin whose history hidden as all histories hidden as far as people concerned & if this too drab & dirge like then i must say to you in this intimacy that at times i cannot bear to hear words whose business either theft or deception & if that too simple then i shall be simpler still still as soldier under fire still i cannot contemplate fictions that do not take into account the truth whatever it is

it is in song of slave sung from pit tragoidia our first truth envied from first elites envied that which they incapable then & at this hour this hour of hours juilliet 10 standing inside rains looking out to wherever you are you are friend furkan dogan aching to break down & dismantle lies that lead us into war against ourselves juilliet 10 stones carried to our dreams & other wounds remembered as we walk

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past bedouin tents where we want to be above all hollowing hatred into something other than threat that throws us against wall always against wall so it is said in scripture everywhere in ecclesiastes book of ezekiel certainly carved by claws you can see that the way themes thundered as if falling falling forever as we are doing this day every night paler than time itself selfless so they say somewhere down south where dread discovered in eating fruit from tree

& wherever we wear these rags furkan we will be so many streams spelling out other names & we shall go to edge especially to edge grasping grids on these old roads to take us to another no neglect then comrade when we sail sail in these seas juilliet 10 before you furkan we had become blind sailors seeking seas as stones do swallowing sand sometime at sunset reading cards

juilliet 10

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laid out before you furkan we believed too many shelters on shore & there was only water

but it is carved into this skin as i flow through fluid & as fluid flows through this broken body blessed but broken

awkwardly we build bridges instead

juilliet 10

in stead of that lies only defeat

sorrow sought us out or in this or that morning & night we will always go to wire that cosmology i can comprehend in this hour of hours song of songs

juilliet 10 running into song stuttered at this hour here in heat far from you yet closer than is imagined

juilliet 10 this leitmotif lost in love

i saw how water went & you came back

of others août 10

people are libraries comrade & i understood that at beginning

love lost always amongst comrades working wires

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as it must be wearing away in winds washing all over us getting larger hour by hour globe going round & round so they say copernicus cried out to others bruno & vico maybe muscle behind way we see what we have to see through white of waves washing over decks we are constructing in dark so dark these days & nights i dream often of fallujah tal afar haditha tikrit baghdad every night i dream of kandahar

& these nights now i dream of towns & cities in iran i dream so often just so falling from fallujah just so at least one million dead in iraq families & families on fire blown apart rained on heavy artillery bombing after bombing what kind of world is this i wander & wonder in sleep barely breathing day & night barely breathing wanting word to come to world to come to word washing over decks washing over us août 10

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turning as always to tides how they came for him furkan dogan that morning not so long ago he is still at centre of this threnody i tear away at i whoever i am it is insignificant to this exercise of elaborating how israeli commandos killed 9 people on boat that cannot be forgotten mavi marmara mourned this moment 2 in morning french coastal city built by slaves in terrible triangle boats & boats bringing bodies to build future that is turning out to be as terrible in its way

the people the mob the crowd the commune they are there in greece tonight they are turning towards another they are turning to seas surrounding to waves waking people up rising they are rising i believe that to be so just so just août 10 gathering with ghosts in this hour of hours song of songs lost at sea going down full fathom five further than you thought possible permutations infinite in this permanent war waged day & night

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on hour every hour holes being blown open breaking bodies until they are nothing skin blood bone paper wire words strung out somewhere in washington post some scribbler scratches odes & sestinas to wars being waged by whores who wash countries of communities until there’s land to be dealt out some card game where winners win & people lose lose & loose almost everything except breath breath that

brings back bibliotheques we are words welded together history hollow hole being hollowed out on ocean we are weeping always weeping before tyrants bend us into borders & frontiers that are forever falling from maps so cartographers cry when turn to stone as we do in dreams & newsprint nursed from nightmares we are in this day that night schools we stay forever locked to desk watching worlds chalked on board as if there was nothing more to be done deal deal gone down done deal we dead

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for long time for so long time long time having to hold flags for forgetting whomever we were some street sydney seventies seeking solace in other arms & legs wire & string paper & rock whatever we are we are hegel’s little hole harrowing & horrific if truth be told to all some time or other before we become relics & ruins for travellers to take to jerusalem in pockets with pieces of paper treaties & instructions rule of law cretins cackle at cambridge or some other university until faust comes to take

over oracles we have become less than this yes less than this août 10 praising poison as promise dressed up in rags & flags août 10 tears telling when time turns against you turning août 10 history holds hands after all this time so they say & i believe them in this threnody i thread this tattered coat yeats yearned somewhere at sea sailing for byzantium août 10

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surrendering in shelter while waves wept making way to endless river where we once worked mines there so it is said somewhere in scripture job certainly where sister you love cannot be seen again families forgotten through force driving through all fuses connected to corps you called your own once before boat arrived with ampules syringes & powders confessions & cries made that you cannot recognise except in dead languages that aren’t dead or alive thin line in sickness’s song

easier than it looks walking to corner comrades holding cord for me to wrap around these soldiers an aristocrat annihilated nothing new in this except fact it is happening in history over & over again & again i always knew hegel would hold out to end what he knew i remembered every word detailed here & there in script you will never read except in instalments as old bolskevik knowing bukharin barked to save me from you i am always in his debt

somewhere in storm identifying i

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when waves weep words watch

i remember mahmoud al-brikan when i write love i remember jean dammou when i write goodbye i remember jalil haidar when i write route i remember especially buland al-haidari when i write desire i remember especially jabra ibrahim jabra when i write exile i remember especially abdul kader el janabi when i write absence i remember especially sami mahdi when i write sadness i remember especially nazik al-malaîka when i write waves i remember dunya mikhaîl when i write

août 10 but i breathe better as empire’s vanquished armies commence their retreat from iraq resonant of retreating german armies from the east except today enemies invisible & invincible août 10 when i write night i remember chawki abdelamir when i write sleep i remember taha muhammad ali when i write poem i remember faddhil al-azzawi when i write tenderness i remember abdewahab al-bayyati when i write light

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morning i remember especially hussaine murdane when i write broken i remember especially salah niazi when i write this poem i remember especially mouayed al-rawi when i write these words for wolves i remember especially sadik al-sayigh when i write this threnody i remember especially abd al rahman touhmazi when i follow breath i am breathing i remember especially nabeel yassin when i write this threnody i am remembering sa’di youssef

août 10 from where i come citizens crawl from caves to carve calligraphy on cards bark on ballot feeding fear & it is my will to never return to that thud thud thudding through threat what passes there for living is so much more even in my state young hegelian he hollers in middle of night when sirens call out another name i cannot remember threads to this preparation of war & its heirs in what we shall hint is hell

each poet an army

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though that too dramatic to describe what is in essence sleeping

all i remember really of that place from where i come extraordinary women waltzing with wonder & their defeat

août 10 in this threnody to be concerned with clowns that diminish that place from where i come diminishes me & makes bitter my singing in this hour of hours song of songs

saying sorry for being there culture it self one long song of sorrow

but you know that

if truth to be told there it will not be told at all

août 10

except in language

whatever it was i came from furnace & that is all you need to know

pitjantjatjara & other citizens cannot hear over howling août 10 here i address armies in city of slaves

i am furnace août 10

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but i breathe better being broken than being borrowed

that’s talent possessed even in this time

août 10

i took last look at that wasteland 1990 whenever that was it was another time a century separates senses i feel in this hour of hour song of songs

building breath brick by brick chant by chant in ice intertwined i &i to just seek silence within this song of songs i’m slipping into this masterpiece

washing broken & blessed body with waves as waters run high

août 10 raising voice within wind dangerous sign of going under

ô full fathom five ô full fathom five ô full fathom five août 10

gift of going one more time into water

telling myself at this time when walls showing space between us oceans 63

score settled somewhere down south assembling apparitions & other absences

i am watching from within wave i am becoming

it will last longer than you think

so it goes down where i came from furnace i forget where it was somewhere down south so they say great southern land only last true in any sense long gone long gone clearer than ever this night tearing telegrams apart from all that is nothing to me now absolutely nothing at all nothing to remember except regret & whatever was possible nothing possible in that place from where i came

août 10

when walking through these winds watching you take steps to destruction’s deeper dance août 10 out on waves in night searchers seeking assassin’s aim beautiful boy bent over deck five bullets buried in body you were not alone furkan dogan you are not alone this night

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carving culture with stones & seas turning forever full fathom five whittlesea i remember waves so strong i will wash forever in that furnace so frail it transform it self into stone so they say somewhere in scripture rocks move mountains become men maybe i am not dutiful in this memory i maul from words wrenched this moment that moment whenever you cannot possibly know how seas turned into i dragged throughout this threnody truth be told one way or another raga of remembering it all to forget forever

août 10 furkan dogan i have been speaking of where i came so you know how hell turns mostly without courage any adventure sleep dead sleep unless thing running jumping hitting balls whatever swimming in or out of seas they love that there ô there where furkan it doesn’t matter no it doesn’t matter at all times perhaps turkey another question entirely i know her so little poems of nazim told me all i needed to know furkan dogan you who i turn towards août 10

65

you are not alone this night

but what happens when you breathe under hail of bullets endless bombing & cannot kiss cheeks of aunt who always walked with you pressing your hands with coins that had lost all meaning everything has lost all meaning until your breath comes back to beyond where we are in these moments memory that implacable memory shall sing

i am watching from within wave i am becoming some suggest sentiment where there is none except this love from loom words weave as empires effondre &i use that word because it masks sordid scenes cultures collapsing tonight i hear voices from tal afar those who have gone for ever a poet tarek who would walk with poems in pockets exchanging poems for stones stones for poem finding faith only in breath

septembre 10 this night building boats small studio somewhere near streets slaves suffered unholy triangle still so still some nights i hear men gathering 66

to tell tale of terror sugar spoke nantes no you are still scene of this & that 200 years cannot clean seas rolling in & out to you sea another skin another sea

enough for all to see

i am building another boat to break borders we have been torn down into bits so small seas stay still (as burning buddhist monk saigon 1967) saying simply we have gone wrong so wrong worlds wells empty

into time

septembre 10 perhaps this polemic i prefer to think of it as another tongue turning time turning seas turning you turning

septembre 10 turning tuning strings not wires or walls between us sound seals pact promised when witnessing way war conducted cochin french & american holding hole in our arms pouring powders you now kill in kandahar for fear & profit

& that clear

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as you have always done this & that call for closure but you spread earth with rivers of red & brown blood incessantly inundating earth encore night after night some city stolen & villages vanish predators prowling skies to steal skin & soul wherever it can find them some student from indiana watches screens claims he’s creon protecting city control stick throwing flame on this or that family fleeing antigone amongst them they’re flesh & myth already so many antigones armies of her i sleep with on nights when skies refuse to open up to this & that

slaughter sought by some student sending stick a little bit to left a little to right flames follow skin & bone melting as in mekong delta 1969 so it goes on you expect me to read your fucking editorials full of flame & forgetting fuck you septembre 10 in occupied territories they are building settlement after settlement but we are building boats that are going to sail forever towards liberation & you furkan amongst first who made such sailing inevitable

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implacable immolation of idea of superiority of man over man

rivers necessarily flow into sea

septembre 10

falling forever catching up & down with whatever it is you are holding in hands tonight this night somewhere at sea constellations crawl as i do this do that that is to say learn

septembre 10

perhaps polemic pressing poem against wall propaganda parades on perimeter so no surprise there or here when washington post new york times the times time tell tall tales as answer to their collapse into caca they throw in our faces every hour on hour peace talks when war being explored everywhere on track when the train derailed decades ago & fell into rivers of blood

septembre 10 falling forever finitely it is said by specialists who know how body works or doesn’t still so lost in work cannot conceive body breaking for last time tuned on hour

septembre 10 69

every hour in these hour of hours song of songs

while waves weep this night until breath is done you will hear only song being sung from these lips sacred & stained

septembre 10 observing old world become little less than bad joke told by mad king leopold as he tore out hearts of men of congo tore out heart of africa still waiting for bad joke to end something conrad claimed he witnessed on boat going down or up river to wherever it is man began to eat only him self so small it is sold in 30 second advertisements for annihilation

song you cannot sit still inside this hole i have for heart but bending time into tune heard inside hail falling forever falling falling forever falling falling wailing i mean to wreck words & that gift gods gave whoever they were storming winter palace in streets of paris during popular front fought franco & were anywhere

septembre 10

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in east kursk especially they were in hills of vietnam where they built love so learned love so learned i am still student in vietnam taught me to tear words apart & nguyen van troi i owe you more than this kiss on cheeks somewhere in dark times in this continent i have chosen to surrender to sea

we must set sail into tempests tragoidia tells tale so solemnly how can i ever forget melodies made in every fight how lyricism is found in struggle how our music possible only in battle each step you made brother furkan creates a choir

septembre 10 septembre 10 somewhere it is sung in greek to not go to seas because of storms & you will set sail into them

thousand months ten thousand things thought in sacred texts burning behind barricades flood future we are no more than that

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after apocalypse whenever that was certainly in congo as belgians beheaded body after body for their king certainly end somewhere there civilisation civilised by act amputation of this & that part of body that was when soul went if indeed we possessed souls gone for good then & there roger casement mentioned that in letter where he wept as waves do

it is that clear this night thousandth night skies open so they say & waves weep till time turns into tune we can sing septembre 10 in ithica we wandered it is said somewhere some sacred text tran duc thao evidently where he elaborates elsewhere wherever that was dialectically with certain sense of dread as rain falls outside home in hanoi where i watched from window how skies fell in on you

soul sent somewhere clearly to sisilu mandela tambo cabral che lumumba ho giap bobby sands simple men with souls we don’t have no we don’t have at all

septembre 10 how he thundered through texts trailing

72

body & soul as in film noir you saw fight for what it is in man tran i walked behind you some street marseilles where you wept against wall affiches altered as you walked along well & fell into them weeping as galileo must have done after taking turns in talking with men of god whomever they were worlds were what went long time long long time remembering gait not so straight as soldier you once were but bent as bruno before fire

septembre 10 it is possible not to mention other names are all i in another form that simplest dialectic when you walk against wall & see waves cry cry septembre 10 rain falls here this night boats breaking against docks where workers wave at lights disappearing into dread this night without limit

73

soft seas dancing close to you in darkness

truth written on ancient waves writing world when you left furkan dogan we learnt to love you

birth of colour in these nights silence profound silence as birds break into song

these words light but this heart heavy

now our sun so dark we are blind

septembre 10 perhaps i’m promiscuous with this consciousness but that polite way of saying

seas overwhelm in night without name melody begins as nights emerge into night

i don’t give a fuck here & now in this state withering away

my skin speaks dragons sleep empty skies heavy earth time troubled

i will go back to holy family german ideology grundrisse & sleep sweet dreams of steel

blind days in ancient forests

74

septembre 10

in this night this night night birth & death tragedy of tides

employed elsewhere historian of hell what goes up what goes down

on a beach end of earth finisterre

transliteration of terror septembre 10

waves whispering to troubled skies

melancholy minstrels play in centre of studio as tv kills kashmiris

ash i ascend to view this violence that is nature nurtured since streets adelaide sometime seventies burning these bones to transform terror

one by one & then turns to subjects in sane songs sung elsewhere somewhere down south

wanting world too to burn to ground

septembre 10 searching for innocence searching for love

i inhabited by i

mentioning martyrs when whispering

& a crowd wishing to storm winter palace

nguyen van troi buddhist burning norman morrison roger casement

septembre 10

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terrible news seeing only in silence

what is chronology of dance a barge breaking up on sands search silhouettes (in) yr grand cathedrals demand deliverance from refugee who begs at door

enchanted by fugitives ontologies offered as miracles divinities accidents of ignorance far from glory dragons danced in garden

melody awakes but night closes

carrying crown to moon lantern at crossroads

where is enemy who knows light of heart

legba looking saying prayer to distant ones

& here lame come with tigers waiting wilfully

solitude of rivers

don’t cry fishermen our days numbered not our tears nor our tenderness

music of sand accompanied by angels exploding into flame

bells ring in this ancient city so does sound of chains

sculpting seas lamentations within labyrinth sometime early seventies somewhere down south

sheets hanging from windows show shroud of slaves

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i live like a tree nazim

silent moon calls fishermen names without number number within numbers song of songs

yes nazim i live as tree

blessed by waves enunciating elegies boats & birds rage

here drowned dance as if glaciers

building pavillon in eden with words & rocks a little ancient history

& paradise peopled by serpents whales phantoms no more

i am infidel solemn as silence

go to chapel to speak to king of your hearts spend days blind

old trains in this city seem tonight as if crying machines steam & dust form fog on roads between us

you have air of conquerors but this blood of mine is of ancient forests i burn world waiting for divers

give me you hand now angels don’t bring light

septembre 10

77

chased by names conqueror comes

septembre 10 sooner or later you will choose marbles placed in sand

here cadaver of horse ridden by captain closing in on you

all other configurations captured

you who have lost sight of him & his seas camouflaged in corruption our elites blind as barabas open doors to another ruin

some say splendour tho theologians think it is squalor i know it only as storm hanging by heels of my shadow i wonder why birds break in thin air

fiction of liberation an old debt an antique we will soon be obliged to devour

i am so hungry i’ll eat at banquet

i am so tired here night & day meet to manage path pain takes

there even silhouettes wounded dancing in deluge makes perfect sense when yr lost at sea inscribing initials

when nights silent i can hear you or them number within numbers song of songs

78

you will not find it strange i’m tattooing exegeses on this my beautiful hands these blessed hands

walking across boulevard waiting with wolves for you to type testament condemned to climbing sought deities in dust

roots of tempest always in fruit eaten away from table on night you broke apart into little pieces

number within numbers song of songs septembre 10 shame comes only at night searching to sleep deep in darkness’s mask

reincarnated as cloud take voyage to mother’s memory & i will be only one to say goodbye

when boat sank you sought refuge where brutes couldn’t open chapter nor sense perfume of promise

before beginning essence so they say tho i’m holding on to portraits of russian generals

path to port still so distant defined by dread wait for night to lift so they say somewhere in scripture sanskrit certainly

light doesn’t dance except in season of shadows

79

been here so long down streets that lead to docks & wharves that keep me from falling

i intrigue only with condemned nature that speaks humanity unable to listen

outside someone drunk imagines himself immune that only beginning of tragedy

septembre 10

sharing secrets with mute seas

tranquil night tears away some skin left on this form we will call longing for all good it will do no good at all

in sleep courier comes often with pity waiting for dogs of winter to suppress silence between breaths

my face an alarm you once woke

in that ceremony i am only an extra

indulgent travellers offer me rocks thou there is nothing in my pockets i always take them take them far from here where i can weave words from skin

& you will be here as always sheltered in snow’s sanity let me escape with sinners & martyrs to memory’s lake

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septembre 10

macbeth an example that stays still caressing contour of coming nights

what is this voice of mine except a choir take me to where horses ran in my childhood let me sit on earth & wonder at ruin of history’s mechanisms

even then knowing we were not much more than shadows less than light climbing blind over mountain to bridge where fields waited only for obsession of others arriving at abyss

& i shall close my eyes smelling the scenes from tragedies foretold in the felling of trees in that garden

septembre 10 lights flickering over lake where i went over & under glaring at ghosts dismantling discourse dragged behind horse german philosopher kissed in turin with such tenderness i always wanted to be teacher

from those trees cages were built that except for power of prophecy enclosed i who never wanted crown preferring passages where kings killed

81

inscribing on sea lessons of loss i have failed to tell you

if we cross water we will see another epoch

now there are seamen stealing across sea trespassing

septembre 10 turning up earth for tomb waiting for workers assembly of ancients becoming choir chanting through channels within wave verifying our vocation washed clean as we are of every eden

& night is everywhere waiting for signal watching this beaten body before border & you know i am turning poem into ash

following furtively a serpent’s path sheets of paper shelter where words borne as if within water of endless river

tho i try to remember & cannot recall in darkness i remember something from sleep though

& there you are desolate at river’s edge running toward sky

perhaps if we cross river

82

angels of death grow like herbs here in hell

commencement of remedy celebration of another form of being sovereign

septembre 10 they let fire into sun that terrible morning furkan dogan they let fire into sun

there is hurt in this heart meditating on you furkan dogan from what alchemies we must pursue purity

there has been temptation of nights since i sung out to you who are so far

the city must breathe the pain of this heart sovereign surrendering to sea

endless nights without moon drunk with saints on promises of a prayer

fishermen come to converse but bring only diamonds

memory behind mask essence of essence precious stone sculpting sense from body beginning of river

& what use are they when these tears worth weight in gold

83

i dream in too many languages waiting for city to breathe

septembre 10 tonight i’m on boat on bosphorus begging for rain to fall to wash these chains from these hands these beautiful hands especially in night when waters see through stones i carry to other side of straits

but you don’t cry regard closely future see a little further caravan outside this building rumours fabricated by those who have already forgotten

we will talk of farewell kisses later

forget forget that i am leaving take some time & rest

it is so taut wires keeping body together from moment to moment salvation seems a sordid scene from some scripture written somewhere down south where my knees went under wind where my hands rods used for divination in dark where my head

this perhaps only bitterness of fog sky another cause to fight for & now you weigh less than light

84

my beautiful head gone gone gone to gods who broke back of another argument with angels that quarrel we kept to ourselves for fear of fire

soft songs swallow sleep so too serpents passage to this sadness of mine now obsolete tremble as i tremble

something submerged we are at frontiers where men throw stones into well

perhaps phantoms selling silhouettes for a song let us be intimate with tigers

& voyage vain

i’m immersed in soft souvenance of those tears

septembre 10 somewhere in sand they say resurrection rewritten for favour of fools fatigued by fear

take tiger for promenade in arcades where we once hid archives eternité somewhere between tempest & deluge

i understand cross crudest geometry imagined in innocence somewhere down south definite descent into dread

tremble as i tremble 85

perhaps when burning bruno they looked into beautiful eyes condemned to useless configurations so spat scripture into seas enveloping us

& on to baghdad where books built wanting to wake by babel septembre 10 fanatic silhouettes dance at crossroads mentioning victory with shame

begging for books maybe memoirs i have forgotten how far head is to shoulders back to hands

shadows lean right into earth waiting for storm

these beautiful hands

drowned descend into garden taking rocks to keep them warm ô them warm

pedestrians pour from my poitrine weeping into streets to tell tomb which way to turn

sperm spent finds its way to unique love

i fear sometimes i’m losing losing this voice this beautiful voice

death is my love & that name a secret to no one

tremble as i tremble i will trace my way from here to istanbul

i have always had respect for my shadow 86

this structure an obscure form of sleep

somewhere out on street a man a man cries

this impossible body

i&i

myth climbs tree outside my window

do not ask search for wall the boat breathes

tell no one that tree is a woman & the raft on river awaits

septembre 10 line of conduct profound & resolute night & day pain punctures whole i become

naked clouds sing another song dancers hallucinating attempting to convince fishermen that their catch my torn sheets pain turns into skin

honour broken it is said some catastrophe we will call arteries eroded but still torrential

lightness of skin lost in deep water

on stairs communicated with african clairvoyant speaking of trees uprooted & underneath blood or gold he in hurry so i am left with maps featuring you whomever you are

ripped paper some songs sung for a ceremony

87

down always going down heart hole excavating elsewhere for future carnival crying disorder doing its work

ten thousand things

night caressing as always its grandeur

somewhere darkness empty

water spilling all over floor in space so full of light

time for intimacy passed

listen to waters of this heart sea of heart heart of sea see it see where it went down designing face of enemies

wait by wall for festival of melancholy it is time rains to wound statue in street sadder than you can imagine

mouth closed distance long go to tent clean floors turn on electricity imagine paintings hanging from hooks as if german generals see vines almost buried in cement

if you can imagine septembre 10 souvenirs from grave carried roots such as these a manner of begging patience though possessing fields oblique rain falls

count years see how they are lived 88

to where we were before all this began cave within cave

where trees masquerade as rivers captive heart cries after so much servitude

light guardian we go back there

i cry in dreams as heine said that as close to truth as you might understand little later

history hold us & doesn’t words sometimes coins in our mouth sleeping forever with vagabonds

carrying trees from forest i have howled with wolves

when i open door to you i am still more beautiful than you can imagine

sombre nocturnes septembre 10 shadows built with marble here in hell

poet i will always face sea

those shadows wounded

it is immense our tragedy yet so small it can be drawn on map

& as my friend suggest subject a bound variable

& i have slept for many years 89

here in corridors poor print poetry with skin so sublime light passes so close you are obliged to count clocks in ancient city you are obliged to go through entrails of night you are obliged to count years you have not lived you are obliged to know glory of going

trouble teaches how to open doors without waiting i go to heart of my voice

surrendering to this night without end

now you are alone in shadow

but you know who built thebes i who has grown in savage forest of night & i’ve always fallen like a flower

nocturne from forty years ago i entered into clandesinité implacable in immersion an aptitude force revealed in moments memory marks

there silence & terror in your eyes i write this knowing i will not be there

i sleep as if stone in fields

absence makes heroes of us all

90

this labour defining dust building bibliotheque that will be lost

already too many tears soil ground where once i ground gods

lost

octobre 10

tremble as i tremble

this city forest other have left our eyes responded with tears

i was within stone but i fled i

seeing in dream what is lived day after day after & before

once target you develop aptitude in absences

flood

as goethe grasped it is not in doing but in devouring

“le matérialisme admet d’une façon générale que l’être réel objectif (la matière) est indépendant de la conscience des sensations de l’expérience humaine. le matérialisme historique admet que l’existence sociale est indépendante de la conscience sociale de l’humanité la conscience n’est ici et là que le reflet

our sadness river

something you sense in forests details are incommensurable cease to cry we will not return same stairs

91

approximativement exact adéquat d’une précision idéale” v i lenine materialisme et empiriocriticisme

spectator recuperates inscriptions into machine that will get you out of ghetto when day comes as it always does

angels invoking silhouettes giving breath before fall over cliff all american cinema cliffs & walls

now then after it is just mechanism injust but decisive

apprehending alphabets without revelation

i pronounce it carefully because breath short

coincidences of convergence approximate so it is

one night the ocean will enter your home

said somewhere scripture decoded in dread by barbarians who are at barriers asking for answers from angels naive magicians of real

you will be obliged to search your breath gone to gods who are walking into water

winds incessant octobre 10

92

i became war without being warrior

octobre 10 navigating current enchanted to arrive so early very early

dawn of dread reagan rooting for facts from frauds whose world withering away

incarnate as ice it is i who becomes i&i

in that moment memory’s soul emigrated elsewhere body began breaking apart from acting world without art

though that too projection on wall you cannot see

singing old songs as i go through personal papers that are far from personal

simple

ice master giving lessons in latitudes

ask tailor when he comes whether you fond of skin or of other stories of surrender

night renders orchestra obsolete

skin action praxis poetry

hiding amongst leaves forever finishing work writing on walls as if cave

elements elaborated elsewhere because battle constructed contours & lineaments

93

wave after wave returns from so far

rain falling falling tremble as i tremble

in truth i am dying waiting

when you went on promenade under trees i imagined i understood something about gardens & betrayal

to touch heart of sun i am present one wave to another your bitter eyes sensing eruptions so close to abyss

soul something like sea monster from deep

ma quête destructrice

fishermen pulling this way & that

solitude so full of luminous spheres

octobre 10 spectres morning of joy morning of light

it is song i sing

a moon broken in two

history brings fruit back to point of origin

it is so so i sing

tempest dressed as dancer

tear after tear

94

tremble as i tremble

le seul monde, et qui sombre dans un gouffre dont aucune mémoire – même si nous gardons l’ a mémoire et nous garderons la mémoire – ne pourrez le sauver” jacques derrida texte lu lors des obsèques de louis althusser

“ce qui prend fin, ce que Louis emport avec lui, ce n’est pas seulement ceci ou cela, que nous aurions partagée à un moment ou à un autre, ici ou là, c’est le monde même, une certaine origine du monde, la sienne sans doute mais celle aussi du monde dans lequel j’ai vécu, nous avions vécu une histoire unique, de toute façon irremplaçable et qui aura eu tel ou tel sens pour l’un ou l’autre d’entre nous, même si ce ne peut être le même, ni le même que pour lui, c’est un monde qui est pour nous le monde,

abandoned in fog thinking through baggage we throw into river torn skies a trumpet player goes through scales apartment in this building pursuing pariahs so dead do not have to hide they are their own masters what was far is close what is close is so far

95

you will have to be silent for moment as if

when coming from woods watch horse sweat before you

you have lost everything

everything becomes clear words just another skin

these words tremble as i tremble

after lightning shadows of octobre

they are multiple

storms so insistent i study schopenhauer weeping wrote him weeping wrote him weeping weeping

sense unknown so it is said somewhere in scripture everything so natural & sad

well read to wrap rope around my body book i use to look out window & weep

we once wept over table placed by river vanquished by victories

take lantern to edge look over glance at gods grinding pebbles into sand

silence beats so loud in this heart octobre 10

it is so dark you say

96

in one night storm stays

you will cry polemic

copying carving into notes book of jeremiah surely

i call it breathing in modern era breathing out

walking to hell we wander through flowers

light gone

octobre 10

hell in development tumult of cities turning turning tumult of cities tidal wave time itself turbulent horses heaving as they dance in boxes

paradise closed

traitor to my own reign dancer to tears entire existence octobre 10 wandering through night’s painful myths hiding with horses history horror each instance you view it continents crawling on soil plundered invaded raped over & over again & again

i wake see only seas improbable probabilities guardians sombre palaces of water scorpions send signals within soil cheeks wet with tears

we become war death an american

we walk through one another 97

instinct only perfume

this song followed as if going down tunnels to teller of this tale

angels arrived at end of their tasks some centuries after bruno burnt death of light in that burning speaking not in my voice but in these voices

this immense night music too falling

octobre 10

octobre 10

no nostalgia for image

anatomies of absence an oeuvre dismantled in delirium & precision promised in breaking limit

no nostalgia for text trembling at dawn (insulin injected) that anecdote morphine inside ice body being holes & wholes holy only when horses sleep

current of rivers pass though palm of these hands these beautiful hands these beautiful arteries these beautiful veins

& moon reminds me of injuries

little light passes through leaves stacked by door

& terrible absolution of blind honour

98

i go to river watching horses & weep weep their tears mine

immense interminable nights falling from fallujah there is rumour that orchestra marching towards city sounds so

this concentration possesses little hunger

stripped of all breath sound breath

but they tell me sun strokes on lost boats where we gallop on satin seas

what we are spaces between little more now & then

i am tired of raining of tears

vico verified that & then now

darkness itself deaf for all this silence it matters harmonies hauled from lightning

it matters not at all

where i am storage of your tears

having arrived end of time

of your sea of your seas

dancing as waves do

octobre 10 wearied by wind

99

octobre 10

burning letters

sea is here in this verse resonant

burning words

blue & grey eliminating every elaboration

cradle (of civilisation) crushed under bradley tank

burning alphabet

so serpent sends signs

collapse of city after city

trespassing longitudes latitudes

mesopotamia massacred & in misery we have yet to understand

immediately it is inconsolable before enemy who hates horses we have become blessed

i have no other truth to tell

enemy possessing neither magic or nobility perhaps polemic in any case i piss it against wall

outside of shadows outside of memory forest of my chest harvested

burning suns in baghdad

octobre 10 burning a sea of skin

i am a serpent

burning the books of our learning

&i have been dead a long time 100

octobre 10 present

where you are mountains white as hell lost fisherman walk in circles some demented draughtsman designed in snow

(pour thomas)

forest & swamp where grandeur slipped & sleeps so sombre still

come with me friend towards abandoned garden over here on your left see the serpents speaking to us there in shadow speaking come walk with me in this garden statues all stolen rocks so reminiscent of all that has gone under water come with me rest under tree you are & have become rest we have grown up here in savage forests multitudes of shadows followed us through fog & mist

still so still winds separating us under cloth & stone mostly rags living like trees in ferocious forests storms so terrible they teach as an organist does in empty church shadows so close to ground i pray for them with what prayers i possess you thomas i always took for a tree we are judged facing sea

101

When They Came for You pages.4 correc p 101.indd 101

8/09/14 4:43 PM

shadows then silhouettes who spoke as if serpents though serpents speak

come walk friend over here see scratches i made them once for you to understand that moons had helped horses i held in my arms to calm calm when i knew it all was going to detonate there & then though this threnody takes us out into such space again & again walk with me comrade i know you observe perfectly stone & steel whatever we have left so little but so much more than we could have ever imagined

we are walking through one another rivers merging into sea listen friend sea is entering their houses come walk with me friend where light has gone but we can see screen see under leaves canisters of film they are candles here & now yes i’m being crude my friend there little time our blood spilling into another’s praxis or peace whatever they want to call it naming long gone for you &i for you & i

stones & steel taught

102

wave after wave coming from so far away again & again coming

walk with me comrade tell me comrade if in poem seas respond to question you asked when we wept under suspended lamps long ago in paris that is neither yours or mine

coming you are coming tremble as i tremble shadows of september spilling into sea be coming storm storm so still still

archives all come comrade let us walk by that lake of silver mirroring sun so it is so dark so dark

no i am not crying comrade no these tears are worlds themselves words so simple so suns seek out

wave after wave coming come comrade walk with me dragons sleep sky empty

boat lost your eyes open comrade don’t cry comrade come with me

at sea

103

come with me comrade

where we felt safer under umbrella in the cannes of balkans we laughed as i instructed use of glock & beretta under silk suits here in holy hell 90 kilometres from trieste where joyce went blind

wave after wave octobre 10 cannot conceive such sorrow washing over & through this form body we will call it for all help it brings it brings no help at all

tonight i must have been blind

dreaming standing somewhere slovenia following fascists who wiped out communists in trieste caught in croatia for fifteen minutes i ordered our friends to drive to any other hell than here thomas sleeping head on knees but also ordering comrades to quit route return to russian hoods in slovenian cafes

i must have been blind octobre 10 grief grabs me by throat doesn’t let go & i have done time in time just so just

104

you who was i in any other time i was you

day you turned became barricade to forgetting you wrote remember remember effort to remember effort

how your hands touched these cheeks & lips & said through skin brothers we were brothers

warsaw ghetto to haiti through graveyards you gave all that can be expected in exemplary man magnificent man

in struggle always in struggle

last week you went into water & waved not turning back

struggle sister to triumph when you wept i remember pyramids of rice berlin 1945 russian soldiers teaching gently their grief without words you young understanding red wave resolution human too human & from that

octobre 10 unravelling ruin within walls of this heart breaking apart into arcades where you wander gathering gods as they walk into water never come back 105

taking time as it turns against you yearning for silence to take you to path that perished so long ago whenever that was it was whenever you went promising permutations perhaps possibilities when winter palace stormed

jeremiah in a dream i’m holding) in octobre in this city created from slave’s sweat there are thousands of red flags somewhere it is unravelling ruins they are unravelling octobre 10

(in a dream i’m holding red flag somewhere in sparta singing to soldiers saddest songs perhaps their phalanxes pass me & wonder which way it all went somewhere adelaide seventies sword shaped grasped in grief falls on ground & you hear sound of surrender since so it is said in scripture

other who i am embraces & gives me breath merchant of sleep disappears down powders carrying him through fog & if have walked through silence i have fallen onto glass horizon helps only by degree

106

some saint stole tranquillity took it to precipice

on my tomb i’m not yet dead though serpent will die after it takes my pain

i cannot remember any names except these

sharing its anguish that there is no resurrection

that in other times perhaps perfect but this night a catastrophe

maybe we want to read mâdhyanaka or other oracle to lose loss

& i cannot sing to glory of snow i&i impossibly immortal here where once is enough

loss itself lost

octobre 10 while we sing these songs of songs you cannot wait to watch fire in snow

quiet how unbearable is sound of seas we are all in our own night

how can there ever be nostalgia for shadows

do not danse

sadness breaking back 107

route through i is white it is raining within these walls because babylon burning

de construction du commun si le commun est incarnation de l’amour, alors la pauvreté offre la base corporelle de cette relation” toni negri kairos, alma venus, multitude

sieges of fallujah you are lover of ghosts leaves of paper on my desk some other scars

crawling over rocks the just envy sleep

contemplated when terror talks

& postman brings only pity

shadow of fugitive gods fleeing into ocean

though he runs to the other holding massive red flags concealing clock i once wore

later perhaps you will be able to sell wings i’ve worn

when waiting for layla with djamil while boat broke

“l’expérience de la pauvreté introduit à la constitution du commun l’expérience d’amour est une activité

this majestic heart falls falls falls but so too

108

globe grinds its way down cliff

exodus from exodus fall from loss

octobre 10 shadow fatigued words beyond meaning & meaning beyond forest on fire

yet i sing for you while forest sleeps

understanding all this could have turned out differently perhaps being a line in old song

before turbulence takes all

burning libraries baghdad

octobre 10

forest on fire

inconsolable i grow ancient night after night

everything is clear scars speak

octobre 10 i cry over the sun

walking through shadow

& the years to come

i play as a child would with failing light

soul gone after assault from skies

words outside this poem fear

souls swallowed by flames

109

it is correct to fear

at end of ourselves we weep

octobre 10 & go on proletarian suns wake me weeping this heart needs wakening

no glory no bitterness

memory reminds me of this

to weep only for you perhaps that glory i am too torn to treat

& more frightful undertakings octobre 10

you understand i was always traitor to silence

standing by rocks weeping

blind between breaths translating wounds octobre 10 another alphabet you cannot conceive

“quiconque veut connaître un phénomène ne peut y arriver sans se mettre en contact avec lui, c’est-à-dire sans vivre (se livrer à la pratique) dans le milieu même de ce phénomène

as if galileo you search within walls & weep into them

,

after you annotate confession

110

… si l’on veut acquérir des connaissances, il faut prendre part à la pratique qui transforme la réalité si l’on veut connaître le goût d’une poire il faut la transformer en la goûtant Si l’on veut connaître la théorie et les méthodes de la révolution il faut prendre part à la révolution. Toutes les connaissances authentiques sont issues de l’expérience immédiate” mao tsé-toung de la pratique

as reptiles ran from one wall to another

i have read with telescope military writings of chairman mao for moments longer than i thought possible (of course there were soldiers lost in storm searching for achilles smoking perfect cigarettes amongst debris) pages promised victories coming only after catastrophe

watch white horse sweat

tasting pears talent possessed possibly some time before building broke apart & i left with old posters of guns & fists flags used as fit to get point into vein

tremble my heart is a flag rats eat roses hold on to moon i have lived close to the living 111

rats eat roses

there are voices words that come as strangers

at end of history i am certain

i have not written letters i once promised secret of moon mirrored in ocean all nuances nostalgic

you will knock at this door & by grace of damned i breathe

waves of winter coming

octobre 10 rats eat roses build cathedrals

shadows by sea lamentations of fisherman coming like cloud still carrying stones as if emeralds

so sword shifts though i have completely forgotten its existence

firmament obese emperors in washington dribbling over designs for this & that war

“la théorie classique de la connaissance procédant par simple réflexion sur le jugement creusait un fossé infranchissable entre la réalité effective de la conscience renvoyée à une pure « psychologie » et son sens

against people libraries in baghdad burning suffering refines pure instrument

112

de vérité réservé à la « philosophie transcendantale » l’existence réelle de l’objet s’évanouissait du même coup dans une notion formelle de l’objectivité qui la réduisait systématiquement à la simple condition d’un accord idéal entre tous les sujets possibles Le sens originaire de la vérité, comme adéquation de l’intellect et des choses en devenait totalement inintelligible” trân-dùc-thào phénoménologie et matérialisme dialectique

sérenité of this sadness sea obscure & impure “ô vous tous qui passez par le chemin, regardez et voyez s’il y a une douleur pareille à la douleur qui pèse sur moi” lamentations de jérémie, I, 12 we are night & are darkness always closer closer rats eat roses & build cathedrals

drowned by melody gripped by geometry

close to you on boat

the thieves wait

drowned build their homes

bears weep for me

burning swans beat wings

grandeur of nights gone

violent rivers run into seas

113

silence not sign

once & for all time turning in on it self so it is said in scripture say goodbye to stars let storms take speech from lips

in these ruins i demand you come towards me slowly slowly milk of light spilt slowly

tremble as i tremble

slowly friend shall never return octobre 10 cartography of my heart scratched into sand & forgotten for fugitives to transcribe as i do simply scratching scratching simply

such skies as this fall falling circles too we are familiar with that here & now not necessarily amsterdam but here wherever you are closing canon

tremble as i tremble my soul a shack slipping into sea novembree 10

114

hearing waves behind

dawn details this tremble as i tremble

icons floating on sea saints somewhere fishing

rain falls here so many days so many

st augustine working it out with wolves

soon hyenas will come drink their fill

torment slowly building its sacred place

crows come to chatter

nothing more than that a hole in ground

an oracle speaks to herself in some arcade in menlimontant

though it might be called cathedral

i mourned my comrade at pére lachaise

in another building someone else consecrates life to forgetting

archangels are mute or quite simply gone back into waters from where they came

i was once a warrior very quickly i am becoming ghost

reigns of terror started before we spoke

115

i am alone here drinking water crying

deeply i am rival of horizons trees are burning

waiting for sea to take me back

novembre 10 you cannot see crows or cliffs

our house empty carrying lamp through corridor

novembre 10 observe last boats leaving port

taking photograph of you though i already know how you are

wait for sound of cannons

sérenité only in passages

i will speak for clouds

novembre 10 as seas bypass our hearts

robe death wears waits

centuries are over in a night these are old tears

heart i hear i fear not mine

shadows dance in illuminations of memory

divided into multiples always dividing arithmetic as alphabet

116

following footsteps in hell regarding roses

walk to him i promise he will confess & assist you in archives

have you seen statue in garden it is i as i once was whomever that was

he is expert they say in elaborating elegies

“le prix de l’homme baisse quand il n’a plus l’usage de sa liberté” hô chi minh

why do you cry your hands are in mine

this night threnody takes me by throat

tentatives of dawn nights rest constant

tremble as i tremble

rain forever falling

novembre 10

saints saved by drunks whose favours fishermen exchange near tomb of moon

do not fall as i have fallen these words wells

you feebly attempt to exorcise prayers but they’re beat persistent & perpetual

who will tell guardian at lighthouse he is blind

117

if i possessed language i wouldn’t tell you

tremble as i tremble perhaps night illuminates port

sometimes truth too cruel

shadows confronting themselves cage i sleep in collapsing

dismissing deluge arriving at arcade with tigers

& sky my enemy

eternity everywhere except here

as caravans depart there is rumour of morning

howling like wolf crying like bear

even invisible condemned

waking to reflection in window weep

apparitions arrive only to leave behind masks

tremble as i tremble

brutal chapters not yet opened searching sleep to surrender to shipwrecked who wave towards other detours

statues stalk silhouettes so serpents speak only of oracles biting through tongue rendering bitter blood

shame of sleep novembre 10

118

obliged even in dying to be insurgent

there only tyrants there only martyrs

these tender arteries

wondering where innocent instruct

sea

vector of vanquished

sense

novembre 10

writing with wire while water wounds

you accept i am part of ocean

take boat with breath

on land each road leads to swamp

if i have given this a name i have already forgotten

so it is said in scripture

here symbols absent life & life only

sleeping masters mend memory

cardinals cackle somewhere in rome concocting crusades that will fail & fail forever

bread & water so it is said in scripture somewhere down south wherever we were some time before battles defeated us all

clouds come where sleep survives sleep can come

119

that is promised perhaps

we have already paid that fucking bill

absence awakes apparitions i sleepwalk through this & that capturing consolation only in hatred of winds

endlessly paradise real estate that went up in flames when you went on voyage to song of songs hour of hours

wind wrenched with wire that is all we are

wait wait for stones or serpents to speak

wire & string some dream gone with god who went into waves & are not coming back

rats eat roses construct cathedrals tremble as i tremble

to this barbarism or socialism question vastly easier to answer while we weep

novembre 10 stones & serpents speak lucidity of multitudes

though you take refuge in deception

bread & fish

imagine transformation from toll

wanting to go & having gone

120

being here full fathom five full fathom five at bottom as far as i can go this night hour of hours song of songs far further down than you believe possible perhaps wearing wedding dress death dealt

that is what we said in song somewhere in salzburg wherever that was town so tawdry you expected walls to roll skies to sink operas to open door of magazine we work silk shirts so black i thought we were viet cong walking way down ho chi mihn trail to teacher wherever he was it was you blond & beaten beyond belief into breathing in many languages

after it all went down (at least this r j suggested in song so sacred i am too traumatised to tell) it all went down yes it all went down

i love you still silhouettes come claiming consolation

walking without you some path berchtesgaden burying burden better to carry it

i am too tired

121

to tell them it is too late

on board boat decks are being demolished

even when they come number inside numbers

hell only heritage

i can assume after all said & done

fever inside sickness wherever we were vertigo veil i wore so you could hear me clearly

trading in treachery statesmen stutter collaborators in collapse this too

hear me clearly

polemic perhaps but i am crude in way word works this night november looking for lenin up there on tatlins tower

tremble as i tremble opening window to seas hoping to steal time as it turns wave after wave

we never

built everywhere epidemic remember please remember temptation one roll too many of dice

primitives promised future you are now living

122

if that is what it is called down here full fathom five

being so close to you seeing snow as if for first time ô time turns

distracted by dancers you want to eat your way to other side (so it is) of string

being tuned (heidegger hoped in hut in black forest tearing texts with teeth rotting to roof he couldn’t repair then) now

wire & string emperors elaborated little more than that

being so short about this & that we have not moment to spare

this or that dynasty of dread sooner or later

trace the timbre of my speech

you’ll go back to that or this

after all novembre 10

surround yourself in red scarves

sands of dieppe twenty years this night that day walking into wind & another

all absolute there or here for that matter no it doesn’t matter at all

country carved

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carefully contours of what was left

until they intersected in way disguise eminence disappearing i am ancient of days worshipping pagan idolatry calling it propaganda deferred beatitude until it pays money’s good though work is hard

after horses danced novembre 10 assimilating annihilation becoming foreigners to it all whatever that is described & abandoned that here on page where dismantling fortifications & battlements you are still looking for shepherd who’s holding jade travelling on steamer where icons rest outside academy i will find you & others imitating trials of hercules who’s carrying volumes up & down street no one goes inside metropolis because insurrection nomads have taken over tasks you used to add ingredients

novembre 10 righteous as ronald reagan in reno chatting up bugsy siegel was pal of mathematician mr meyer lansky who would’ve worked on manhattan project if he could have taken cut that was perfection he strived for while cities ablaze in his eyes whole landscapes burning armagedon vacant lot sold at twice price binary opposite too much temptation & an indulgence for man of world like him confessions come

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callously cheap in firing line this was man who wanted to buy caribbean islands set them up as charitable foundation for old mobsters a retirement package worthy of name he bought cuba until castro came who was interested in astronomy than in roulette wheels profits purely statistic he would argue with che guevara socialism & man voodoo he wanted engage this problem that was vanity for these doctors who desired healing process to predominate ninety miles away from the waters of babylon

wrong world maths of mendacity hegel held opposite to be true & who knows idealism immolated somewhere in spain novembre 10 sitting on seawall watching wave as in movie that’s parodied moment when horizon forms a cathedral in your mind starting saga continuing to this day sunday august paris someone’s handed you cortege of roses a funeral just around corner begins to fade when you can’t trust hour when minutes become pantheon battered by belief

novembre 10 going to end to start at beginning isaiah insisted but he couldn’t have been more

novembre 10

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jan palach died in that year 1968 putting himself to torch deciding world better for burning than any kind of living

used for repeating phrases & words origin uncertain as equity disappears language & body no longer partners speech isn’t just nor poetry judicious use of breath

then

fulfilling obligation is at best only a way of continuing march hope a defect faith an aberration

i remember little i was fourteen believing in globe in way a red guard from plympton park australia could be healthy enough vision to be partisan in war rather than finding shelter in lover

all legible now as i write fluently as flame damnation so close darkness always welcome only time i see solutions

that stain hasn’t departed nor its shadow become an amusement

being so close to ground i would always look up listen see face i couldn’t believe words were uttered component to dialogue never taking place

nothing is prospective when crossing too many borders can’t get back to place where etymology crawls like an insect over your lips

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language preceded entrance of sophisticated weapons gesture & glance

you spoke little except an epistle that was part of your expenditure cost of canon tragedy of leading parade long overdue for affection you pluck eyes out of head as œdipus did knowing this gesture only idiom they understand remnants didacticism of dread

the only wage i have refused to be paid for venture i’ve barely participated stuttering out theorems nothing to say other than revelations six: 2–8 four horsemen of apocalypse always

novembre 10 words alchemy following cardinal rules denoting descent assessing ascent how we’ve disappeared

you hear space between sound that lame dimension i stay in to obstruct language before it sinks to bottom of sea full fathom five jackson pollock knew titled a painting sketch or drawing this an understanding he had reached with dreams with his hands seeking neither joy nor praise maintained by distress

answering our appetite for premonition could tell who was lord who was master who was melusina & who mattered vanquished or victor though these definitions not tribute i am making as bricks tumble over temple i am building

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a monastery here on this page without sentiment or emotion other than obvious filter i feel my way blind as tierisias torn between truth & a way of telling tale

at least you did a long time ago that was only yesterday

novembre 10

novembre 10

speaking of silence i stutter sentences you will use in diary on another day when you are burning all my papers in bonfire

suppressing silence i used to keep in package by door so i could leave quickly

almost on every line i have written but you know that

i begin to talk as guide would about an excavation i didn’t discover

on that day i will be at another place not here not there

you will keep silent on matter so you can catch up later in race

novembre 10 smiling as stupidly as theologian in polish forest i gather pages of my longing your name appears

we are running we are running

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novembre 10

i knew nothing of anatomy though that was to my benefit in long run

simulating act that might have happened twenty centuries ago

after all i had barely begun to walk

i imagine i would have been gardener keeping grass level so many people could run into future as quickly as they return to past

novembre 10 arguing it out with angels as an exercise in exorcism not successful

novembre 10 perhaps i should have persisted with pact signed treaty

imitating historic personage gets easier as they slip so slowly into sentence i am writing to still savagery you call living so much more

that was not my upbringing nor was it in my training

novembre 10

these wings i hold are merest of coverings they have not protected me from kindness

incarnated as ice in another age moving towards you & into your veins

prescribed pain which teaches me to this day all i know

i believed you so i sort through the songs

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everything

way i walk

novembre 10

it will be quite long but i knew that beginning

wrapping everything in paper bag numbers rocks cards photographs insects letters rings messages flowers bracelets small shells all these things more

novembre 10 some spoke of judgement day in their journals i wrote it in agenda you carried to other who would never know my name

i dropped them from small boat a long way away from here

pretending to you i sold cloth to saint i was never amongst that group i feared their purposes & intentions

wherever that is i shall take you there someday or other

i had always loved the lonely though i never sought their company

trying to tend people who come after me i drop old pieces of paper all over ground hoping they’ll recognise

novembre 10 grain by grain i held deserts

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in trouser pockets for such a long time i began to look like a tree that had been broken by wind (you could not feel) on this day or any other

i wandered haunted rooms of that home for a time then i walked into sea novembre 10 scattering sheets of paper over lake

sometimes it is as simple as that

i sent out boats to gather them in an order only you could understand only then could i allow you to read pages as i wrote them

novembre 10 refraining to seek refuge i found home there were two women there one white one black i loved them both in my way

yes only then that would be appropriate

you asked me again about distances i replied with story about man in garden

one spoke almost entirely in song the other said almost nothing at all

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distance i told you was time that passed between kiss and betrayal

it is claimed gods do business i am no more skilled at talking about it than the greeks

at the time i thought it accurate perhaps it is not

their theft of tragedy was original mistake

novembre 10 novembre 10 having this vocation has destroyed any chance for another though i am quite skilled at piling objects from floor to ceiling

closing eyes sensing shadows through flames taking careful step into country i will never be able to forget

picking up leaves in park also something for which i know i have talent optimism at this time drives me

something is missing only you can bring back

ten thousand horses pound outside my house in provincial city cut off from world i know by heart

towards a tombstone heaven helps you when you fall from grids

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every which way

on ground while something tore me apart

look that up in journals

it went on that is your work all though that night i wept as a child

i place my head by door listening to sound of stamping feet

trying to forget pain of body

they are waiting to perform dance i choreographed

nothing worked trying to sleep but only remembering

i am not eager for this rendezvous

trying to wake from all this

novembre 10 nothing worked i labouring with laments all through night barely remembered days now that night stays clear so clear

walked into machine & it told me story i knew was true

it all began in evening when crowd performed for one another

then i was taken to large house with so many rooms full of strangers

i lay staying there

133

for three days three nights while pain remained

if i had not been looking in another direction

given a junk to sail to china but i broke that boat into bits what was left of body remained

going underground with women who wore a wasted cloth

i talked to ghosts

i remember old men digging earth in tunnels children carrying soil in bags to some other site i feared to think about at that time

it was said atmosphere was magical i found it otherwise

fourth day began with walk into white light something stopped many hands placed within

they were building cathedrals though while being built they were also being burnt down as soon as constructed

so too machines something happened it is still a mystery novembre 10 breaking down again on road to another light

while they existed they were most exquisite things but it is true

i might have caught

134

that i feared them as structures

at another time but they could not have known that

at the time it was not only occurrence i had my eyes on

as i walked with my group of women we passed figures that resembled angels those that appeared in imaginations of renaissance painter but everyone covered in scars as if they had been through some catastrophe

no no not at all in tunnels there were old warships that had been transformed into camps for people who were covered in numbers they all held on to each other

i recognised in each face features of my own not vanity simply realism i possessed at time

they clearly belonged to one another

i seem so removed from that now

everyone worked worked at something

it was somewhere underground that all this began

they were all trying to find that which i was looking for

i knew that then

135

i know that now

i knew i was living

there were several seas down there amongst people & it seemed to cover earths i could never cross in a lifetime

yes i was living that most certain of facts there was something in me that never wanted to leave but at the same time i had yearning for departure

though i did & in such a short time i was always guided by the women & sometimes when something was too much for me they took my face in their hand averted my eyes from that sight

if i am to be frank i have always had a yearning for departures it is also true to say that i was fascinated by such an accumulation though to some eyes it had appearance of film set run by mad god

truly i had seen nearly everything before but at this moment & at this time it was accumulated into firestorm

that was not

136

my opinion

when i cannot be amongst cadre any longer

sight was never first clarification

once it was hard now it becomes little easier though i am crying now

there were small towns here that were populated by personages from another time that time i cannot and will not explain

novembre 10 wishing i could forget everything going through all diaries collected travelling half way round the world seeking full stop

here and now then or later at some time or other i knew it was time to go home wherever that was

it is certainly not there & perhaps it is not here but i am compelled to keep looking.

novembre 10 some streets shudder when i walk across them to see reflection in river that is still beautiful in late afternoon

remembering a day when we stole silver from mayor of a city we had inhabited

137

we carried it to lake & we threw it in

that would be a terrible mistake a catastrophe

all we wanted was to hear that sound

novembre 10

when will you go out & ring bells

it was so simple then.

she came to me & told me it was body i was writing that i was condemned to this exercise i laughed with her then

waiting for you to do that ever since arriving that was a long time ago many people have died since then i am eager to join their number

i fell further than you can imagine novembre 10

that is not pessimism but optimism with facts

perhaps angels are singing do not mistake screams of those with enormous longing with wails of satisfied

something started down by docks where they had left your belongings in brown box so beautiful

138

museum wanted to buy it on consignment one tear at a time

that is first condition for standing up straight or whatever that is worth

i gave that up once some time ago when ships collided far out at sea where dragons live

novembre 10 presenting paper to colloquium discussing details i am embarrassed that i cannot get words right

they say you are going to find me

perhaps i never have

i am most interested in my whereabouts this place i stay is so far from roads & rivers – i do not know how you will get here

on this day i am likely to find them

when you do – i wonder how you will recognise me since everyone here is going in same direction that is to say we are all falling

perhaps i should dance in park like chinese master without a student to save him

that is my belief i should stop staring at statues on my way to meetings

perhaps that is my story

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perhaps

translating texts she speaks sullenly when i wave hands at image i can see in distance i begin to become familiar with fear

who can tell novembre 10 entering into correspondence with enemy who is still waiting for me on front line where i have not been for some time though who could tell

having known it from start as a friend i needed to know a little better as i dance towards death i can say i know it well

i am hoping for a reply to be read under lamp i have bought specifically for purpose

yes it is one of the family

light has so few uses

marching against grain grinding you down to point you signed on page in journal you have finished writing

i am not stranger to the dark that is place i feel most at home

if that is what it is called you will call it that

it is a kind of belonging novembre 10

140

it will suffice

all the time

chanting to choir coming to door every hour day and night

thought it was enough to be beautiful survivor clearly it never was

they tell you it is a dirge recognising its features never answering but glancing in direction of yet another fire

in scheme of things it is insignificant i should have known that

i was wrong when i pulled paper from shelf thirty years away

inventing an innocence immolating outside a temple might mean more i doubt it

yes i was wrong

décembre 10

how could i know that would lead to this

loving learning that came with package she gave you in room near refuge somewhere close to desert

inevitably irreversibly resolute and regal having tried to realise that amongst other account i am paying

it was there image taught lesson it became word effective and empty

141

cleaning out church you gathered confession

you wanted to be carried

accumulating announcements

thinking that sufficient

destroying directives

you began crying

you wanted to be left alone with icons as if that would be enough

thinking that enough you started speaking again that was mistake décembre 10

out on roads there were crowds carrying portrait of an apparition that might have come

they say that that ideas collide i do not know i have only witnessed what is left

before or after does it matter

carnage no it does not

it is not a pretty sight

this not place to record this

no no it is not

or that knowing that that was way it was going to be you asked to be held

pages of plato tears coming from talmudic scholars bibles being broken apart to fit in the crates that will be sent to uninitiated

tightly

142

men mimicking maimonides

in old days infatuated with giambattista vico

mr thomas aquinas still around somewhere saying this saying that i will leave him to it

that was a bad idea a very bad idea

i will go forward into middle ages

i lost that too you waited for me by wall and asked me to dance

the simple days the simple nights décembre 10

that was when i was blind so we danced very close because we hardly knew each other in way necessity demands

in old days aroused by civilisation but that soon wore off as it did for any of us who wanted to embrace that shape

in night of nights

i lost that when quick smart as we used to say oh yes quick smart

we sing song of songs décembre 10

143

speculating about song i am singing at top of my voice

i was fed in one place or another though i had to tell a tale that would get me out of door

sacrificing all sense i sought meaning a useless exercise

inch by inch perhaps philosophy you make use when you are too tired to repeat regret

it was deliberate march if you could call it that

when i went to war i noticed you standing by door clapping my movement away from you towards something certain

steps so slow i could see fire had gone out of eyes whoever they were they were not me nor were they you

that is how i remember a few steps down that road i fell to ground under weight of books

at some location pulled inside to dwelling where i was source of humour & derision to inhabitants

no one helped me up so i crawled across continent whispering your name

yes they fed me gave me fluids it was their own

144

their shit and piss brought to me in buckets

i would fall from those memorials i would make my move to wherever it was that i was going there were towns of course that had my face emblazoned on banners & flags

i ate & drank until i could eat and drink no more then it was decided i had to move on so i was kicked out on street

i would be taken to meet high and mighty

often there were no signs not any i could use for direction

i found their excrement all the same difference i could deal with at that time or any other

i would grab solid statues climb on an arm or a horse whatever there was

sometime later or it could have been earlier i arrived

from those monuments i could see where i had to go

wherever that is i still am

not far but too far at any moment

décembre 10

145

caravaggio came it is said to regard body of baptist as his own torn as we were all to become bits & pieces of empire eviscerating everything décembre 10

146

(interlude) & full moon/on rue doudeauville/bends these boundaries beyond barrier/used in commune/fighting for city losing itself lovingly/on a boulevard/where africans meet (discuss the days/dance into defeat/ while jelly roll/morton holds … seance sincerely suspecting soul/ sold to someone/scorching his songs in new york/earlier this epoch/ this man believed/voodoo a verity he couldn’t escape/performing & playing/until dawn arrived letting him loose/inside that skull/where he remembered as a child/in gulfport louisiana/ferdinand joseph la menthe heard from hut/sound of screams/that would stay/with him forever how his heroes/had horses eyes/& he knew/robert johnson hands covered in cloth/hiding a hurt/that’d never heal/in this life or another man/he’d have to/meet at crossroads/hoarding a heart he didn’t have/to know civilisation/collapsing in 1928 he formed orchestra/red hot peppers/playing to puppets on a string/ he kept mojo/for all luck/it would bring/him no luck at all times/in new york/he’d hate harlem/knowing his ghost there in apartment/ performing card tricks/with tarot pack for rich newyorkers/feigned to know/demons & devils in their darkness/they didn’t know/half of it/jelly roll sang his heart out/on a keyboard/crying in creole/ as an editor/read henry james to his circle/of friends meeting/ for a drink/he read passages what maise knew/while on stage/jelly roll leaped/over all literature left on table/of night club/early one morning/he held book/up to light knowing it all/transparent & tedious/escapes & evasions/from a life not worth living/he mostly thought/as he packed/sheets of paper into a suitcase/with every contract/he had signed/in his life whole worlds wavered/while headless chickens/in new orleans spoke to you/in a language/you knew well/enough to write melody & music/to a murmur/he would compose/careful & concise turning the tune/through his torso/ trying a tempo/that’d transcend time till time came/to take him décembre 10 147

another celebration entirely arranged/& remembering her in water/ first love/impacted on ice/ others gathered in cell/imagining themselves holy & valiant armies/fighting american imperialism/ imagined themselves struggling against enemy/that was inside/ them so sophisticated they saw themselves/shaking mao’s hands/in forbidden palace & waging war/in uniform/che might’ve worn/to dinner party in buenos aires/they took things/differently even then they were disappearing/while we disappeared/into six hour films of chinese ballet/taking tiger mountain/by strategy loving there was methodology/though it’s forgotten/though i swaminside her flesh/ grasping dialectics/while buddhist biologist stole some dynamite/ for purpose/never carried out we weren’t guzman/climbing machu pichu/with guerrilla taking country/i lived in/it is impossible/to imagine love it is impossible/to imagine longing/it is impossible/ to imagine desire to change world/we took excess/by throat/lived with it day to day/we developed ourselves/for future victory/we would win hearts & minds/with our hearts/& our minds/a forceful display of dying dynamic/we were willing/into body politic that was cadaver we were ravishing/corpse so disintegrated/it fell apart into someone else’s/arms & legs/looking for legends/looking for love knowing michael dransfield/had said this/plunging a needle into a vein/of literature’s lies/as christopher brennan/tried in twenties to prove aeschylus/still amongst us/he sought company/& found none except in bulletin/he wrote notes/towards a definition that mungo mccallum/very frightened/in office/at sydney university is no surprise/he followed brennan/into the bars/watching him talk & express ideas/he couldn’t acquire/so he’d leave/go back home to write thesis/that never worked/he would try/to write again but pencil kept/ on breaking heart/he didn’t have/the tools required for the labour/ brennan had hauled/body from bed/penning a poem that’d cause laughter/in common rooms/where mcallum wept writing an essay/ that was going/nowhere was condition australia has stayed/with few

148

exceptions/& they live/on this side of globe perhaps/never really assimilated/just a border/keeping you in room with her/long red hair/lashing your back/ten thousand whips flaying your flesh/clean as sheet/in a mortuary/covering a case you’d never be/discovered in fifties/by some scholar/riddled with holes they’d publish collection/ make big deal/that mallarmé wrote a beautiful letter/sent to sydney/claiming you brother/in an exercise still beyond them/that hide there/in a library/full of books with empty pages/or a man/ devoting his energy/rubbing out words impossible to decipher/how hard hate/comes in culture/in a coma then other brothers/& sisters followed/each with tongue johnson & clift/white & manoly/herbert & prichard dransfield & buckmaster/shot in shed/somewhere in australia killing our best/or making exiles/of those living

décembre 10 boat returns to dock whose back is broken

décembre 10 (interlude within interlude) covering gift/you made/from photograph/members of commune before execution/arranging good-byes/to world they never wanted/ portraits painted/except by goya who might’ve understood/ men so simple/asking for obvious/becoming much less so/by the hour / afterwards it’s time as nazi philosopher/martin heidegger posited/in

149

unreadable thesis everyone borrowed/for an essay/they would write/ on their original hand bound volume/ with a swastla/& a dedication/ from julius streicher who knew thing/or two at/least this is/suggested at nuremberg trials dear lord/perhaps one day/these trials will/all be over though good book/is gone now/from a library/i once burnt down amongst circles/holding line/pursuing parameter that’s no worse/than the one/i’m travelling in/side by side running a route/ back from where/i came first/at finishing post you were digging/all the way/to china supposedly/that was certain & i believed/in such myths/for a preservation (another elegiac memory/fills this day/not with tomorrow’s but a past/touring through me/through the glass/i picked up disease so young/i still act/like that child/drunk in park poison & wonder/an errant alchemy/so much stronger/than i think possible to be/like an american/brute brando perhaps even f scott/ but i can’t/take to bottle/as they did/with an abandon i cannot take/ for an abandonment/follows me furiously through these corridors/ we’ll call possible/i observe figures drawn from landscape/i’ve always painted/in that moment a slow walk/to a death/without the cortege/ or the crowd dancing deliberately dangerous/so i’ll miss/steps & gesture there is nothing/romantic about losing/self in shallows/ of a drink that’ll never remind/you were strong/son who desires punishment & pain/on regular schedule/because you’re frightened that love divines/another harshness entirely/there’s not enough kindness in world/dexter gordon suggested/to lady francis as they stared/at brooklyn bridge/that mayakovsky/sculpted in skin sixty years ago/he grabbed revolver/playing russian roulette in a room/not unlike this/away from friends/only film still to watch this/last perfect act/in a tragedy/he’d already written thirty years before/that vulgar theatre/he was master choosing words careful/whether in epic/or in agitprop there was definition/so careful carved/you knew skin/would fall away on a floor/there was photograph/taken from no/for money born volodya & skeleton/gun & bottle/he’d have thrown/at sergei

150

esenin shutting him up/when he cried/over spilt beer/& mother russia no he’s answer/death very abruptly/at that time/scattering it away as he turned/corner seeing monument/being built borrowed from another time/he’d have laughed/out so loud/that the statue would’ve come down/putting its arms/right around him those huge shoulders/carrying too much/& i’m not/making a parallel we’re too old/for such similes/even of heart/are almost useless forming private iconography/was child’s game/keeping lover awake with a story/i hadn’t told/her big bang/theory of origins/just in case it bad joke/without punch line/though circles continue seven or one/it’s all same/to me numbers/significant as signsfor a text/i haven’t written/ is being written/as i write/these antiquated elegies sullen as snow/i am drawing/from these arms/an endless diagram you will number/ date & describe/after the event/i’ll never taste the red sea/as it flows/right beside you/no i’ll stand/on water’s edge having already know/these water familiar/& i’ll swim in another way

décembre 10 re/tracing (taking you back/again to cave/where i paint/shadows on wall when only eight/going on trek/inside desert/for my father who was dying/from romantic disease/didn’t think was romantic went for cure/at a place/with aboriginal name/angorichina aboriginal reservation i do not/remember being in/car before/we went down/into flooded creek & nearly drowned/except for man/ with hat/throwing us rope we a family/climbing up rope/that could have/been rapunzels hair & finally reaching/dry red soil/we collapsed story/we might’ve begun elsewhere in narrative/you are keeping/noticing i walked/up mountain with aboriginal elders/ taking my hands/cleaning my glasses/with a leaf i looked down/ at the sanatorium/where father slept/in dormitory with other

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soldiers/telling their tale/he shut up/listening to lies he would invent/ for book/he never finished/while mother sat outside in sun/with women/she made common/cause at time cannot be explained/& it isn’t/mine or yours/business to say what happened when/she had spoken/as she wouldn’t/ever speak ever to us alone/recognise right/ to go inside/& find treasure not worth keeping/this memory alive/ of family/i never knew & not asking/for your sympathy/because it isn’t/worth the price i have paid/too much already/& i don’t/ have to admit/that on paper though i do/just reminding you/off a distance/you will keep as i did/today on metro/from clochard/ who stank shit/from century i cannot bear/to recognise myself/in his boots/black & unzipped scratching the shit/in his trousers/torn & tattered/he isn’t hero only a human/who’s given up/on this ride/ we are taking/cité to chateau rouge i am shivering/asking my lover/ what would separate/me from him & she sighs/telling me again/this is shit/literally meaning it at the time/i think her/without sympathy altogether/but i know her eyes beautiful/so much more/beautiful than these instruments i use/to discover discoveries/& find salt/she has left on the table/are the newspapers/we have stolen/today in town i don’t know/much about her/though caress calculated/to cure me from a self/i don’t know/any lore here/is that simple/enough for you that i love/this body known/quietly in curves/we keep on breaking into two/equating an equilibrium/with a balance we don’t want/your help thankyouverymuch/we can do best without it/she says soundly/climbing the stairs/towards an exit i’ll keep taking/ from this memory/because that’s craft/i am gifted at this time/ tearing down tears/tuning a turn/we shall take all that’s necessary/ by any means/malcolm x suggested/in real life that isn’t common/ enough these days/just to film/& to edit at your convenience/we have turned/history into rubble quicker than quaddafi/could have dreamt/in his tent finding his bedouin/soul so sad/he hides behind/ karl lagerfield sunglasses & recites koran/on a mat/that’s facing

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mecca/towards a home whitey’ll never know/what world means/ on those terms/& i’m not being an abstraction/that’s thought up/ in a library/no one’s taking out a book/or a magazine/only file/ with name/& a photograph with name/ making stamp/that they’re placing/on anything moving this no surprise/perhaps a gift/i am extending/with open hands i make offering/for this ceremony/you have forgotten

décembre 10

trying to understand walter/benjamin who wrote/with his tears/ which is strange for marxist/tries imitating steel/you understand fiction having to go/back to back/back over old/territory in night thinking of town/where i died/almost twelve years/to day using calendar/you’ve made/from thin hair/of their bodies hearing hessian creatures/from that time/walk up stairs/to who knows where they came/from simplest point/on graph/you are holding at front/of a class/who are prepared/to follow instruction already dancing through/long night/around torch/that’s being held for another occasion/being mourned/here & now/as i stumble from one dog/to another howling/as they gnaw/bones in hand i am throwing/as if boxing/match in philly/wherever that is i’m watching cinema/projected behind eyes/this not automatic but tortuous task/ reclaiming a history/i’ve never wanted to return there/back there back/amongst the riot/of hessian marionettes built with string/& papermache/crushed underfoot here while ghost play/performed on stage/sudden & quietly

janvier 11

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in a cathedral/we’ll enter suspicious/naive as archimedes expecting an apparition/to pretend paramnesia/so we say in language brutal/dull & divine

janvier 11

having angel/over for dinner/we speak surreptitiously pilgrims on paper/who’ve wept willingly/with wittgenstein widows when dynasty fell/after another shift/on ice/i was skating/announcing an arithmetic/i couldn’t calculate/deviations & tangents though they’re constant/conspicuous & carnal/as myth gathering its momentum/ become independent/tedious & tired/make hypothesis/throughout this text/accompanied by allusion i tear way/at seam/you have sewn/ when with monks you took tablets/falling on knees/demanding commodity pistol or prayer/i cannot remember/exact details known they are elsewhere/than on this/page of paper/passionate & precise i shall terminate/this memorandum now

janvier 11

when with wolves weep as they do

janvier 11

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you’re in laboratory/imagining remedy/hidden in architecture you have dreamt/pestilence & promise/as part/of holy family you have dined/ with merchants/run righteous round their parliaments collapsing/into recurring nightmare they are visiting/oracles making decision/& that’s reason enough to walk/into a sea/& never come back that isn’t threat/ it’s an inventory

janvier 11

sitting on seawall/watching wave/as in movie/that’s parodied moment/ when horizon/forms cathedral/in your mind starting saga/that continues on/to this day/mercredi nantes someone’s handed you/ cortege of roses/thinking a funeral just around corner/begins to fade/ when you can’t/trust an hour when minutes have/become a pantheon/ battered by belief

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Intentionally blank

boys of hamas defining god in smaller circles than can be drawn in sand

wherever they were i hit them concrete or lace whatever material at hand at time whenever that was it was what you expected miracles perhaps even paradise something like that wherever that is it is long way from wherever it is that you come from this to other things threading them throughout whatever this is it is beyond you that certainty i inscribe in space so they say & it is sad so they say so many things i thud against head i hold as if weeping

not so satisfied tragedy & farce repeating themselves over & over again st hegel’s definition janvier 11 heart whatever that was most certain of tools he took for work he began somewhere perhaps rodez perhaps earlier when writing to riviére & answering himself he thought things we have only begun to tell here & now then or later learning this & other things in way heidegger could not imagine how hard i threw myself at walls

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but in fact forgetting whatever it was that made me melancholic maybe another mood we will notate for novice who will come with calculation as all actors do this & that call it central to task whatever that is it is hardship you have when watching way walls collapse in city you once knew as home i choose some site holy as her alison from adelaide wherever you are tonight i try to tell you about me whatever something like that gathering gospels for friends who have left here long time

before or after does it matter no it doesn’t matter at all to queen i question here & now then or later when i wish words were body of fluid i could hold as you would you or me whoever we are we are holding heads high wherever we are we are lying next to another whoever they are they are not now or never so they say but i do believe in books for example though they treated here with her wherever she is she is someone i loved as you can calculation

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of building looked up at clock that told time something like that & he grasped cross he clawed at skin so they say when he went on errand to man who moved around room wanting word of way world does not move he said to galileo something like that he leaned into body & asked answer he had already written on wall opposite adoration something like that he held galileo grimly & gasped guessing god knew better than to teach this or that whatever was way back then or before whenever that was that was so

you add up or down it doesn’t matter no it doesn’t matter at all when we were not so young when we wired our bodies to each other whenever that was it was 1986 something like that dates determined here assaulting accuracy as if it was important which way we move so they say & i do not believe from beginning but beware i never was an actor in way that you dreamt of devil whoever he was he was galileo gone to pope with story in hands he held on to side

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so they say in scripture i am not reading today or yesterday for that matter i mime new testament for old man who is weary of these words i wreak here & now then or later whenever that was it was way they waited for story something like that god & man such simple story in & of themselves theme elaborated here & there all over graph i grid at this hour whenever that is it is something so sad speaking so solemnly here & now then or later & accepting there will never be another way whatever way there is i

am not so interested in inventing evasions or escapes anymore for animals wherever they are they are janvier 11 pope & galileo for example but before we all burn remember bruno whoever he was he was signing statements with screams so they say how he went down on knees singing some song in another language he learnt oh language he learnt while working & wearing himself so strong statue somewhere under sun says something more than it should say man oh man god oh god it says something else entirely as i alter

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talent i turned towards truth in way that fools do this & that & in that perhaps i am slow at that & other things i thresh waiting for harvest hard to gather ground i’m breaking into small bits that will fit into biography you are burning for bread you can make from this or that whenever you have time above all to learn dance i am teaching in this hour whenever it is it is full of fury after all these years you would imagine peace something like that though this

geography with gift that i have at all great surprise to whomever you are you are falling like feather something mao said being light as feather heavy as mountain something i remember from red book i carried towards her whenever that was it was way i walked maudlin as any master you can name here & now in trance i teach circles & other configuration while crawling through tears too tired to evaporate evasions i once knew so many tricks so skilled so they say perhaps i was perfect for that

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hasn’t happened or hoped for this or that i will try one day or another when i have lost everything for nothing something like that i am breaking apart piece by piece for all these years i am accumulating faster than you imagined almost anything else possible except me growing old something like that i am

perhaps that way we worked under sun sometime summer twenty six years ago walking back to whatever there was almost nothing i now know so much less than i ever imagined possible that we could have walked through flood to another asia than others dreamt somewhere in australia i ran & kept on running to wherever i am wherever i am close so close to whatever it is that you call you call another name than one i’m using here & now then or later

learning to lean into walls as other men do this do that as other men do this do that whatever it was they will do it one way this way

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whenever that is it is somewhere so far from you or any other who will wander through this themeless texts that i thread through skin my beautiful skin you once wore down some port augusta or augustine

outside window where i am most of time these days whenever they are they are still full of you & another whomever they are they are here at moment making movements that maybe ballet but i am not so sure it is not another secret i’m selling for soul i haven’t had for some time now or then before or later when

whomever wherever that was it was possibly still is somewhere you can visit when wounds wrapped around gift you’re giving here & now then or later whenever that is it is time to tell you of her alison from adelaide i believe i saw you dancing here in park

janvier 11 something i sell hour by hour for whomever is there or here for that matter i mime ancient athens fifth century something like that for lover

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whomever they are they are silent for seconds speaking only of solitude that i know yes that i know lives full of that & nothing else alters way to wonder whatever that is that is something i seek without glancing this way that way since alison from adelaide wherever you are you are not here tonight or any other for that matter days & years without you alison from adelaide whomever you are you are holy as hole i dig day in day out wherever it is that i am i suppose though superstition

matters to materials i have become hegelian in hours after you went to wherever it is that lovers go when they go soft as soldiers into storm whenever that occurs regularly as routine i am still studying in these seconds some saturday night middle of janvier nantes france where i have been for some time to come time to come taught by toreadors who are here waiting by my side sensing stars colliding in this body i bear for all time that i have for hole you were excavating sometime summer 1986 melbourne or sydney or on way from one to another

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with painter who paused in wangaratta almost albury something like that glancing at you yearning for another who was within me so melancholic that i couldn’t see signs as they say that you were dancing with deal another made for that day when you would leave line going for grid that would overcome you so beautiful even in failure i fought for you & won whatever it is i have here & there for that matter so mindful undoing Upanishads just for hell of it i assume terrible things that then happen in past i have

yet to yearn for that time you drove old car from mountain into city wherever that was it was where we went down so far down you became her that you never were & i married to film scholar who saw everything in terms of this & that footnote she failed to read book at hand whatever that was it was something you sought way back whenever perhaps that time in dark room in centre where i performed alchemy something like that 1980 with words wrapped around answers i did not at that time perhaps not now

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whenever that is it is early in morning & i sit still here holding hole i have in this heart whatever it is it is instrument i was inoculated against wall sometime sixties whenever it was it was when war was won or lost somewhere so strategic we wandered to other side wherever that was it was long way from wherever i am tonight here wherever alison from adelaide prays to another i am not so near travelled too far from beginning wherever that was it was

plympton park perhaps somewhere near shore so they say where water trapped in lock i looked over falling for long time until now whenever that is it is not so far from there where i wanted to fall & keep on falling into water wrapped around boats barking for benediction something like that i was eight something like that learning way waves washed over earth & man so simple then perhaps feeling for faustus i forgot & marched only with men to wherever it was they went they all went from first to last whenever that was

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it was in past i am pouring over paper prying prayers loose from leaves i have put between pages i read in morning to whomever it is that i lie next to nothing at moment for some time to tell alison from adelaide wherever you are you are kneeling on mat moving towards mecca at least that

partially prepared for voyage through threads i am only beginning to break down i am down oh i am down here wherever that is it is way i walk as if falling from moons you move this way that way wherever that is it is way we lay down together in time whatever that was it was somewhere in shadows so they say in films we watched from floor & fucked as if we were things in & of themselves so we thought at time of realms temporal & otherwise

janvier 11 not wanting to wait in vain for your love whatever it is it is something i steal second by second waiting in vain for your love taking to track an old train

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we wept into one another & wanted so they say in science whatever that is it is something i studied some time whenever that was it was when you went down on me at least that or this depending on whomever you talked to tonight whenever that is it is somewhere near soho so they say where bacon drew body further & further in & out it is believed by brokers who sell this & that whatever that was it still is here there they are saying

somewhere wherever it is it is some space where mig 29s move in way i used to do this & that whatever it was it was some serenade sung to somebody whomever they were they were collecting cactus & other plants for porch in shack somewhere so far so far near waters wherever they were they were in ecclesiastes for example & i imagine elsewhere wherever that is it is time to tell you about her another i’ve forgotten film scholar who sought savagery here & there

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wherever i was i was alternating althusser with apollionaire whoever he was he was somewhere so close i crawl towards & away from it whatever it is it is something she said standing by sea st kilda melbourne after whenever it was that i detonated inside so they say in block of flats somewhere st kilda signing screenplays for films no one made movies inside your head so they say & i believe them so thoughtful they sold tickets to this & other spectacles i was in this & that

so they say & i once saw that movie maybe with you or perhaps another i cannot tell this wherever it is it is strategy you said playing chopin over & over again you answered from room where reels ran all day & every night with whatever it was that you watched without me there was an audience close or far i cannot tell this here & now wherever that is it is when i wore myself down to bone wherever maybe melbourne walking on beach as in movie without ava gardner whoever she was

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maybe i met her in haiti maybe mexico making her moves maybe with another john huston certainly coward who got it up or down viewing vanquished from screening shed where someone from seattle edited it all into something you saw when you were young so they say & i believe them being that once reading herr heidegger on matter maybe in melbourne perhaps after who can tell this or that from scrawls i am signing this day whenever that is it is whenever i am listening to karajan someone so simple he saluted

almost anybody could be before him all artists served somebody so they say whomever they were they were there when herbert helped hitler with a word or two the little austrian couldn’t quite help himself so they said later much later after all said & done & that’s that for a time whatever that is it is tool i treasure as i must move little this way little that way tonight whenever that is it is now or then whenever that was it was

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janvier 11

you wanted desire & dread some drive in somewhere in australia in sixties lawrence of arabia something so sensitive you wore white for a weekend & imagined betrayals so bitter you would want motor cycle empty road an assassin another name he had then & there lawrence learnt lightly lessons he held for fedayeen forever failing this day cruise missiles sent to baghdad message so malicious it is hard to believe boys in white house hold opinions at all times treated by edward teller in cold classrooms so savages can claim this & that then & later

in way words are when you are nuzzling in norway photograph from pater where you watched way they walked soldiers & sons of whomever or whatever you fought for then & there great war was what it was called other things thought though threaded throughout this & anything else written on wall way back whenever that was before boys bolted for bars in paris today tomorrow trieste teaching others order so they said clearly in copy sent to someone who would later learn modernisms malevolence through themes elaborated elsewhere films so frenetic

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whenever that was perhaps it was yesterday perhaps another day in paris during desert storm someone sold idea to initiates whomever they were they are here & there & i can remember that first time i feared frightened as king hussein somebody like that whomever he was he was ramirez in nicaragua restore the poor to their thrones of glory hand them sceptres of their power something like that whenever that was no nicaragaua immolate iraq last lessons learnt maybe as marxist i imagined more so

much more reduced to this & that the new world order organised from files james jesus angelton collected for charity whatever that was it was way to go as they say in america wherever that is it is land of last whoever they are they are barren as any desert you desired lawrence you left maps for men who were so much smaller than you imagined in seven pillars for example book i borrow for forgiveness as much as anything else you elaborated then & there whenever that was yesterday whenever

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that was i was given message robert mate mate gone to wherever it is giants go this way that way wherever it is giants go & have gone for some time now i am aware of all & nothing so they say & i immerse whatever it is that i am in another hoping to honour whatever it is that & other things thread throughout this & other work i weld here & now whenever that is it is time to tell you of her another time leonie learning from frauds filming for fassbinder breath that i can

understand as utterance men make mentioning this only to offer something sustained from margins wherever they are they are way words work when crying from crossroads to here not so far as i imagined in another whenever that was leonie laughing through douglas sirk movie with mahlia singing something at end whenever that was it was something sought by bavarian barking from furnace he called film whatever he wanted fear to eat soul & other whoever that was normally someone from outside wherever

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that was it was black & white then & now whenever that was cruel so cruel so they say & i believe books you bought from friend you never needed whomever that was who watched us from film we were gazing at god whoever they were they were there & here for time so they say & i believe whomever it was we were screening that day or another night in fitzroy melbourne wherever that was it was home for her wandering in white offering her ophelia for whomever was there here i cannot tell lady macbeth

when she walks back into bedroom searching for kings & other legends i lost on way to wherever it is that i am & that long way from wherever it was we were janvier 11 chinese poets understood instinctually it has taken me so much longer & perhaps longer to come if i have been afforded such affluence of minutes in time i have taught from minute to minute here & there wherever i am i am working so hard as any miner going down to bottom

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of his city wherever that is i have been for so long & have been crying most of time from sadness & joy & will not define difference here that is something they specialise somewhere at sorbonne i talked to class of anthropologists thinking i was ape & perhaps am in way that i am so close to ground most of time & never glancing at heavens wherever they are they are perhaps i preach & am not ashamed of that under circumstances whatever they are i am still under them

whoever they are they are counting numbers knowing one and one make something of that they say wherever they are i am not thinking of them whoever they are they are burning bales outside wherever that is it is here wherever some room some continent where i feel at home holding her in this song of songs i steal some seconds from that time whenever that was it was you alison from adelaide we both tried to flee this & other things

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at universities we tried to learn learning as they might but it didn’t work way we wanted i went studying cinema & fell for someone who thought she was harlow without the w & you studying russians perfect for prayers you were reciting in bedroom that opened out onto street where painters slipped after being drunk on stories they stole from some magazine published in cincinnati you would be praying that is what i remember you in dress so short i could see whatever god you wanted me in way i never could climb inside way other

men can so they say in chronicles i am reading at this moment mr wilhelm reich whomever he was he was burning like fire somewhere in forest poland perhaps beleorussia because they burnt them alive anywhere they could & did history has helped us understand that & you can come through gates of eden wherever they are they are far from here or there today some sunday in juin wherever you want me to be i am thinking of you again i alter clocks i calculate distance from here to there whatever you can work it out

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wherever you are you will remember how we worked over books being monks maybe then we left for film somewhere in sydney living in little house between maori transvestites & house full of prostitutes positing something bishop berkely brought to table wherever that was it was there in wooloomooloo where i had been so many times already at another time i taught these traitors somewhere on street some time before i broke down i went down & came back up & down forever falling in way waves do i wept then as i do now whenever that is it is time to tell how much

i loved you more than any other more than you could believe more than others can imagine how i loved you there & then now or later i loved you more than any god you could not in your wildest imagination understand how hard it was to construct such caresses were studied from ancients & you must have known that when reading chinese poets i referred & deferred to you often for oracles you did not want to understand movements of moments in way bergson had barked somewhere in study that is somewhere else wherever that is it is abjection i alter into affirmation

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& am not humanist in manner you might imagine how in these darkest of days i rearrange portraits & photographs & assume position for prayer as you did after visiting chinese doctor who loved you darling who loved you you will never know how much i loved you how much i loved you when you asleep & i downstairs demonstrating yoga for yearners angelina amongst them was another lover from before jackie who now photographed beasts & made them beautiful in way aristocratic artists do this do that & i lost that love somewhere on street visiting venal men who wanted

change checked here & there in style that some scientists do this do that somewhere i lost love for you & other you will never have known how much i loved you how much i lost then when i wandered into lens of camera you held me like no other you would never know how much i loved you how much i loved you then when sometime in sydney screenwriting for salvation that would never come & i hate using that term i taught to many wherever they were i will still be singing this

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song of love for another who went away from alterations i am doomed to keep on making here & now then or later whenever that is it is what i am doomed to do for damned whoever they are they are always amongst angels i assemble after & before whenever that is it is time to tell how much i loved you greater than gods you would accumulate after whomever they were they were smaller than you might imagine from books you borrowed from barbarians who wanted

to swallow you most beautiful woman i have ever known you never knew how much i loved you asking another to enter some time after or before whenever that was it was when walls wavered & fell forever in such short time everything else empty & i had to turn as i am always turning janvier 11 night playing tricks while watchman ask for time for ferries bringing families from farm foreclosed by banks that i am lending history or two until times get better or at least that is what i tell them

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taking binoculars to search for you tonight perhaps in paris rehearsing though you call them repetitions but i don’t mean to treat you so bad as an angel i have been warned about that & other matters before i brought bag of books borrowed from border guard who kept promise i am not pretending to pursue this day or that but i believe you or whoever that was who left my bed solitary on this night i count names & it’s hard wanting you without words on may day i celebrate with lone flag on a balcony i give speech to those who are searching

gardens for gods i met on a ride when i went round & round in circles somewhere i can’t describe janvier 11 she is my marshall zhukov in a dress & i am blind whenever she talks of retreating into forests just below city once invaded but never forgotten way she looked when surrendering janvier 11 running to river weep waving to engineers hoping they will demolish this last of constructions janvier 11 hollowing out hole in arm

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& keeping score of all horses i keep silent as they pass through these nights

in dry lands wherever they are it is so close i am frightened perhaps a little more than i should be courageous an old quotation from chairman be resolute fear no sacrifice surmount every difficulty to win victory seems so far from me as i remember carrying red book to rooms you couldn’t imagine in wildest dreams i swam like fish in sea of people less said the better though i will never stop saying it until lungs an open wound carried lightly in this body that has been out on loan for so long it seems i will sail

janvier 11 your god whoever that is he went up in smoke in east so its said in astute anecdotes of tailors who are not rich men except in legends they have left behind janvier 11 waiting for another to give report from front where actors are slipping in cold wrapping themselves possibly in postures i have imagined on another night somewhere signalling to men on rocks who were holding lanterns amongst clouds

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to other side where they say my home is in waters vast

we name cloud we name wounds not knowing departures pen & book breaking

janvier 11 regret remedy i have taught to tyrants

stones we save grabbed in galiléé for other fortuned

remaining humble servant to memory maiming me at this hour i’m less so much less than stone

of struggle not so secret no nostalgia nakbah

janvier 11 tuning our tongues tunisia & egypt

furkan do you hear their breathing street upon street tunisia & egypt waves & waves waves upon waves seas of sense breathing

promises we made perhaps in passage from here to there days of rage

your breath we were borne in suns desenchanted but building magic through masses

in falling words mute blind it steals pears from tree

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(aquinas weeps tears of shame) in harvest only hate hollows out & in so doing creates cortége

furkan they came pulling polyneices up & over wall into garden & square dust of gods dirty our feet as tombs turn on outside of ancient cities

we will wash sea in ash février 11

& a master of shadows wets his lips in palace that is in cycle cavern

eternal seas lit with gift of memory love my love sea an ancien empire anchored in abjection

matchbook is in their hands & winds wait

we have left their bridge of tears

emerald horses emerge in breath of chant so far from médina yet everywhere immigrant

février 11 textile strikes malhalla 2006 furnished fabric for fall

serpent seeks minotaure maybe in marsh covered in citron but bath violent & suns sleeping

creon came conjuring collateral awaiting antigones & they came

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& winds will fatigue their forces

suffering great evil masses learn what lacan left out in lectures in a city full of light not so far from here alexandria appears closer & her books left open to touch carefully as you would conversation in cafe at wharves where workers weep after hearing tyrant tell tale told too many times tears of people turn & in turning turn away from father who chillingly chide

i pray this furkan in this hour of hours song of songs février 11 tyrant toppled tonight creon crawls corridors as armies assemble to take hands of power & feet must march again & again maybe into marsh like lenin said somewhere in scripture what is to be done is still very still same sense quite still

them so beautiful extraordinary masses breathing in & out history & time itself stops for moment to listen

still waters still février 11

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to docker whose tears are volumes we are yet to read

scholars construct superstructures to comprehend labours of babylon our steel hearts hurl & open trace of tulip’s tears

février 11 taken tree by roots profound & powerful fall as we all do cedar & oak

standing near monuments imagining possible structures keeping me close to hour giving this heart torn now taken to river many rivulets run to this point i believe man possible here & now in this moment on this earth beauty is born

eagle takes flight escape or exodus language on fire cleaning hands in river joy & prudence force us to look up witness walls wailing over this bridge of tears washing way masses move ferociously & fine so fine

février 11 man is bridge sometimes little else in other times

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not much more than breath

look back regard behind

février 11

passage of past

question of being forgotten fallen heidegger hurled from hut black forest false alarm tahrir square teaches

février 11 towers we will have to build ourselves février 11

février 11 when we go

emperor left egypt holed up in hotel going through graphs with gunmen organise fête to save soul he doesn’t have

stones will stop singing février 11

what cries is what

collecting all his precious things he will go on primitive pilgrimage to mouth of lion

changes forget fingerprints of your tears

he thought he tamed

février 11 “le monde es tout ce qui arrive le monde est l’ensemble des faits, non pas des choses

but before you have time return

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le monde est determiné par les faits, ces faits étant la totalité des faits car la totalité des faits détermine ce qui arrive et aussi tout ce qui n’arrive pas” ludwig wittgenstein

février 11

divining from dust numbers you cannot calculate unless boat breaks up river near pavillon where you once abandoned alphabets drank with dragon

perambulation of your people

cities without form must memorize meandering of your rivers

writing these words more painful than you imagine tremble as i tremble

forgot all your history gone

février 11

for a song

ballade sacco & vanzetti sinks into skin as it did 40 years from here whenever that is their letters say same things thudding through these veins worn down now

février 11 waking up this morning tears in bed février 11 ferocious forgetting brought back darkness

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to some circle you cannot enter century without weeping for all that has been lost for all that others have

sleepless decades wanting to take vengeance for what was done to vanzetti & sacco this not nostalgia but breath i take to keep this heart working

forgotten so easily these letters so literate all else scratches on page these letters so beautiful in sense scripture intends that is beautiful beyond belief beautiful beyond

this heart working février 11 turning out lights on way to water silencing søren speaking of master thieves i thought faith defiled in dust gathering about knees as i pray to nothing more than stone

words not borne of their necessity not words at all saying this stuttering silent as it is possible under circumstances such as these

gazing at grids running under river that is so dark this night

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i wander through threnody sung within silence you call it speaking i no longer able to define difference between these tears & talking

troubled & reduced watching bird break fall into river which in this instance another tomb i gather these tears then forage for forgetting with soldiers who wear rubies around necks as if ready to hear confession exhaled with every enunciation i hammer into my skin my beautiful skin

tremble as i tremble souvenance terrified of temples that are now debris swept from one boulevard to another i hear slaves on horses taking to city centre their long hair as if nets crafted in forests for fishermen

perhaps i will talk to them in sleep

melody of walls genesis i grab in these hours of hours in this song of songs

every night now end of history so don’t come banging on door unless you are followed by deluge 189

eve can come only if she is prepared for interrogation

everywhere elaborating this & that while we ramble on so said cisco houston some scripture sung to keep away all angels during dread

février 11 ghosts sending messages through wires i walk from one side of river to other

floating on this sea without ships sang so sailing might begin before i collapse into incantation

burning as books do boats beat against each other drums in night that never ends

dreaming of dreaming idea of idea hegel in heidelberg beyond breakwater we all broke down wanting to hold you

watch waves weep follow path to where well is look down as it looks back

we were ancient after you told story

go gambling with gods they are

whatever it was we could have

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taken it to sea in another time we would wonder way worlds work now we don’t wonder at all except when watching waves weep

for forces i wanted to be viet cong & was for all intents & purposes

knowing you will find this drab & dull thudding through but i don’t give a fuck what you think long gone so long gone gone gone forever

that is it is

that neither nostalgic or knowing nothing but giving up on everything except exception whatever

février 11 surrendering sense to this & that while singing février 11

(it is you who will have to find time)

standing on rock overlooking waters where oracles offered tear by tear married once more to this & that

that surrendered sometimes in seventies when raising clenched fist

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eternity in ruins

flute in sands

so said scorpion in some story i stole in samarquand

février 11 it all comes falling into kingdom come

before you built country from mud princes of night resurrected in roots torn from earth we walked during tempest exhorting one another to tell tale of turkish boy furkan dogan

whispers in desert tent

how he changed horizon way waves work in scheme of things

feet brushing street

glasses on table book open pen empty pressed uniforms robes spread on sheet wounds open

clack clack clack chorus waiting by walls

how horses ridden by tigers overcame our origin

requiems being prepared

who sang with spectres

being not prepared at all

who left février 11

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& in falling remembering recitation given to ghosts in passage built by broken where others slept for forever it seemed forever reciting élégies for everyone falls in falling speak

than war more than social relations written up in grundrisse good example evacuated in this hour of hours this song of songs injecting it seems day & night becoming sea

listening to learn as if this was eighteenth century where whole worlds forgotten this mars 2011 nantes another shelter where we work bottom out it is said in scripture but that text useless unless you are under influence of idols worn out here it is little less

where you are drowning attempting to get back on boat that is broken apart from this alienation small matter surplus value in & of itself i am speaking now to drunk who is writing down diary i try

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to tell him we are living in epic times i tell him as he leans against this battered body i own little other than this i try to tell him of torrents passing through us under skies so serene you know something wrong something terribly wrong i try to tell him of how horses are heroes in antiquity & we are more than horses are we not i look into eyes that are long gone to some other world gone wrong gone terribly wrong

learning lamentation when i whisper with such men i meet every day here for decades we are singing when breathing now in this time whenever it is it is so close delicate & degraded haunted we search for stones high & low forever fugitives forever will i walk towards you or will you walk towards me i cannot tell mars 11 194

being outside being

finding it difficult to decipher

tremble as i tremble

dread making map of you

darkness opening door on light

mars 11 memorizing gods grating wet afternoon western france watching waves finistère end of world &i

seas so sad i weep so speak mars 11

believe it curl of crest holding hand to where it wants to take

arranging assemblies maybe near mountain before dawn whenever that is possibility people rioting throughout ancient world now tonight in tal afar & haditha baquba woman writes on wall words you are

me i’m mystic when walking into water waiting to be betrayed by kiss woman on bench stares into space walls of water offer

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with sand i write thesis on way forgetting forgets you in end

then taking long walk amongst shelves books you burnt rags you wore

mars 11

seasons passed

hands empty

creeping along edge concentrating on centre conjured in collapse

sat in stream

jewels gone scars cartography you pull maps from box in small room start at end

wondering where you went wandering with wolves so it is said in scripture some school studied something in sanskrit

whenever that was it was when you carried heart

remembering that in this hour of hour song of songs

for fanatic reclining in chair forgetting faust lost

texts i tore apart

in ancient corridors you pour something to sip

i promise to put back together when gathering grids

poison perhaps

196

to this or that point

knowing i will be first to bite

long gone with emperor & his entourage who took us to dark side he said richard cheney 2002 perfectly precise we went to hell & have not come out

laying cards on desk before books dealing ourselves out & icons in whatever way we weave words from this & other matters meeting her on bridge so far from mountain i am falling before body breaks so i can sing song she came to hear on this night or any other

light still failing though i remain singing even in this hour of hour song of songs love & ash

seasons burning secrets & stones tremble as i tremble

mars 11 surrendering as always i sleep surrounded by snakes

sorrow sending messages on hour

197

every hour swallowing sand to see sea

being demolished i know you must let troops pass

seas burning vanishing

faithful i try to forget furnace within me i’m memory you once offered to oracle

points here points there tired as tirésias shifting stick from one hand to another

whoever that was on whatever night seas slept mars 11

attempting to talk to you but arriving only at breath built from brick

tears falling harder rain wandering in hell as i have for want looking behind

this too cut short too often to repeat

only to offer to stay beside you whoever you are

either here or there where this beauty of mine

what

198

do you see on bridge of boat that morning furkan dogan when bullets battered your body when bullets burst open worlds & world themselves became destroyer

stopped shot you five times in body & head your beautiful head i carry on banner in protest in this ancient french city that brought slaves to construct corridors where power pursued its prisoners where power sought its own poverty

i would have wanted to keep you safe comrade would have wanted to learn from you young doctor to be specialist in seeing you saw yes comrade doctor you saw men climb down on ropes free fire zones is what they call them in corrupt corridors of power when it came to you soldier

there is no greater evil than one civilisation brings mars 11 knowing numbers do not lead

199

to decency

mars 11

scrawl in sand signature

who will tell

something saints still do this do that to keep clean

our story

walking by water turning towards tide see stars whispering wailing you cover ears to speak silently so silently that everything clear so they say in scripture somewhere where my dark eyes are dulled

mars 11

when light arrives across such surfaces

body caving in on it self so far out of all this & that

mars 11

moon turns away from you &i whomever we are

holding breath idols immolate

black water bursting through

somewhere out at sea

door that’s opening to something other than might have been

burnt by bullets

200

imagined

mars 11

snow sinks into skin

slept so many years

a question

weeping

of time

thirst whatever you want to call it culture

after an avalanche it is said somewhere in scripture you can invent other

but it’s barbarism

alphabets

silhouettes in search of souls

some science bruno barked to pope swirling before mirror

too late to photograph for future

& another audience

ash & tears

ash & tears

tears & tides turning

following river to source

mars 11 born under bad sign something césar said speaks

falling in love with shadows

201

to me in this hour of hours

simple & stupefying as that or this wherever this is

song of songs mars 11

tremble as i tremble

clouds torn from skies so early this sunless morning

leave & grieve

moon only shadow murmuring as i alter clock

mars 11 stars will go

staring at heart of matter makes men idealists

to sleep in snow mars 11

ancient silhouettes sing some song you can not make out

still slave in field somewhere

light lulled

in chains & in darkness

here hell to be brief

howling inscribing hieroglyphs into this skin this beautiful skin

wonder walked sometimes it is as

202

of mine walking while it is still clear

banner & fist

mars 11

breathing in & out

now broken & battered

whatever words worth

in & out

here & now they are these sullen stones

mars 11 i’m qualified during snowstorms to gather informations

i carry everywhere évidence of longing lost to teaching how to dynamite worlds gone wrong

& to set up traps hypnotised by landscape incant epigrams learnt when i left

something sought back then fist clenched & red flag

at your door you keep wolves howling through night they dance in formation that is at once

silence is so accurate mars 11 i was once

terrifying & ornate how you discovered pioneers in désert

beautiful thing to behold

203

who were lost before journey began

mars 11 hoping hurricane can come clean this

i am playing with marionettes calling them names historical & obsolete

all away away

being broken by memory

full fathom five

shipwreck steams from Harbour full of slaves going somewhere else we’ll detect divination in our dreams & that dangerous practice for people without a vision

mars 11 days so dark don’t know where night went hours went slowly

you write tracts counting cadence primitive équations developing doctrine

centuries passed quickly so quickly

getting you through one more night & day same to me speculating on species with sorcerer we shall look for a heaven somewhere in Streets a long way from a word elegaic & elemental

waters rose once so tender now i am rock where were you when wedding went up in flames

204

i know i was running into scrub screaming

beside me don’t go mars 11

i’m too afraid to tell you i was drenched in these tears of gasoline

darkness in heart

mars 11

mars 11

drowns doctrine

soon come soon comes

see her still walking in park sydney sometime eighties researching riots to take each other down to haunted harbour hearing chains clack clack clack against stone & another dawn

time to tell how wind went & didn’t come back to books bruno burning & not going out how he burned into me giordano bruno

remembering you this night terror takes me down

can you see smoke from where you are

205

ô yes me down further than you imagined in ice

foremost among fanatics furrowing fertile lands

forgetting & flame

this so clumsy to tell but it is cartography clawed with whatever passion possessed possessed ô possessed

taught traitors then teach them now when i can treachery transcendent

perfectly something state sensés

one step this way one step that way

rome regretted in pain i am at rest it is said in scripture somewhere it was said by her walking in wooloomooloo early eighties arranging alphabet pouring powders through throat this voice vibrated

took her hand until worlds wailed bringing back war i was bringing war home war i was nothing other than that beginning with byzantium before you

206

spoke so suddenly gathering gods from wherever they came ô yes they came

by crude cadre from cincinatti serving satan or current serving président of those united states

then they waled back into waters

i’m not afraid to die

full fathom five time turns in on it self

weak waited for waves uttering little unless

so they say in scripture certainly lamentation luke something like that

sea spoke mars 11 safe from home

apostles of absence rain falling leaves gone

i’ll never find coming back to boat

pain promised never left behind

& to horses dancing in dread

always furnace within

ageless alphabets ripped from earth in mésopotamia

never leaving

207

full fathom five

somewhere you see marks i’ve made to tell story so sacred it is incanted in another language dead or dying

tremble as i tremble contours catch up with you linéaments of this & that

avril 11

foreboding

mourners come soon

as always

enough

weighed down by water

avril 11

survived almost everything except embrace

carried away by damage done returning to requiems

no consolation at all

as if that talent possessed i possess nothing at all

perhaps in another time & space wherever that was it is gone long gone

avril 11

sleeping in salt

it is never over

it is whatever

208

ever

all assembled

avril 11

in this tongue

waiting for you at wall

who will speak first i am a mob

weeping what else is there to do

at door of city lie still

in this hour of hours song of songs

mars 11 tremble as i tremble

avril 11

avril 11

no one ever came

speaking to silhouettes still

except to crawl nebuchadnezzar not here now

in street still winds wasted when we breathe

but then you know that better than i

1848 1917 1949 2011

forget nothing nothing at all

just numbers just numbers

avril 11

209

crowd clean mob magnificent foule fantastique

we drank from for centuries & seconds

if you want it that simple so simple

burning libraries pillaged museums crushing culture i crawled from there to here all distance in world all distance in world

perfect permutation in terrible times we live in worst let me tell you furkan when i wept wept uncontrollably wept beyond consolation beyond belief beyond broken & blessed body i became

all distance in world plains valleys marshes deserts fields cities towns villages

2003 when barbarians burnt baghdad invading iraq tearing apart all i am & have become

tal afar haditha baghdad basra baquba

in tearing apart our birthplace birthplace of all that matters centre of connaissance

where we came from & if that too blunt too crude

210

then imagine time to come time to come ô time to come

sensing each step of american empire tearing us all apart tearing apart all archives in these battered bodies we drag through decades of dread

some nights it is inconceivable catastrophe empire carved from our skins all our skins

such dread i felt only when knowing nixon kissinger invaded cambodia bombed ports hanoi haiphong two men in endless corridor ripping south east asia to shreds

when they were assassinated so were we when they fled so were we fleeing from start to end

this too crude for you

i dread to dream in this hour of hours in this song of songs

i hope that is true for you lineaments of language lost

our dying days i wept furkan as a child does

lost when iraq went i did too

211

ô i did too too far for you to tell to another wherever they are they are gone

other than return to barbarism benjamin mentioned more often than desired objects he saw ghosts everywhere

1 million people our origins

especially those to come ô yes those to come

an alphabet annihilated & we wonder why we have no words

too many towns to say here & now whenever that is it is after return to that

commence with cave avril 11 attempting again to tell you

march 2003

what you know as adolescent furkan witnessed burning cities

awkward as i am after cannot conceive catastrophe cretins created within walls of Washington

baghdad brought to you our rage whatever that is it is nothing

how

212

some learned hateful human being spoke georgetown university an example how he spoke of giving birth to cosmologies centred on culling other

& tonight he goes from apache helicopter transforming Streets into skin so much skin bone & blood & all his culture has taught him is to say

today april 2011 at least 1 million

“nice” more many more

& go on with business of barbarity

to come bruno dream’d of baghdad learning light in manner that’d turn to fire soon enough

you look at me now asking why i need to be so crude in this spelling out &i can only answer with alphabets that went missing in mésopotamie

giodorno grasped geometry before god furkan in some city some ancient night that is now whenever that is it was further than man was meant to go

avril 11

213

so to spell it out simply

wandering into wind catastrophe concocts

so simply

dancing always

avril 11

sickness shredding this beautiful body apart are aligned with that night march 2003

in dread dressing before map nailed to wall here in hell where all melts into memory i possess

when empire bombed Baghdâd

i possess nothing at all

night endless night except view across deck where furkan executed five israeli bullets head & heart

tremble as i tremble (maybe i will mention ancient manuscript flying through window ending its time in this world on mudguard of armed personnel carrier crashing into young irakien architect

still so clear still clear as morning mavi marmara became boat bathed in blood water wraith weeping 214

avril 11

for all

how hard horses run through these streets of veins this time that time this night of nights

it matters it doesn’t matter at all ludwig Feuerbach lamented as i do this do that

song of songs theology of thunder if you like

staying ahead but being behind harrowing history hollowing

when rain stops avril 11 here in harbour kneeling

me out there in here

for all help it will bring no help

wherever that is garden of golgotha 31°46' 42.4" n 35°13' 47.1" e

at all assembing all alphabets going under

somewhere so close you walk it in nights grinding gods down here dirt deity stones saints

full fathom five same situation scène sydney 1984

215

white on white robert hunter painting i became canvas stretched to limit

except to enunciate this & that whatever that was paper & string so long followed it for years now whenever that is it is

where were wires when losing heart some surface flat as finité

caricature i crawled but it was not much more than that falling form of falling while standing

others tumult to end of time comprehend so little not much more than moving hands

up & down only hopi know that for sure steps held on to books mostly maybe lover here or there

an awkward ballet choroeographed after collapse sometime seventies stealing into storm never coming out

wherever they were on three continents forgetting form sculpted in sand’s sorrow i signed for all 216

help it would bring no help at all

you are swept against rocks tides themselves troubled

harbour helps by holding you under centuries of caresses transform tumult into tenderness

crying out clearly you imagine nothing heard from here to there

it is told somewhere scripture upinishads perhaps another holy book karl marx’s economic manuscripts example

wherever that is i am tremble as i tremble

althusser after lettres à franca

afraid to alter alphabet i use in this song of songs

something perhaps you have not held in your hands

counting time out

this day another night river takes you

or in after all

avril 11 unfolding

it is close to end whatever

all unfolds when

that is it is 217

falling into water full fathom five

times tough so they say

far away from that garden

repeating time tables as if torah

avril 11 researching tight number it never comes up

mark maybe somewhere scripture calming seas

only down wind whole world then

here wherever

désert & sky

that is it is

tears & sighs too far from forest

avril 11 worlds fall apart

avril 11 when i no longer here or there for that matter i mere geography falling from tattered atlas floating somewhere near surface of sea turning away

simple as that just passing through book of job for all help it would bring no help at all

218

from here to there distance divined card you carry tells tale it is inferred in chronicles captured centuries

i hear way wind works amongst other talents i teach or barter with broken as i am my self broken

in flight from médina for example in way galileo walked after confessing altering this line & that whatever it was it is mostly modern form of communicating one thing to an other whatever it is we do when barking

sometime in seventies street in Sydney detective demolishing séparation between soul sky & earth whatever it was bottom limping as if ancient greek in morality play on power whatever rhetoric already ruined for force pure in that it annihilates all after all said & done

more specifically howling

watch way wind works

it is all that

tremble as i tremble

219

avril 11

turning taps for thirst

surviving on string

so little water

more precisely wires wound around wound

so many ways to swim though heartbeats percussive & pure

stealing stones last attachment

distinct as dread so it is we who know history of flame

said “toute la nuit les soucis m’ont tourmenté on me laissant pas filtrer le jour les fentes de ma porte elle-mêmes sont sans pitié pour moi” le moine shun-e (1113–1179)

wash our wings with what is left did i walk towards you or was i marching away

kissing windows as i walk out

towards tower where we learn these lamentations

in middle of night

precise & imperfect winds will always devour

avril 11

you float on tears

night of nights where

avril 11

220

your own name

avril 11

becomes

barely breathing somewhere seventies

ancestral & arcane

hospital

obliged to work with numbers

attached to wires again

you will never know

& again diagrams drew whatever i was parabolas of pain in this point & that dot on graph grinding way through these veins

except in dread dance determined somewhere a sea adelaide 1950’s orphanage surrounded by waves an absent kiss on cheek

purely political

marks you forever

then & now whenever that was

more plant than man

all in it

sometime after we took saigon helicopters toppling into sea cruel counsellors weeping into whisky

sometimes surface

eliot sd

avril 11 world is world

221

april was cruelest month only thing he got right

wide awake to this world of worlds song of songs & night knew who i was took me forever from names

south china sea april 30 beautiful to behold as anything in books

mai 11

becoming barrage between

kissing cain somewhere seventies street sydney

you & i in silhouette as always

whomever we are full fathom five

gathering rocks from ruin whatever that was it still is scene you see from window looking in to inferno

avril 11 tell them with your words i became boat mai 11 night i have known

whatever that was it is

since before you can imagine

gathering of ghosts

eight years old

222

history helping me out in dark as always

running along river you see way i walk into water

turning pages peeling from skin

never come back

so it is said in scripture job or jeremiah

to this moment i mention sometime seventies adelaide throwing firebomb manufacturer of napalm bomblets that fell on indochina wherever that was it was home to me always

whomever they were they were wailing with words i use this night of nights this song of songs mai 11

has been hanoi perhaps haiphong perhaps path ho chi minh trail perhaps door to house where tran duc thao wrote his way

my sins are stones this storm my breath breaking souverain stones

223

out of this to tend plants he placed on window

nebuchadnezzar ll too guarded grids notebooks accounts of all that comes later sooner than you imagined

sills still enough to understand war permanent

possible possibly drawing circles for all

full fathom five mai 11

good it will do

interstices of ice injected to make me pure & alive whatever comes first

no good at all mai 11

silence for some

it doesn’t matter no it doesn’t matter at all

time to come wave after wave

computations of carnage

time to come

it is waiting for strangers

no doubt named in cave

224

to take stones from mouth

running along river reflection running so fast & far beyond

walls within walls

circle of cailloux i drop

lightning over

as i fall

water

forever falling with other

mai 11 whose breath is this

figures you might have mentioned in paintings purchased during plague

this breath breaking from form

we are not so far

we will call body

from there to here minimal a breath away

for all help it will bring no help at all

from here from you mai 11

cain & abel counting days since i’ve gone

so it goes where waters go 225

weep for this

threnody threatens to take

navigator taken by torrent

me down by river

hour of hours song of songs

hearing someone sing baptism or other form breaking apart

contagion clear pass by seas no other

that is all assumed

room for clouds forever in fever

here & now so too sands

wherever that was it is

& other black water breaking me apart from all this

thin dust covering me exaltation of we devastated

not much

time dividing

at all

hour of hour song of songs

cain & abel counting

night of world

down days

mai 11

since being swept away

226

film i remember lina wertmuller perhaps another perhaps another antonioni all angles assumed in grids you grab when going

just tears you were unable to weep you were never there & that truth of it i tell you now in this hour of hours song of songs

down

mai 11

down here wherever that is it is down down far so far

tree’s tears overwhelm text torn from threnody i fear i am

you could have never

no more than that

imagined in ice

much less

somewhere down south where you stored snow

tree’s tears turn tale towards you who

as if that

i am thudding through threnody

memory it isn’t

not thinking it through 227

to end

wailing

will come

it is song

soon enough mai 11

sung endlessly here

tree’s tears overwhelm

& there wherever that is

construction carved from this body this beautiful body i am all heidegger hurled In hut hoping that true knowing it wasn’t worst of it to come

winds wronged world i was at least that or this depending on division cain & abel calculate

ô yes worst of it

in this

to come

hour of hours song of song

you don’t have to be oppenheimer to observe that

numbers brothers bark to one another zéro no i can count

or this whatever it is 228

forever however long that is

fresh as forest burning

time doesn’t tempt

one year now hell

mai 11

in any way

so simple this

up or down north or east west or south

falling forever falling counting more than seven circles

wherever i am you are there crashing compass against rock

that clear whatever else goes gift for measurements rest

horses galloping in this head of mine something stolen

perhaps that final

i imagine

talent earned eviscerating for all

but not so much now or then

this time no it’s not no it’s not

carve cross friend & i will come 229

at all

measured here

times there wherever it is so

only movement waves from this point

far away

to next

horizon hollow

wherever that is it is far away wherever we are

mai 11

we are weaker than wind in end

juin 11

i am both poisonous & perfect

still life not much

it is said

more than that

between

treachery & faith

cain & abel counting

teaches

days & distances

so little

tremble as i tremble

about seas & waters i am borne

movement

in ice

230

as always

quiet quit beyond

so specific further than you

you forget forgetting

understood in upinishads

climb to surface

dors détritus

wherever

reign of ruins about to be

it is profound

consecrated in catastrophe

contrary to hofmanstahl who slept through his time

libya yemen syria wherever they are

gone they are

i have known nothing other than night

architecture annihilated in memories you don’t own

having never slept in this life

any more any more any more

or the next juin 11

some song sung endlessly

how were we

here & there hole

to see

231

perhaps

sufi certainly it is over

well well well i ain’t goin down

or offering well no more another avenue to take

wherever finding water theory that makes up for this

transendance of this & that do somnambulist when walking through me on way to war

threnody thread throughout night of nights song of songs

today transcendance traumatised beyond its border all is broken

juin 11 seas burning tremble as i tremble

schopenhauer slipped over stool attempting to understand that while will withered

juin 11 lamenting over linéaments

if i must make it clear i am burning

circumnavigation complete so it is somewhere in scripture

these books

232

& diaries

la radeau de meduse

no more names here nantes musée des beaux arts sitting before it

propre or otherwise sanitised

whispering as if wailing

no more names

wailing as if whispering

no more names

pain promenades pursued this night

juin 11

in world at war

watching infant walk i can’t

boulevard rues i imposed as if prince

speak at all time to tell

mother imagined monarchy

what i know have always known how we were

marxism made me march

washed away

towards you

(some beach bikini atoll sometime sixties)

juin 11

233

shadows fall as they do i go with them brothers & sisters of night

août 11

juin 11

wherever they are they are

dreamers dead on island seas stare out to other

impossible to locate

bodies burning under rains heavy & unholy

where i is in this garden

sinking small ships along coast that is contour of our broken bodies

l’ombre est tombé juin 11

let branches fall let rocks walk let soil see

this ghost heart beats within wailing walls where

where we are heavy & unholy

only tears teach

absence of measurements less said the better

julliet 11 still so stripped down dust

whomever is listening turns their head towards water coming

ash & tears

234

towards you i feel almost nothing & everything

on circles endless circles

stones are speaking seas steal sense

empty pages where were once so many numbers

encircling

that simple enough for you to comprehend callouses

kabala on crank so it is suggested on screens before placing this head under water wherever we were

from feet to lips i still sing août 11

août 11 not far from thames streets burning

voices from fields of ghosts

london bridge will come falling down here on hell

talking so silently this night still talking

whatever you want to call it on wharves where bankers bray speculating

something sixty years ago in another time & space

235

ghetto within ghetto

line

flames within flame

to waters we speak

roads going into forests

of here it could have been

only & last route

there routes turning ourselves into fortresses

we keep on running to pit

for ever if necessary

as if it whole

water & blood

or holy

not much more

& in this configuration such possibility

to défend août 11 2011 we live on rations of truth so small

gone long long gone long

it is impossible to say

gone as they did août 11 leningrad does not

lake lagoda not long 236

fear death

somewhere in east 1941

death fears leningrad

streets covered in corpses battered & bloody

ice holding ice

then set on fire some sacred ferocious festival

whatever we were we aren’t & that elegeic memory break this & other

which is where we are 2011

hearts whenever that is it is

août 11 soldier’s christmas in snow

some day soon

before being mud & ash

tal afar haditha basra baghdad kandahar

août 11 remember following flame & ash for fortune cannot be told today or ever

no you don’t want to wail while water sparse so you speak so to

kaunas kovno riga tallin

237

speak as you do in silence

flying through forest

silent as soldier on december night in stalingrad

come & see

come & see a forest

août 11 writing notes all over book of révélations not as exégète but as emptier of enunciations

sipping stain from shirt someone else will wear août 11 cain counts coins during or anti dühring dark so dark times

wiping words away from archives stocked in stomach as if i i

times so dark this so simple to say

whomever that is he went long time

so difficult to live

ago in another

built for battle i am

time & space breaking apart wherever tender as tupelov you do

238

not want to know

able as abel août 11

i can tell by staring into your eyes

échelon by échelon

from fortress

walls within (walls)

i am at least that even under these circumstances

brick by brick skin to skin some summer

remembering everything forgiving nothing

nantes built by slaves & sugar

nothing at all

cities constructed in collapse where once ships screamed out in night i live them still so very still

that perhaps most tender aspect i address in this moment song of songs hours of hour

furkan perhaps you feel i’m far from you it is not far at all distance no measure at all

survived by seconds scène by scène passing through screen sketched here & there so sure

239

except memory which is an/other geography

still so still août 11

self smashes always against rocks

weeping over water another comrade gone

carried towards tower falling into océan

to water in this sea of sorrow

that physical law learnt leaning into walls like galileo after admissions

that passes for century which

where is water i once washed

seems/seams to pass in weeks so

in another wherever you are furkan you are so close still

wrong bodies bend & break as yours did that night did that night continue to day

still so still wherever we are holding hands burying heads in books

we are weeping over water for you 240

& for others

but perhaps

though we three remember all in front julie’s juggernaut that went round world so many times it became blessed in way cars do when they know line you take to vanishing

you never will

point

août 11

beautiful beyond belief that night

i will never weep for this self which is only geography i know

alison in city already full

here again in middle opération bagration

of ghosts who wanted

breaking back german army

to talk

in east

& sometimes more than that

maelstrom tourbillon taught night screening

though that not there in this threnody

affiche last days for beginning of betrayal

song of songs hours hollowed

241

out in beaten body

take you & take you

gathered each morning to go an inch this way an inch that way

forever août 11 wondering where we are

all is océan abattoir or arras cloth or skin brick or bone

until time takes you or you take time

murderous maps newspapers nod so sleeping through slaughter

walking into waves before they walk into you

what kind of world is this

whomever you are

sentence simple yet stranger by hour

you are some soldier sleeping after

so i sing song of songs hour of hours

campaign horror on horror steel to skin skin to sand somewhere semitic

taking its toll

this is threnody ten years

to wherever such sounds

242

now

so it is

& now

said in scripture

whenever that is it is

jeremiah certainly crude but concise

searing of skin

enough évidence for flock whose wings melting ìn flame this not theory méta phor perhaps sema phore for you

stretched from one continent to other this too drab i can hear you say though i’m not talking of those already dead but of dead to come

for you août 11 old comrade thomas tonight i remember ruins we shared in orne coucerault

août 11 whatever way we have come

where words withered under weight way we worked welders with wire steel & string

wharves completely covered by waters we can neither see or swim

bones, mostly

243

i remember your eyes now over table covered with paper books pens diagrams

but i remain

our soviet soldier’s soup

remember if you are reading

always yours août 11 (pour thomas harlan)

& yes we were ancient aristocrats then casual commissars of this & that

such simplicity sculpted in steel août 11 galileo gone ravaging ruins

remembering that you made café like commissar

some summer here & there body broken beyond

blood less important in schème of things then

stars & sphères being with so little movement

when we were inside wars constructing such centuries as this

still force still comet close so skin suggests

old comrade its almost a year since you left

collision & catastrophe i am

244

specialist

at all

perhaps planets perform up & down

two bodies still so far apart

alchemists assemble somewhere in street nantes septembre 2011 whenever & wherever

proof présent in this hour of hours song of songs septembre 11

that is movement of feet stops sleep

lawrence so lost looking for lash or limonade another lad to learn language he lost so lost

newton knew for moment or two but he barked god is gravity when taking tea with teacher from this & that learned institution

saving submission for other time in trench désert daraa

force of fear dynamics of dread this time now whenever that is it is

waiting for winds to take you back to room

no distance

maps

245

& mind

calmly

something like that something you spelt out in

still calmly never tranquille nor demand it

latin or arabic torn from note book you planned between storms

now or then whenever that was it was time turned as it is obliged copernicus claimed

so it is said somewhere noble & cunning riding motorcycle to hell for all good it would do

before crowd there was other other or it self

no good at all

whatever

septembre 11 (pour edward s)

bombs falling half way from hell

to say something in silence

wherever that is tonight it is in kandahar baquba sirtte somewhere

stains it someone spoke surely beckett whom is read certainly 246

in kashmir certainly colombia someone collapses in field or in street sometime cell certainly bodies buried

for example certain condominium in cairo this just sketch of sketch i don’t have to tell

on order on order

you obvious glum gentlemen in wisconsin on way to washington for higher calling whatever that is it can be safely said to be génocide of one

septembre 11 certain calculations conceived in collapse septembre 11 however in haditha

form or another

assassins acquitted septembre 11

determined daily in one

biopsies of being

office or other taken to tray & tested

pentagon perhaps another building entirely

who what

being constructed in baghdad 247

am i

it is

collection of cells

gone another cosmology collapsing

dying

outside jerusalem

septembre 11

night wearing me out

for furkan perhaps

so sorry after all

médical model miraculous

said & done

norman bethune yearning in yenan

septembre 11 passing through pages

for healing world gone wrong

in midst of life more

this way & that

accurately 3 in morning nantes september 2011

septembre 11 wall of wall

searching surgeons

where white once

who was know how now to cut thing or two

this blood of mine

organs orchestral whatever 248

it

me through these days

appears in archives doctor deliberate over & over

& nights

again

for example bombing

certain computations i have

hanoi & haiphong

no idea

remember what wind went where

at all that’s more than i want

precisely sabra & chatila sewn to skin

here & now wherever that is

so too sobibor chelmno certainly

horses gather in veins

it all

terrible music

carved in cerebellum

beautiful melody

wherever life goes when

septembre 11 breathing at barricades

it goes septembre 11

waiting for war

water wearing me

to follow down here

249

wherever that is it is

blood this blood breathing through this flood

down here so far down

numbers knowing so little learnt kabbala on knees as is appropriate under conditions clear here hospital another hell so skin says sweetly through syringes singing song along arteries

only détonations wake you up yearning for fury to diminish be bodhisattva though that impossible under

you hold yourself circumstances clear as capital written in london library 1867

together or not as far as it is

that not so far from here wherever that is

possible permutation concocted in catastrophe

it is down here further

certainly corinthians claims this or that

than you imagine septembre 11

250

“love never fails. but where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. when i was a child, i talked like a child, i thought like a child, i reasoned like a child. when i became a man, i put the ways of childhood behind me. for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. now i know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” coritnthians thirteen: 8–12 though i imagine marx maybe more mindful “perseus wore a magic cap that the monsters he hunted down might not see him. we draw the magic cap down over eyes and ears as a make-believe that there are no monsters.” marx, preface to capital 1857

“communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being – a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. this communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution.” marx, private oroperty and communism 1844

251

something he said in this

bricks & rocks create carnival for contemplation of magic

heart pumping

& other tears so slowly octobre 11 octobre 11 (but who brings drum & dictionary)

pour thomas lost lion under avalanche could not see through the arrows

octobre 11 luckily we are travelling

being born in combat stones steal soul so just so just so

on tender locomotives octobre 11 sky has lost its wings

sombre orators sort through book with hyenas

octobre 11 beaten by sceptres

frontier not monument but a clock océan

seek solace with somnambulists singing inside sphères

octobre 11

octobre 11

slowly

inside this case

252

collecting calm

octobre 11

for last days

clouds clearly phantoms of martyrs

octobre 11 (icarus understood) rumour of architecture octobre 11 but i only have to look

enemies enunciate élogie

outside window

as always

to know

neither here or there

that another for that immaculate lie matter octobre 11 octobre 11 sabotage self with wolves

we walk carefully to caverns bags of rock & bones on our backs

perfect octobre 11 béatitude of beasts

nude we murmur

the last longing as if birds burning sing for us

octobre 11 begging at banquet for melody

ô sing for us

i sing souverain in sleep

who are forever in forest

253

sing for us

in ink

inscribe in tattoo

blind writing in ink & ash

carved with caresses trouble comes

putting off plague by dropping anchor

& sea changes place with earth so they say

selling seed bread breaking beyond barrages

tilting towards kingdom come

cortège coming coming certainly it is coming

pilgrimages constructed in collapse falling in quick sand

gods turning backs on boulevards

up to neck

your hands holy

so silhouettes say in fever

let lightening lead to tunic

silently in this hour of hours song of songs

you wore melbourne perhaps early eighties torn from tyrant richard lll torn example some secondhand clothes shop prepared you for plague & other orchestras gathering in maritime muséums

song of songs octobre 11 blind writing

254

this side of euphrates

too far from her

where

whomever

between wall & window

she was octobre 11

ecstatic exiles covered in sheets

wolves become clouds in this

book within book octobre 11

light not at end

going towards grave an accident

of tunnels & spires i am expert

waiting for fugitives marketing magic amongst assembled to turn

configuring continents so far no further than that terrestrial

to tune we are whispering octobre 11

octobre 11 too far from lake

statue made of mud

to destroy divinities least of tasks

fidel to forest

échos des échos

octobre 11

crowd close océan closer

in fever déluge deceives you

255

forward

an exquisité horse

octobre 11

lightning over water

disarmed by résurrection say adieu

some serpents swim towards tide perhaps you in their number

to all it is said you are irréprochable

before you they are no more

odour of jasmin & coal

than figures & numbers

i invent nothing

known in night beyond understanding another word

after all went down ô it went down it went

dance to melody of dates times

down of departure octobre 11 octobre 11 waiting to disappear dissolve dissoudre diminish

such silence in tempête temptation to hurl

die never comes maybe marble certainly stone

256

except from another royaume

understand least of that

octobre 11

where they see fountains

betraying bed walk into water

others observe worlds

towards arches

seed & sand

moth to flame

novembre 11 who inherits tears

octobre 11 bombing babylon sands see centuries

novembre 11 words weave their own way

of collapse i am expert

here or there

sending boats into dunes crying out for kingdoms

for that matter

that will not come

pass under arches

déserts are planets & beds

arrive at breath or whatever

how can certain gentlemen in washington

you name it under circumstances novembre 11

257

novembre night athens & piraiéus

abyss cries louder than those

winds waiting

walking into waters

wailing way through this

novembre l 1 what does écho hide

threnody tale told as if ancient

dust & dread or just débris

down at quais

novembre 11 dockers debate as they dance through this

ashes of years

& other

songs of another

night’s falling so are men

time & place arkhangelsk for example white sea

light house torn apart

so close

so muséum can be built

so white

to tell of these days & nights

condoléances carried on back

novembre 11

through forest where

258

to tell lione i lied beside her sharing so much

each one a surprise

sorrow to come

novembre 11

i still hold revolver

certitude

fatigued in flame

you can take that to bank

soldiers & other slaves

in greece this hour novembre before they bend down

plunging from windows assisting scènes in théâtre they are

down completely down

extras

parliaments of profiteers

flags flown for forgetting monument already fallen in ruins

gathering numbers after alchemists transformed sweat into paper

carnage another configuration

money coins & stones

there are no déclarations devised

night is still here

temptation’s tears take toll disfiguring dance 259

another aberration announced as ascension

though it is without melody

get guillotine novembre 11 at least we will have sense

stealing surface rumour commences

of gravity to train for other

novembre 11 in love you search out night in here

conflicts & contradictions consciousness collapsed

check somewhere out there wherever that was it is not so far from here or history

& mate novembre 11 fear floats on words little else

lost in last

available novembre 11

négation of négation

hermit dances i am obliged

novembre 11

to adhere an arrangement around abyss

miracle it’s own

260

form of disorder

waiting for you

novembre 11 walk out water you will no doubt say this is proof

neither waking up or down

i cannot write i assure you clawing in cave paintings beyond

novembre 11 blessed blessures

your imagination whatever that was long gone ô so long gone

bend this body élément by élément into another archive of all i have become border less line between

gone novembre 11 watching darkness fall

you & me

over océan

novembre 11

knowing you

with dress i have kept in luggage

not there novembre 11

deposited on boat

camarade possible camarade

somewhere at sea

261

adriatic or atlantic

in my time of dying

does it matter no it doesn’t matter at all

want you to remember words in chapel

in water at least up to neck

some brave winter when we walked & threw away these wings useless

watching waves as sailors do

when holding` each other in embrace

when memory slips into surf disappears in deluge

that is called caress under circumstances

that will arrive

novembre 11

yes

saying this and other things

that will arrive

in sorrow i speak better than blind when they’re listening to a tune they remember almost everything except silence

novembre 11 been here before down some ditch swallowing some seeds while others harvested crops and kept lions in cages

novembre 11 carrying all card from pack

novembre 11

262

created when seasons sought

some meeting trades hall with all old comrades

you and other creatures

charting volvos through difficult space i’d stolen

who rose with sun i open them

long before lenin had thought state & revolution

stare at faces i once knew

i was suffering then from left wing communism an infantile disorder

them all gone them all gone novembre 11

something like that when we went over road to john curtin

you were good at that

& other talents too

hotel where whores waited with words they had welded from wittgenstein

tedious to tell then & now here & later

whom they studied

i remember almost nothing & wish i did not

part time at some institute or other for their work hard on heart

remember that

so they say

263

& i believed them so beautiful

published by pariah who owns world so they say mr murdoch who i would gladly drag to bottom of deep sea

i clenched fist & fell through window to world that was only beginning

kate claimed was hers before truck drove through her house

to crawl then to you or anyone else who was waiting

while we wept two bars & another song away

heather for example an advocate who wished witchcraft helped her negotiate with nobodies who ran world

with all pests mao said

she was winning from last moment to first

to no one & everyone in particular

whenever that was it was

to little friend & scallywag lin piao lin biao whatever you want to call him now

something to celebrate so they say may day melbourne heroic masses grinding their gods

useless as little red book

into something you could say in supplement

harvested sometime late sixties

264

when i was fourteen something like that

my marx twelve to fourteen reading everything peking publishing press

whenever that was

whatever it was called in those days

imagining idols yearning for yenan in cave

whenever that was buying peking daily weekly with vanguard written with masses in mind

something like that comrade mao speaking gently comrade chiang performing a little

whoever they were they were heroic resistants to us imperialism soviet social imperialism

something for evening entertainment for emperor whoever he became

something like that ludicrous even for evangelists like ourselves

swimming down or up yangtse yelling to trainee teachers of this & that revolution

whoever we were we were

field & city something like that

pursuing proletarian cultural revolution something like that

long live victory of people’s war something like that

red guards in doomed cities we surrounded

i learned

sweetly some night

265

before tet offensive

in thirties between one purge & another

taught us what that meant for masses

kirov whoever he was he was closest of comrades to general secretary

whoever they were they were coming i imagined 1968 in bedroom writing five part history for australia china society marx engels lenin stalin mao never forgetting

of this & that whatever it was stalin sought then & there some time

exemplary comrade hill ted hill who would lead us some day from his chambers

before & after what we call modern maybe whatever that was

wherever they were they were

it is not so high he could control masses whoever they were

described in dread everywhere in encyclopedia novembre 11

in melbourne it is maybe moscow said somewhere wherever that was

266

in scripture perhaps

harmonise with horses desiring neither word or breath

paradis exists between rivers

time or space perhaps train passing through paddock mélodies from mud

tigre & euphrate novembre 11

misérable mélodies maybe

austère but beautiful to these

assembling archives for austerity

ears to come for departures évanescent expertise accumulated in anguish for fishermen mostly

another époque of emptiness héritage of hatred reagan & thatcher corpses when they were alive too many others dead

teaching tranquility under wires of high tension do not cry here or there up or down

simple statement true as tierisias walking towards monument

death just détail

irréprochable i

life panic

267

in théâtre on fire

before brutal dunes soon covering us

someone said certainly sartre as easily woman who passed me down by river

& any other path to refuge whatever that was it is gone long gone

howling history of another royaume

though thrones placed throughout passage

boats breaking breath

sing another song in this hour of hours song of songs

novembre 11 burning desire along with dread

not another détour

some sombre soirée spent with saints

mais directe à point

after accumulation wandering ward picking up pièces of yourself & other pages

vanishing nights known last only for moment you yearn

you’ll never read stories so somptueuse imagining i

for forgetting

barking with barbares

ô you yearn for forgetting

268

that is trace scarring skin

tales you will never know

here & now wherever we are fooled by faces prestige of person

sleep as i have never known

always until being absence answer submerged in salt

novembre 11 closed in chapel with condemned

speaking only to silhouettes before banquet

raise flag i was once intimate with tigers during déluge

& fall forever into kingdom come ô it comes it comes

speaking softly distances frontiers

novembre 11

dust & ash

slept while water swept

spécifiquement spectrale perhaps a passage

away arcades benjamin borrowed

beneath border

to tell

269

tempête tells of man

who will nocturne you know from other

who kept on falling in well with rocks

time traitor as always so i sing

thrown as threat

who will talk to waters

to all this & that whatever

whisper what révélation or rescue

it was end of voyage

guardian or guard

of all voyages

l’amour devient sceptre du pouvoir

before blind take you

this sleep of ours never so silent

on tour of whatever is left

or silent at all

lumineuse

wail at water’s

sheets drenched in sweat maybe marsh only body brings

edge exalted elsewhere

you can come take photograph

novembre 11

270

some night

history hollows

know kingdom

in our language

i fell from this & much more

& i am speaking in that tongue

ô i fell from this

& groove carpenters claim as whole

& much more novembre 11

here & now then or later

absent as much as possible

précieuse promesse contained in cage

présent prays possible

morphine makes possible présent

that is said in story luke i imagine ombre

doctors decide to celebrate beauty of disappearance

nuit confident dans ce monde

remedy of rocks souveraineté of stones rain running through hair this night at carnival crowd crawls along with me making music

who will save saints only drunks know how expertise of évacuation of hole

271

shuffling as shadows would

gets so hard march towards figures in landscape painting past

when night falls & falls forever

four horses running towards sun through snow

why do i walk on top of wall with this enemy who is always absent

cross-referenced later in library by researcher who imagines

novembre 11

renaissance only yesterday reformation tomorrow or next day

after all achilles arrived

according to calendar slipping off wall

with answer speaking in dead languages benefiting by breath i don’t have

novembre 11 there’s no facts i want to go into later or even earlier perhaps it possible sometime much earlier

to take thesis threading throughout this creating centre from where next century will begin with blood shed

that’s fairy story sung cantata you cling to tale

as have all others empty

when going as notebook

272

child’s desk lodz ghetto

through the mud & stayed there

but we won’t go into that

novembre 11

room of remains of century packed into three years in another place & time

name this résistance that comes straight from this body into ears forcing you to close your eyes

concepts so specious we won’t go into that either here or there

& read between lines & grids

so satisfying suggestion robert oppenheimer made when kissing kitty looking out window watching waves wipe away his tears

samsara or samadhi such special syllables becoming word or breath weight of years brought us down amongst broken bones of belonging

feel nothing for this man beautiful & gaunt affording apocalypse an entire existence of its own

novembre 11 an entire expiation binding bestiary

that’d be taught in classroom somewhere adelaide late nineteen fifties

cradling cure i did’t want

i was dragged

novembre 11

273

horses hooves here

watching me has rain died

in hell hearing them night all night

here

verging towards valley

with bitter tears

don’t go

to babylone & her

waiting for virgil

seas naked before barrage

to pass on way to another

built by prisoners

border or edge evaporating

of this & that

coming circle perhaps

watch horses in field

paying with keys

perhaps it is

& other sheets of paper

too late to take

novembre 11

message to mélusine

watching océan

before light blocked out or in distance being

is it

274

demolished

too many escapes into a winter written in code

here & there

you can’t break me i’m apollo down on luck speculating on species driven into descriptions

novembre 11 “there is no final number there is no last word.” mikhail bakhtin

come easy

merleu-ponty’s gone to bar i don’t know

discourse on detonations subject i’m familiar with wires weaving around torso

when he’s coming back to back all books read

sculptural catastrophe you’re constructing bomb that’ll go off

that’s sacrifice made to order order to go

in seconds

go to eat with masses an old saying not suggested

we don’t have time

if circumstances clear gather your geography collect all maps organise schedule

décembre 11 poisoned by psalms chanting in house with other refugees

donate rest you take here doesn’t amount to much has been spoken

275

interpreting film

of pool where other swims to keep days together we woke watching ingrid bergman come in kiss me i’m savage

she’s seen delon samurai staring straight into glass door kept open for other criminals who’re less meticulous when counting the steps taken

that’s a promise you can swear in that deposition you’re writing down

away from her substitute alphabets with stones carried in mouth

fine line continues as story disappears before i go to new lands

mumbling speech brando tried to suggest language insufficient material to address

we are excavating

problems you have to behave as gregory peck it’s hard to find symbols satisfactory for spell

décembre 11 perfect knowledge imperfect décembre 11

that’s being forecasted perhaps even orchestrated

she was so beautiful

conspiracies are casual thoughts of individual aren’t central casting

we didn’t listen to her

idea almost endangered look at dictionary floating on surface

she told us stories of bicycles & angels

276

gardens & gods

you have asked me to tell

we believed her perhaps that was trouble

how i first saw

though i imagine it began

you i saw you

long before yes

first in gardens

long before

where you were décembre 11

holding hands

trying to tell fable

that man who’d taken coins

so strung out now speech

as his own

almost impossible

there’d been sorrow in his eyes

breathing harder by minute

it soon went

attempt again in another

when you held him

time

you were standing

décembre 11

277

by tree

our mouths

after we drank you had left

our tears

him weeping into creek

until we wept deep from within

over betrayal

frames

you had committed

already emaciated

first

you do not

seeing innocence

want to remember

recognising it as disguise

those days in détail

for getting through sandstorms

do you

sandstorms

that would

enveloping us tell another you remember them

story one

the sandstorms

neither of us

when

have time to tell

sand filled décembre 11 278

there’s that

so they say

word again décembre 11 history theology without god

when mermaids came to drown us

to look up to look down

we all ran like children

no longer movements

to sand dunes

we are

we hid

familiar while they sang with almost everything

their songs

else

so loudly

you can name

all flatlands full

in time

of their tune

you have we were tempted & you have all time

i would

in world

be lying if i did

so they say not say that 279

certainly

unable to remember exact melody

tempted to join

perhaps it is kept on file

though i couldn’t

you must swim

have gone through those files

nor have developed that talent

you tried

then or now

to remember them in way of others

décembre 11

you were always unsuccessful

(pour mustafa tamimi age 28 killed by israeli teargas canister shot into his face)

getting words wrong sentences mixed up what was joke became serious in your mouth

perhaps we could sing song

what was serious became hilarious

together you were funny girl

praising lost ones perhaps

very funny girl we could pray for them perhaps we could sing their song

décembre 11

280

tonight so long

in what field impossible to imagine

longer than i imagined

it never mattered in schème of things

so many stories surrendered

whatever that is pencil in meaning in moment

in this time in this place

that is work & duty

no longer strong not much to say

décembre 11

imagine

piling fish near centre of town

hearing other call name

making sensuous sculpture staying quite still

forgotten if ever possessed one

never eaten because we fear bones of any kind

some call that loss that too disappears from glossaries

building philosophy from that thinking

once i might have been called a specialist

you will feel hungry after ceremony

281

you will eat

that is called necessity

never clear not even then remember st augustine who thought world fell

décembre 11

because he had stolen pear

one another

for ballerina he had wanted to impress

there are many access routes to this place

i want to tell you we tore down

there are no exits remember that

tree of knowledge gorged on what was

it is only fact kept

on those branches

from reading of maps

leaving tree bare as any drought

décembre 11

we were locusts if you like

we told too many tales then

then when

to teach other lessons we were unable to learn

ballerinas came into town we had

our language

282

already completed dance before they began

put under under the earth

first step

décembre 11

is that enough for you

we could speak of grâce

it is certainly

but after all we are living

enough for me

in ghost town & we must be careful with words we use

décembre 11 i am not a good person

but i shall try to speak of grâce

i have known what that means

you can see my worn limbs

even in dictionaries still

i am proud of them

exists somewhere in frame

i have worked on wheels since it all began

this frame has not yet collapsed

made something of them

under strain

really something

it is being

283

something quite extraordinary

ô lord i believed you

you would not find that useful

bring that wind down on me or tell that doctor when he comes this way to empty his bag ô lord

but i know i am preparing for another age waiting to be born again on some other day of no account for that in your fucking ledgers piled up to ceiling in building we have torn down to ground with our bare hands

to empty his bag décembre 11

we are counting shells on beach somewhere

it was a hard time killing floor when you washed our haïr from bucket you had wept in all night long

not too far from here never go there again no we shall never go there again

saying that every dog will have its day & i believed you

that not possible no not at all

284

not at all

tremble as i tremble

janvier 12

janvier 12 installed by instinct invading iconography investing inevitably

tremble as i tremble

something you want back

attending only to austère

from culture we had as primitive & in trance

still disappearing

climbing trees they say

immobile into constellations

incanting melody first labour not sermon

exquisité monument you have built of me i bite through bit by bit

movement into one another

marble horses traversing river wept when

before babylon before words formed perfect histories imperfect

writing to stones

before we began barking

i could speak about end of voyages

before all that full fathom five

285

forest i’ve become manacled by mud

saints drunk as dawn

you must not cry during ceremony

offer robes to railwaymen

streets have already heard

forgetting fire as in dream

silence stuttered from this & other

of enemy

tongues

who has been

blind i’ve become city

of some service to state sleeping now in woods far beyond border & grid

janvier 12

having your heart with me at all times

these precious prayers sculpted in stones somewhere in sleep

waiting for next world

janvier 12

wherever it went

saving silhouette for last

it went time of times cornering catastrophe

janvier 12

286

dance determined

whenever

elsewhere wherever

that is it is

that is it is

storm speaking as shadow as always

cross or road but you forget you forget you

simple as that

remember everything in song of songs

janvier 12

fanatic

in this hour of hours

swallowing sand to sensé sea

janvier 12

works how & what

state of things

way waves walk into i

things of state fuck them all

that i am ô yes that i am

janvier 12

tremble as i tremble

space & time specious

turbulence teacher here & now

landlord leaning over balcony

287

observing crowd come

so

to tell

janvier 12

him how tell that train transporting shadows through this threnody

it all ended & began by barking waiting for wolves

i am working hard on line

& water what else

gauge of gods someone said

matters scripture upinishads grundrisse what is to be done some holy text

matter & that bad idea on good day

torn apart

whenever that was here in hell it is not now

perhaps plague lasts longer

janvier 12 than i so

imagined elsewhere

stone steals you

some scrap of paper

288

in pocket wrapped around stones

emigrate throughout these veins & bones

to divine direction north west east south up down wherever i was

magic i’d prefer not to mention incessant alchemy of the innocent

beast holding hands up to sky as if infant

janvier 12

but long before that terrible moment i am dumb to tell

let océan pass through pillow i sleep

this or that

through wars

anything other than breath breathed

approximations of annihilation let océan pass through destroyed villages of this heart

in & out night within night shadow within shadow

streets still so silent alphabet arranged by angels & other

annihilatus annihilare

apparitions

weeping to wait waiting weight poetry’s vocation janvier 12 289

flames in snow

& all it imagines

this night of questions song of songs

sources origins

shadow within shadow

ending of ending whenever that was

route boat takes

look at lighthouse for facts

during rains whatever they are trees whose tears

closing in always closing in quest

torn from page you turn to book feet & fire

of questions destructrice

read in robe stolen from storm

between bridge & meeting marian for example leviticus

janvier 12 speaking so softly

something just so sordid maria clausa

temptation tell you another

full fathom five

story stone

janvier 12

moon over boat some scène

in sleep dining on fruit of history

tableaux turner

290

perhaps pissaro

gestures just that little more nothing to be

another porte entry or exit

done (dassein) dread at dawn

you know which way to escape

always alert for descent

to beginning into action’s affliction

some supplice or none

janvier 12 at all frozen seas reflected

everything lost janvier 12

in these sleeping eyes

undressing slave you sensé you are

so immobilised stallions see through me whoever i am

no more than chain or brick

in this hour of hour

janvier 12

song of songs

when we were in woods

walking towards you pulling roots as i go to talk to stranger

invention fell through our hands

291

water mounts so samurai said somewhere sacred text

only body able especially when destroyed here & now

sung to you half hearted

so soft séduction of centuries

howl perfected in empire of pain

janvier 12

come catastrophe with your cavaliers

king david massacre massacre at baldat al-shaikh yehide massacre khisas massacre qazara massacre semiramis hotel massacre

come choreograph centres & circles commisérations & consolations for that talent piteous inside this tent fear fabricates

massacre at dair yasin naser al-din massacre tantura massacre beit daras massacre dahmash mosque massacre dawayma massacre houlà massacre sharafat massacre

let me see beauty of your face teach me torment

salha massacre massacre at qibya kafr quasem massacre khan yunis massacre massacre in gaza city

vénérable & vain globe grinds on for fault of absences it can no longer recuperate

al-sammou’ massacre aitharoun massacre kawnin massacre

292

hanin massacre bint jbeil massacre abbasieh massacre adloun massacre

janta massacre 24 of june 1999 massacres western bekaa villages massacre gaza cast lead massacre (2008–2009) mavi marmara massacre May 31, 2010 nakba day massacre May 15, 2011 ongoing silent or silenced massacres june 5 2011 nakba day massacre

saida massacre fakhani massacre beirut massacre sabra and shatila massacre jibsheet massacre sohmor massacre seer al garbiah maaraka massacres zrariah massacre homeen al-tahta massacre jibaa massacre yohmor massacre tiri massacre al-naher al-bared massacre

histories of histories antécédents descending staircase of shadows this house is condemned janvier 12

as is body i become

ain al-hillwee massacre oyon qara massacre siddiqine massacre a-aqsa mosque massacre ibrahimi mosque massacre jabalia massacre aramta massacre eretz checkpoint massacre deir al-zahrani massacre nabatiyeh (school bus) massacre mnsuriah massacre sohmor second massacre

breath by breath chronologies of carnage janvier 12

exquisité évidence before books carried to rivulet attempting to run unable even to walk

nabatyaih massacre qana massacre trqumia massacre

except as everyman

293

who lives no longer

just another man

constellations once

throwing stones into well

came & went janvier 12 wherever hard times render whole

it is they go

what is other wise

back on horses you bring

fragmentary

to humanise

write on walls of burning bibliothèque

whatever weeds grown within

for those left behind

what is described as body though i prefer to think of it as field of battle

whomever they are they are gone long gone full fathom five

perhaps mentioning this before but bored by what is not real i prefer to bore with repetition hole in history

janvier 12 winds & words comprehended since cradle as old blues song

294

goes on to become lullaby

only in that that only

during contagion février 12 go to garden to see if moon

decoding dread a destiny

still there still there

i am doomed to define

janvier 12 février 12 prayers being pestilential

night falls

it is clearer to cry

as i do this do that

janvier 12 this darkness this silence

février 12 so snow song

harmonies of regret février 12

sadness on my back

a sea weeps

melancholy as monkey

a sea weeps following white line

i have confidence

within walls

295

you have become

santiago septembre 1973

german idealist greeted one another in park somewhere in austria

still photograph président on couch bent over kalashnikov kalashnikov

hell whole history hides in

constructed in crimea hole history last moments i&i for all of us

février 12 turning

one way or another

coming round

decency died then & there

so silence speaks

for thirty years maybe more

endlessly maybe more février 12 mélopée murmured

dancing sur détermination

salvador allende mechanism mimed présent here & there for your pleasure

février 12

& my downfall

waiting for end

février 12

296

of month memory of other months

as choir chants wasted on white page i turn

of waiting while wires weaved

i turn

throughout this threnody

in silence always darkness

mouth merely mimicking melancholy

harmonies of océan invisible nocturnes

mine in me signals amongst such stones

boom février 12

février 12 poor words frontier lost poor world during night février 12 sombre seas reach

enemy assembles mobilising myths

limit i am sure certain catégorique

février 12 exiled

emeralds wrapped with other débris collected

surrounded by lamps servant of wind

297

& you suspended over waters

gone to gethsemane or another

& if i weep

garden

so will you

février 12

turn turn

seduced by slaves

earth be becalmed

silence & sound

février 12

elemental epenthesis

let lost navigate

helping me hallucinate from here to there

now février 12

wherever we are

blind before fire

we are

day abandoned night

down in dunes (perhaps) film (perhaps)

février 12

whatever

dumb to this

left of retina centre of all

so many other

i have nothing

scènes i sketch from memory

298

i have nothing

tasks to be

at all under taken

full fathom five mars 12

to frontier where we once were

passages of delirium closed

mars 12

horses our héro in that time dressed as today in black

chance not close

black as snow

now or ever

black as beauty

i&i

mars 12 mars 12 outside of this

calm as clytemnestra

there’s only gates & walls

mars 12 mars 12 remembering to remember

forgotten

somewhere down south

frontier last friend to leave you

tears trained

299

mars 12

nine children seven adults then

talking out of turn wheel of wire & paper

then burn them

takes you to turn

horses dance in wind

you should have never taken at end of that path

book opens closes laser points from here to there

no one recognizes you

bad book people in bad books

mars 12 as i fall though floor

birds trying to sleep

americans in afghanistan

throughout this

bloody murder again

starve their song

this night kandahar

night is lead

squads squealing

lead & lightning

shooting holes in heads

cry of cormorants (phalacrocorax carbo)

300

horses or winds

of it of it

night naked bodies leaves

nine children seven adults holes in heads kandahar

leave bodies birds trace

mars 12

of bodies muet

whole worlds gone

méridiens of murder tortured routes already ash

into veins vain

afghanistan

as vico before

american army making massacre science

he stuttered soliloquy to saints

wind cover your heart écho of another

long gone long

time scorpions steal

gone to gods

within walls of washington department of défense architects of abattoirs assemble

in graves we will call words for all help it brings

doing doctor faustus for fun

301

it brings no help at all

whatever you want to call that

in this time

circles circumferences circumnavigations

to tell of offers

noted for knot tied

deals gone down

around my throat jewels & scars

in midnight hours

doors & windows to wherever

close to cross

some sad street lisbon

road out of here & there

toytown of terror salzburg time test time

wherever & turning tunes

that was it still is

this threnody mars 12

close to closed enunciated elsewhere

days dark as these

somewhere in scripture jeremiah or job

night befalls light

time tests time

lamp held over head

302

only feet in front (of) you history

crowds call out to you

history hole whole

orbit outside orbit

whoever you are

man maybe who can tell exile certainly take boat to centre

in this hour of hours song of songs

wherever that once was it once was

you take whatever possible under circumstances choir cries endlessly

martyrs measure lives in leaves sombre seas spectre

seeking out serpent your father before flame

cunning & noble mars 12

red flags suspended over océan

baghdad becoming i&i

navigator lost using antique maps drawn in dread

inexorably mars 12

where go to golgotha invisible

ships fall off edge of world

voices clandestine 303

never come back

mars 12

mars 12 all that returning remains turning to secrets

some song he howled in hebrew

fragile files kept closely you can no longer

all alone with abraham

read space between breaths

who couldn’t see within walls

words miracles

what was

mars 12 these stones

lost always lost

form

forever

saddest of sciences

if you can follow that far

mars 12 seek only savage birds

shadows so silent

weep all this time

when

days beyond days

you cry

garden within garden

victory in valley

304

wherever that is

in ice before all this & that

it is before you

alison as always comes to clear stench in stables of this heart

that is what you wish ô you wish

i hold on to whatever it is

wind was wind not history hollowing you out for forgetting

tears as these that tear this hole i have perhaps prophecy pursued to break

almost everything remembers you

this into bits wire & string not much

avril 12 tears as these

else elsewhere as always

tears as these turn towards towers

i am holding

within whatever i want to call this heart holding on & on

on & on onwards to whatever it is

when it should have gone up

305

that is so strong in this body i borrowed years ago

tears as these written when weeping whatever you want to call these words

it finished so i fought hard i have become so hard i am forgetting to forgive

amongst other material mentioned here & there to tell you all i can tell total war

you or other whomever they were there or here

declaring on self amongst other materials mentioned this moment sometime spring barking outside bar where they are drinking to one another whomever they are they are so

for that matter material condition i cherish even now when i am breaking down into parts that cannot be sewn back up again after fight i am fighting for this & that

avril 12 constituting caress in construction that will fall apart into another

tears as these taken on hour every hour

avril 12 teasing theology i try to tell

306

tears as these silences song suggests you or another you

as these tears are breaking me down

wherever you are tonight i am at altitudes you cannot imagine i perhaps someone you once knew

ô yes me down tears as these going back to greeks wherever they were they were there & here always sometime in spring

how i went down on you whenever that was some other summer scenes we sewed for a film we were not in or out of all i have got gold or some terrible treasure you wanted

gods gone crawling with crabs towards you avril 12

tears as these auditioning annihilation some saturday scene stitched from sorrow

wanting walter huston or some other ocean you could come

listening to life become art as altered dance of dread imitations of ice

tonight beside bed i am breaking apart

307

tears as these another day

tears as these threading théâtre throughout this

without you or this failing with ferocity into ice virtue of veins i have explored all that & this is under discussion for days on end of endings & beginnings

mastering memory’s mastery being borrowed from bibliothèque burned before this & that catastrophe you claimed as another heritage heresy you held on to other so it is said in scripture structure you steal night after night

i am being bored with all selves i stole so long ago on another continent crawling deft as dancer i once was this & that so much more than this if you like

now

tears as these offering other whom i was once other something more precise than that

at this hour of hours holding on to whatever is left whole worlds collapse

so it is implied in index you are cataloguing chronicle for few

308

who will write what will follow flood you & i long gone

couldn’t be better (reminded again of hateful heidegger in hut black forest)

stage by stage taken by tears to tolling town where bells broken & forever falling way down well

no couldn’t be better

resonant as requiem you may have forgotten in flight

as an animal i am down here in cave heart a hole

avril 12 raining for thousand years

detaching memory of sea from skin

this night taking boat

whatever that was

damned dawns i know

it was when

too well where

floating on waves as if sleeping with stones

seas diminished ground & grammar gone

mai 12

good good

this fortress of fragilité

309

home or hell

stone i am in this

some sépulcre reconstructed during deluge

moment gravel you hurl

mai 12 towards water’s edge slowly mai 12 seas swallow skin

grâce to last

hearing her this long night of nights song of songs

not far

mai 12

to go so simple

danse danse

prepared as polynice

with these legs barely able

for desert

to leave earth

to cover caligraphie

body beautiful but broken

corrected concisely

down to détails

to letter mai 12

weeping waves wrap

not long now

shoulders around

310

wind watching window

wading through waves walking on water as if wire

where looking out at forest

held from one horizon to another

where

speaking to stones

you waiting by well

only song possible

searching source for all good

during dark times tuned turning away

it will do it will do no good at all

circles & centers flowers & ash

here horses heroes

heart nothing

man not much

but beating bell

at all when it comes

in empty city to trampling through dead

waiting with winds

trees for fall & ice mai 12

311

babi yar or another

i inject veins varied day & night

there are many

night of night

congo zaire hell whatever it is called

song of songs mai 12

fortress forgotten forever

today take tour

wherever

no wonder world worn

they were they were

rocks & pebbles bones

fields & seas broken apart by boys

shadows silhouettes of steel

somewhere so it is you forget & have always forgotten

said in scripture ezekiel certainly figure in landscape

it is irreparable

crawling from cave nebuchadnezzar too

marx mentioned merchandise we were & are

so it is stone

song so sombre

stolen from ravine

312

we wail

so silent

waiting for wall to fall

torrents take you

mai 12

leaves & ash

what sand & your shadow

i remember degas dancer arriving armed to tell

turning to tide & crying captain who wants you to keep

threnody followed

promise written

all these years phoun loc to port

in poem to uncle ho

west of wherever

in code crafted

i was once so beautiful & strong

here & now then & there

i could see through

mai 12

to who we were

(especially for her) middle of may raining

we were mai 12

313

for thousand years retreating

corresponding with chinese doctor detailing

embrace to embrace

fatigue d’être

symmetry of serpents

disease delivers

speaking so sorrowfully

on hour every hour

that you dread dawn

night of night song of songs

concealing confession

regarding her red guard

in caress carved

barefoot doctor in high heels

comme de la cire pursuing pancreas parmindes

damned as degas before his dancers

in black dress so exquisité

he was walking into water

you want to die

never coming back to being

to defeat her mai 12

flame she rose

veins ravine

mai 12 we wash my doctor

314

&i

ô we break down full fathom five

going down down full fathom five

we break down my doctor &i

être elsewhere vessel of veins

so silent surgeon washes hands over & over again & again

full fluids

until he becomes jean-louis trintignant in il conformista

come & go come & go tide turns

strategia del ragno something

she tunes syringe so

so sacred it still screens before these

it speaks so

eyes elsewhere gazing at grids & geography disappearing sealing stratum

clearly rhetoric in ruins here & there

in self whatever that is

in what is left of this beautiful body

it is soil not much more certainly

we break down

315

less so much

within me whomever that is

less science you study so senselessly

mai 12 so so

burning dreams in book carried when walking to wharves

syringe sinks slowly into sea of me fields of tears

hurling hope into harbour

so it is whatever that is

said in scripture you choose

it is

to turn towards

no use here & now

when walls fall

following fanatics with flags

coming to kingdom come

relics & other ruins

to this sea of seas song of songs

marching not mentioning name

still so still

only numbers

these rags torn

configurations carried for some time now

316

though that difficult to believe here & now holes only holes tubes that tell vein’s version mai 12

317

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For his introduction to the work I thank Mark Roberts whom I have known for many decades but never met. I thank Tony Oliver for use of his magnificent painting and Ernesto for the photograph of me taken during a concert in Nantes.  I thank Michael Bollen of Wakefield Press for his support. The poem has had many readers and I want to thank them all, from all corners of this earth, they know who they are – they have nourished this poem in its growing. I thank  Geoffrey Datson for singing the poem so many times now I can hear it from many thousands of miles away. I thank the very great musicians in Nantes, who have joined me in concerts, Scott Stroud on banjo, the genius, Will Guthrie on drums & percussion and I think the greatest bass clarinettist since Eric Dolphy, my constant companion in work Laurent Berthomier. There would be no poem without the work I do with many hundreds of participants to my writing workshops each year in my association, Le Dernier Spectateur and I would be incapable of investing the time in this poem without the aid of my collaborator, Stephane Anizon. They have made a poor man, rich. The interrogation within a poem of itself is perhaps its most difficult task because it must necessairly work so close to its own annihilation – the love & comradeship people share with me makes that not only the route to innovation but to living as a man and as a poet, decently. We live in a time where inattention and absence of concentration has become a virtue – I want to thank Annette Hughes for possessing such fine attention. Everything I write is in a sense, a homage to my fiercest collaborator who died in 2010, French film maker and German writer, Thomas Harlan, who for many decades enriched my work with his breath. Take comfort camarade, your spirit is here. avec force et tendresse Christopher Barnett Mai 31, 2013, Nantes 318

OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR

a fist in the face of public taste Experimental Art Foundation 1978 selling ourselves for dinner All Out Ensemble Adelaide 1982 last days of the world & other texts for theatre Rigmarole Books Melbourne 1984 last days of the world All Out Ensemble Sydney 1985 bateu bleu/blue boat, bilingue Edition le Nouveau Commerce Paris 1994 ulrike meinhof sang Staatsteatern Stockholm 2003 ulrike meinhof sang Noprdiska Copenhague 2005

319

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Cover image by Tony Oliver Circle within Circle, April 2013 acrylic on board 60 cm x 80 cm Photograph by Ernesto Book design by Annette Hughes