blue cinema seats and 3-D pentacles on the wall
bad boy X-man in ridged leather swigs a soda
we take off when they do
adamantine claws pierce his knuckles
blazes with malice and a dam cracking
the blonde black X-woman flies a jet plane
we tip back our ginger beer
chomp through chocolate
watch the American president address the world
a German mutant recites part of a famous prayer
harmony arrives in time for the orchestra
flying in a helicopter over where the heroine died
a pale symbol forming beneath the lake
a hint of the future in blurs and sighs
electricity crisis and the TV has vanished
lack of appliances flips a virtuous air
when any marriage breaks down - distance compacts
privatisation malfunction and ensuing debacle
a dearth of rain and your taking the small screen
moving about the kitchen in the dim mornings
wondering what a tea bag feels like
the red light on the jug boiling looks angry
the silence hung with possible voices
they tell me to think first what
I am doing anything
annoying shouldn’t be attempted
even if it‘s there
plain as a mountain and I have boots
the truth not as significant as smooth running
buddying up next to anybody with clout
lies or not
something called a career and another termed success
aims apparently only achieved by conservatives
including lots of money anyway
I shouldn’t be so absurd
hands write on walls and move on
they say
city council graffiti squads with their grey paint ready
obliterate night-drenched squiggles of prophets
Joan of Arc and Galileo call over with passion-fruit
we eat them with odd teaspoons out the back
our neighbours are far too nosey
we’re powdered in gold dust from crumbling stories
scattered about us so people may think they know
all the purple fruit skins go into the compost
given a flight to Egypt and Budapest
last night he slept in a boat on the Nile
where an exotic dancer I met once grew up
I lent her a skirt for her trial
she only had hot pants and the lawyer
advised Belinda to find something respectable
now this friend’s new sandals tread where she traced her name
I’m sure she trailed a stick to look large in the sand
the dirt there smells different or bizarre
creatures burrow into your feet from the mud
he’s travelled far from his parents’ deaths
out of the loop he kept tending their garden
to where pharaohs and queens sucked gold through straws
bribed throats for pyramid slaves busy and scared
I see them in pleated white with angled hands
and him sauntering along exchanging smiles free of that
it was a green a-line skirt
Belinda was the most flamboyant masseuse in town
deported soon after her trial
she drove a blue Alpha Romeo sports car
and if anything crashed amiss
like her hairspray ran out
she would wave her arms and shout
call the police over and over flashing her teeth
tossing blonde hair around
one night after her Alpha refused to start
and we were supposed to be crammed in there
going out on the town
in her tiny hot pants edging fake tan and gold jewellery
Belinda waved down a squad car
and persuaded the officers to assist
opening the bonnet of her car
and then the police took the rest of us home
her life an emergency they closed a plane door on later
in the wake of whispering locks
chamomile tea in a deep orange mug
my mother has a blue one to measure milk
a slew of books beside me toppled
the language of flowers
hurricanes and rules for card games
a pocket German dictionary and a text book
Intercultural Communication in the global workplace
a novel cracks various records for mosaics
trompe l’oeil letters between covers
this drink has dreamy but not heart-throb
recovered but not sitting well
perhaps we perch in that beat beat beat
racing towards next tomfooleries on a trolley
whacked together from bits and pieces holding
onto the piece of twine pinched from old newspapers
hoping you’ll escape scandal sheets to the bottom of the hill
before the wheels fall off or gravity
before the town swallowed those ideas
fashion shoes and hormones lift
flirting boys squealed corners while eyes slipped
teenagers in mothers’ cars on Friday nights
we’d heaped fairy houses in the park
after the tractor mowed the Bullrush field
and all the edge where the gully was
between the six yellow swings
the green slide and red seesaws painted wood
the sand pit ruined by cats and filled in
fairies knew nothing of the intoxication of petrol
answering our wishes in rings of grass clippings
sometimes by dawn every one scattered
we grew towards revs and sly remarks
the morning after and pillow promises transparent
how belief in that unproven can be strewn to the wind
hearing how everything you loved was stolen
I walk into the business building
thinking how I used to cradle your head against my chest
and how Venus de Milo’s arms have been discovered
but the museum with the amputee statue may not return her
and how marble is always 20 degrees colder
than the surrounding atmosphere
and how I never want to see you again
mulling through losing the impression
since the museum of lost days won’t give us back either
our images there to mull over for evidence before sleep
just where and when cracks began to show
what was lost and may not be reattached
when you live nudging the sky
the snow takes on personas
this one time a man appeared
from across a warm ocean
when the height here called him
he calls our mountain Everest
we watched him building for days
children were born and some died
he cried and his tears fell into a book
we live close to the packed icy earth here
pulled down with the mountain's feet
thin air throwing sparkles
our joy in this embroidery and carrying
loads and ideas from plan to rise
the television cameras are small next to Everest
that's what they call our mountain too now
technology with huge eyes and invisible waves
we are here with the pointed sky
the mountain shows us heaven
sometimes we rise and pat the doors
written for Sherpa Tensing and Sir Edmund Hilary on the anniversary of their climbing Mt Everest
