Monday's Fall

third-floor study, summer’s evening, st. anne's college, oxford. there, at the old big window, warm sunlight shafting through, like a bright-rod set against the dim-distant bookshelf, our student standing naked: smooth as a just-stripped birch to the hand; sharp as a new idea to the mind. asking how. how does it happen - how does…? close-up - student’s left-thigh. I reply, imagination: which is everything:- the everything. I say this before a pause. close-up - student's left-shoulder. see, through the window to that oak, see how it imagines the sky with its leaves? see how its branch imagined the feet of that bird, perfectly down into place? and how its flight imagines the bird now, perfectly to the roof of that church, which will not just imagine the bird down into place, it will imagine the sound of this evening’s hymns into our ears. close-up - student's neck. yes, yes I…. imagine now a fall of legs, down to our dusty rug                                                                                        

Shimmer(Un)Sunday

this end of a less-light. burnish of a ground. fall of once-paraded light, hung from long failed birds. watch it spreading through these lines of dust-for-detail: read here 'yet again' and 'never'. where wander I and track; where I stumble with a pen. to raise from the page: - to form these less-effects and shadows - I write against. the bell of trial's direction through this once of no-more words

Saturday Yes-No-Yes

no sat between two yes. looking ahead and then sheepishly, thinking both had been sufficiently distracted - no exaggeratedly sneezing - it looked at both quickly. and then just as quickly back. for no saw in an instant they were identical: not just the two yes, but all three of them. and this disturbed no to the core, always believing there was only one no. which the yes already knew: what no knew the yes always, always knew, because no's memory was dead: following each, to no it seemed anyway, of no's miraculous discoveries followed an instant forgetting. and so the yes always, always knew what no knew. all three never budging an inch from their bench for some 250 years. for some 250 years they sat side-by-side, so there was nothing no knew the yes didn't. what separated them was no was alone, and thus always forgot, having no-one to confer with, no-one to agree with, no-one to argue with. but the yes being two chatted at each drop of a hat - which no did constantly when sneezing - and so always, always remembered. until no-one returned that is: having conferred, agreed, and argued with no for some 250 years, no-one forced itself back on the bench. next to yes

FriErDay

no; it's no good. it's gone. [what did he say?] (it's gone I think. gone. yes.) yes: I think it's gone. all those years I had it and now - nothing. [now he's saying nothing.] (nothing?) [yes: doesn't look good. he's looking down.] I find myself looking down now. seems the ground is the place for me now. the future once was the distance, but now it's down there. [he's definitely looking down.] (at what?) [at the ground.] (at the ground?) [yes; just the ground: isn't moving a muscle.] now I've no reason to move at all. I just, stand - ground at my feet's the future now. where else is there to go? (can you hear what he's saying?) [something about where else is there to go.] (oh: shall we show him?

Thursday-Power Pissing

all the street-gutters are full with rain.... it dives down and rushes with a thrash-gushing down-sound. into dark concrete mouths all wet-get. from which I hear this speech, eery-hiss and oily: see it ascend through words the new skyscraper tomorrow; hear it hum through words on buses and trains "we make you; and we carve you out. we the medical companies and building companies, we the car company, money and language company, and the mind companies, the body companies...: we make you; we made you: we give you scripts: give you images, to shape and assure your moves, fill your dreams: we give you costumes, and stages too - we call them fashion, the bar, the mall - even give you belief, and challenges, escape - family, house, and holiday. all we want is your flesh a little while and bones; that you keep paying our bills; and that you forget all this about soul, and that you sit when we say, you stand when we say, and you keep quiet until the next you comes along." it was like a pissing sound

Wednesday Wrote-Anna

I knew Anna when she knew me. but I know Anna now. and what I know now isn't what it was. Anna was unlike the what she's becoming; she was amongst the all of the excitement-years of study and travel, purchases and children and love, of having the required, and being the required. she was the story. she lived the line of words. but under these, the page: always white they say. until now. the off-white's showing through she's telling me, though not in so many words. there in the mirror; in the kid's voices too she says. although she won't tell Leonard, his voice the crumpled page now. Anna's finding Anna writ large across the page these days, in letters the decades tried cover. letters we once spoke. letters spelling her name again. so she sits at her table unable to write

TuesNothing-EscapeDay

here in this nothing-escape: all there is is size, area, a long rod of brass and that feeling you get before words come. no - forget it. here in the nothing escape is a hallway: not too long but long enough that you can't see the end, so you have to imagine the end. until you realize the end is something like an end, so imagining is replaced by memory. no - this won't do either. here, in the nothing-escape, are words: scraps of air and day. a bit of woman here; bit of regret there; a hope a vision a sound. all day's cuts molded to letters forming words begging all that happened to say Yes, the words are right, it actually happened as they say, just before what actually happened alights through what is happening now and then out into the what will happen, through yet another nothing-escape

MonPressDayUre

cut me a swastika hole she says. cut it like you was hungry she says. get on your knees and gouge! I held the cutter she'd bought me; I stared at her and her hole on the floor; stared at the cutter and felt her shouts expanding my ears. and then I looked over the edge - I saw myself there with the cutter and her on the floor. I could see I was a meter from her and the hole, and so I shouted to me to get on with it: do as she says, I shout to me, nauseated by the impending mess:- because I was curious what I might do under peer-pressure

Sunday Meat

and. there is no me. there is just the barest I: a glow held by a scatter of details. me is of the mirror. me is of the name-badge. me is of the family album. I? I is the turning of eyes in response to the visual. The moving of the head to follow an odor. The moving of the feet through attraction attuned by the earth. I is shaping need; I is need-moved meat; I is the momentary accumulation of a here and now becoming a there and then. I is here and now, there and then, a gone, a was, a coming site of bliss, perhaps

SatOhUrFriDay

eight more words until the end of this sentence. nine more 'til the end of this one as well. but only six to the end of this one. five to the end of this.... oh; song of the smart-arse, she says. numeric-pretension, she says. you just a typist, she says, no writer. but he is right he argues. and he's got a point too. and he's a right to type whatever he wants here. no he hasn't they shout. and he won't anymore - the punctuation company's moving in with their question mark: look?

Thurfakesday

some fake-bikies come over: they wear fake-boots and fake-patches; use fake-words to describe fake-harley davidson, fake-triumph, fake-bsa bikes. they bring with them fake-friends; proceed to talk loud about fake-plans and fake-intentions for all manner of fake-acts. all of them from the fake-badlands down-south, where fake-weather reeks fake-havoc on their fake-farms and fake-homes. but then things get heated - I speak out of turn. fake-punches are thrown; fake-blood spills across my carpet. fake-bottles smash as they fake-rage and fake-threaten me with all manner of fake-harm. then they fake-leave and set fire to my house. now I'm on the fucking street

Wed(Comes)Thursday

into these words comes a written; into these words comes a rhythm; into these words a moment's coming through. like heat through a flame rises; like heat through a burn sensations; like heat through sound of fire-cracks. like a dream of another coming; like a dream of the other coming; like a dream of a long dead naked other comes.... before fists into punching pushes on; and then a punch into fists of pushing on; into pushes of a punch afists another comer. then through this day a new day rises; into this rise of a day renews; into this page another-one comes coming

Ivory TueWednesday

Peter sat around it. there without delay. Peter sat around it. there was no delay, because there it was as Peter sat. It wasn’t what I expected. as he sat; as it happened. as the rearrangements fell and a split sounded. but still I sat. vertical rods here were all black, holding a silence-white that holds a fall and split. there seemed no end to it. but, Peter sat around it. It just doesn’t move, he’s saying. I see it but it doesn’t move. and as Peter sat round it, and as he said it, it moved. the air of the words his mouth transmits transmitted airs of movement. clouds of words round it, a hovering mist of them round it. a circling of words that circled now, a tiny movement round it. a tininess now, a lowering tiny, an all but was now. now just a place where words once were. a once was. a had been place. A Peter was around it.

Alphabet MonTuesday

in among the acrobats, generals, strongmen, and officials, we found a small pot. it stood-out among the terracotta figures, and their immortal safeguarding of the emperor, because it was made of jade. and even more unusual: given the history of such pots always proves-out a wedding of function and beauty - such pots were for the eye, but through imagination, for the hand as well - we noticed the pot was made without a handle: carbon dating and x-rays show it never had one, unlike every other pot of its kind. but there it was: at the epicenter of 8000 various figures, a strange, hand-size pot, made of jade, the source of which still remains a mystery: it even has a porous color unlike any jade seen before. but what really got the specialists thinking was its weight: it was unsteady. although tests remain inconclusive, speculation shows the weight of the pot is dependent on what holds it - a small child holds it, it is light; a soldier holds it, it is heavy. Dr Ramaar from the Greek Institute for Ancient Gain says it is 'quite astonishing. it might even demand a new interpretation of what we have long assumed, since Archimedes, to be the nature of material.' But as astonishing as all this is, I will declare to you my finding: my name is Dr Altman, and I work for the rarely heard of branch of Yale Linguistics called temple - our name comes from the address of the faculty - 370 temple street. the few of us who work here noticed immediately back in '74, during the unearthing of what's now called the 'terracotta army', the pot was indeed hollow, as many specialists quickly noticed, but that the hollow also had a certain shape. it was immediately familiar to us back then, but we just couldn't figure out how. that was nearly 40 years ago. and we've examined this thing ever since. and we've considered this strange shape, and the fact the pot is somehow weight-dependent, and cross-referenced all we've found with reams of data and theory related to how language lives, how words and letters evolve, how what happened in language thousands of years ago can shape what happens in language tomorrow, and we've decided: that little shape, in that little pot, made from a jade which remains without source, which alters to accord with what holds it, found at the center of a gigantic burial ground: that shape is the next letter of the alphabet

Sunday's Loss

I hit a bit. no..., er.... I hit a, er..., hit a bit! oh no: I, er, hit a bit of, (what was it?) I hit a bit. [he hit a bit.] [will do again no doubt.] I will not. actually yes - no - yes I will. [see.] but only a quick-hit; a quick-bit. [nevertheless, you will (he will)]. no: I've decided that I won't: too quick just won't do: it's necessary to, er, actually, now I've no idea: now what? [hit a bit.]

Satursunday

I said she said it's the sun. she said I said it's the sun. the sun watched us say, say, watched, listened then replied with light. I said she said I'm sunburned. she said I said I'm sunburned. the sun watched the sunburn, sunburn, watched, listened then replied with rain, from a cloud - it makes deals, the details it won't offer. I said she said now I'm cold. she said I said now I'm wet. the sun replied with fire

Call Friday

more. more she says. more. hear the word leave her room and echo down her hall, dropping long feathers as they go - see all these feathers litter the hall; walk her hall and hear as they crunch, barbs and shafts beneath your feet. peacock feathers meters high, tides of eyes and rachis, hissing a brackish odor, rising and permeating her call - more, more. all this a crow tells me: says all crows are peacocks as all were peacocks once: versed in the peacock rules of display; au fait with the peacock codes of etiquette and preening. but she only wanted more, no matter what she got. just more. took all we had, our size, our song, our beautiful feathers too, to line her empty halls: see me now, these black feather stumps, this neck

Numberlessly Thursday

walks pages to find what's to be said. walks lines to find words, and this line to find words. walks, step-by-fingers-step, to raise words that say what's to be said. maybe past-words that lean away, lined by weight and shadow; maybe future-words, that lean away, lined by light; or present words standing vertical. all numberlessly walking line, sentenced to raise a what's said, up-from lines of wording stitched to a page: that white of white becoming sheet of marked aquiesce. from where walking becomes talking becoming speech, a says what's to be said, becomes calling for reply

Wednesday a-go

a trade of winds

a carry of cards 

a breeze you can see

this house 
a was

Tuesday was-Monday

writing to fill the gaps the day leaves at its end, here with 
the midnight ticking in. putting word to word to create a 
memory, to fill each gap, huddling around me now as 
sullen air. in order to forget: made-up memories for 
forgetting, made of greyest forget. like, I forget, for example. 
or, I forgot. and, I forget that I should remember. and
I do remember

Monday Whisperer

no more. no - not any more, I don't want to anymore; I don't want to talk anymore. not for that reason; not for that reason either. I don't want to talk. no, I don't want to - listen; listen: when I talk, only hints come. or only suggestions and bits of what should be said. only an edge of the thing that's to be said. only corners of what is there to be said come out. and often they come out top-to-bottom; often, upside-down, wrong-colored too. when I talk, she whispers, only the world exists

Sunday There's

my hands. I see them. I'm even able to hear them, as I watch my fingers rub along this edge. I see what they can do, bringing feelings of the world into me; sending mine out into it. but I can't stop them trembling. I hold the world and hold its edge, but my grip is soon released. it's not a tremble from the world I'm passing on, it's trembling from elsewhere, somewhere. I can close my eyes to find it. I can maintain silence to hear its source. but I can't find it.... can you see it? can you measure it, name it, point to where it comes from? hold onto my hands?

Saturday's Isle

this is what is written before, and this is what is written when, there's nothing to write. and this is what to write after there's nothing to write. well what would you write when there's nothing to write? would you? would you write? would you write you? you would? would you? or like me would you write this, or that which I just wrote? and then perhaps as this nothing of ours spreads, becomes the clicks of our fingers cross our keyboard, you'll write something like what

Wire Friday

combining a fox to unkindness. an un-breedable mix perhaps, an un-see-able thing? red-orange fur to a spiked emotion, an animal to a feeling? one that hunts and is hunted, the other that hunts, and is hunted. one for vermin and lazy prey, hunted on Sundays by bugled packs, hunting at night; the other hunting for lazy prey, anytime day or night, proving its might in soft-skin bruises that will leave and then carry it away, away from the unkind, focused on their baser state, of bitterness, where they hunker in fur

Thursday's This

lean to me. take. and again, she says, she's saying. the side of her neck pulses sound at my ear; the ocean rolls her chest's rise and falls at my cheek. I feel and hear nothing but this: all time movement of flesh. and my blindness that remains has become a brightness by her name. her name, pulsing light.

Wdnsdy One

He will take out that which can be was and could be: watch.... What can be stands tall as sheets of paper. Taller than that. Can cover a city with ease. Moves like a morning river moves in wind. Sways and you can hear its empty mention. What was is under, no-one clear exactly what. But all agree was was. Laid long in strands of black-tar line, grooved into pages a century long, Black-tar lines of was and quieter than silence mute. What could be is an uncle's artery, an afternoon's pooling, a stranger's gate, a list gone backwards, a cricket pitch (undone), a long sound shorter. Which he just took out.

Tuesday Filter

yes I huddle I hear myself say too. I huddle and I crouch. in this corner, me under this hood. me in this grey corner under this grey hood. I wear grey jeans, and I speak greyly. you might notice me walking passed - that grey area down there; the grey volume, hardly-moving, grey-humming. this corner and here me crouched; a crouched zone. grey, level-huddled and walked-passed you might recall. something grey, you might later remember. but I doubt it: grey is the color of forget that I wear. in this I forgotten zone. this I you walk passed.

Monday O(Emily

hold Emily. in light. in the glaring of it huddling her. holding Emily. hold Emily she's saying: whisperings through the glare; whispers of the glare; secrets from her mouth in there. hold me she's saying. don't go. feathers plume the light around her: a full-feathering of brightest light. she's huddled in there, her eyes are down. black smallish circles of just visible in the distance, above lips; just-theres in the milk-center of all the whiteness; a whiteness blondeness of hair falling over them, her eyes there, hiding, saying, look

Sunday undays

damn it. now read the next line. damn it. ha: annhialation. I can't spell it. again - annialation. still can't. annihalation. ah! ah! how to spell annhialation? - nope. but it's the best damn word of the day: I've not read, seen or thought or heard, even said it for months. months without annhialation..., so long I can't spell it. and here it is, back again, it's meaning leaks through me a veinery of satisfaction, little blasts of it fitting the fissures of me exploding out my holes, so there's this fizz about me a huzz-buzz-uzz, like heat-tremors slinking round shiny metal in summer. annihilate annihilation.

Saturday Err

best to leave this. best to leave this. best to leave what was this and, what this was. nothing fancy; nothing filmic; no narrative twist. just leave.