Early Winter and Foxes by Peter Wright (fb2 epub reader .TXT) 📕

Neon

You boast you have never killed a moth.

Deadly,
in January vagabonds crowd around you and
freeze to death, smiling as your
light caresses, and glimmers promises.

There is no electricity or intention
behind your brightness,
no breath in your words,
or passion in the murder that plumps
and reddens the lips that
form a perfect smile
or grimace.

Tomorrow I’ll burn my hand on a candle,
I may even blister
and swell
and change.


The Old Man

The labyrinth of wrinkles, like old oak smiles—
Bark rubbings of his life:
Sadder than he remembers
Or thinks he remembers –
Frantic, like a maze
The lines race
Showing tragedies in his baggy eyes
And comedies with laughter-lines,
His thoughts are smooth, forgetting—
A failed crop from his furrows
Unaware of plays and players
That ploughed some skin dry and barren,
In the labyrinth on his face he turns a corner
In a wrinkle and forgets
Some special touch
And murder
And sorrow
And the fox he saw that night
And the smell of hair


Eulogy for the Night

It rained a little whilst the curtains were drawn
then stopped as unnoticed as it had begun.
The rain froze over the earth
with slow certainty,
and most of the lives on the ground
hadn’t time nor route to flee.

Later, rain fell again and
the frost was washed away into morning,
Unaware of the night’s hatred
day busily races passed them in
cars and cash and closed doors—
from this touch it leaves the
Night to endure the gentle murders
and silent knells
So quiet that only bats and badgers
and foxes can hear.


On the Seventh Day

They wrote music and poetry in wavelengths and
described Zeus in electrons.
They gave names to the pretty pieces of flowers and
haemoglobin and iron to the smell of blood.
They smiled like adults at the hearts of fairies
and tucked them in with electric blankets.
They cried hosanna at an eclipse and the young
taught their grandfathers of love in hormones and instincts.

They said I love you in a submarine and
gave her name to a star.
They spent lifetimes in secret trysts on balconies
of wood and sand, just to meet a giant tortoise.
They will tell you stories of fruit bats and salamanders,
as you sit by the campfire under light-years.

They improved upon a father’s design
and gave Icarus the sun and sea.
They never won at cards or told a child
they were a lamb or a snake.
They gave little girls sterile hugs in aprons of
penicillin and dumped dowries into bins of witches.
They worshipped the satellite’s distant stare
and gave nuns internships and vibrators.

PRAISE BE to the supernova,
to uranium, and
gravity.
PRAISE BE to the orbits and to
the pigments of
eyes.
PRAISE BE to the wave of excitation
in the beating of
hearts.


Robot: Final Calibration

-

Preliminary calibration of motor, processing and reactionary systems complete and deemed adequate
-Memories calibrated and almost complete
-Final systemic inquiries:

-The titanium skeletal system must be re-evaluated:
it never learns its lesson from falling off
the tall willow tree whose branches seem
so much like arms that tempt it from the
safety of the grass.

-The infra-red night settings in the eyes must be re-evaluated:
there is no shape in the coat on the wall
that seems a face the more he looks the
more the darkness asks the question of
his little mind—ghost or demon the malice
pure evil undeniable in its eyes—from his
own comes the excitement in the dark
terror of the question.

-Grief calibration is complicated, but complete:
hospital—he gives his favourite toy to
the man and tells him it will keep him
amused the plastic figure sitting heavily
in the thin and wasted weakness of the
hand almost letting go then upon leaving
he snatches the toy and holds it to his chest
and says he cannot part with it the man
smiles weakly and says it’s ok I
understand then sleeps a month later he
throws the toy into the fire—
disgusted.

-Calibrating moment no.18225019:
spinning impossibilities of her told and
retold then slowly he breathes and is thrown
into one moment: soft chaos warm lips
tongue—possible it seems it all now feels
as if it was inevitable but strange to him as
if dreaming or perhaps a sense of fear that
comes only from the most profound
realization that one is lost completely lost
something in him laughs and a they both
vibrate at the same frequency.

-Further revisions now seem necessary—initiate recalibration no. 600853.
-Initiated
-Preliminary calibration of moments no. 01-1000:


Reading Old Watches

The Vigil is heavy on his wrist
in the pretence of leather and metal and glass,
a gift belonging to the past
whispering
present present present

More bronze than steel
the Vigil smells like sweat and old confusions
unwilling to wash away
The dirt and rust is retold in the wrong words,
cleaner words, whilst
its parts move in contradictions:
cogs and wheels spinning more in
history than prophecy

yet

present present present

Soft conclusions hurt in their inventions
their new conclusions
their reinventions


It tells tales of quiet smiles and gentle grips,
of breathless moments held with young conviction
unable to be recalled

Traitor, the Vigil spells out The Old Words:
soft close lips hold neck gift grief –
redrafting

present present present

Publication Date: 12-23-2009

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