a kind of canto

   the echoing tip

   the wood-ash stars

   spread wide

   touching from a distance

   red earth and pouring rain

   nausea the wall and other stories

   crossing the water

   burning your boats

   on the road

   all points north

   in the company

   of crows and ravens

inside

inside

and I'm cloudy on specifics

the harbour of our quiet minds

the one instilled inside the stillness we

speak of

we are capable of unfolding

the complex detritus

the bullshit and the barricades

the beautiful and blissful

some call it sunyata

and you find it on your way to work and in

the last line of the second verse

in a painting in a drunkards smile

inside

and I'm cloudy on specifics

he found it in his prison cell

and it

wrapped around him

the complex

detritus

and he unfolded

his origami heart

and got lost

in the creases where the crooked

angles of the mind

deflect the wholeness

of his breath

the valley of his thoughts

the ones unburdened 

by language

lay 

inarticulate in the husk

of his body

unfolding

lay awake illuminated

it quietens it

thins

sepia seams a dusk a door

time lapse in the absence of thought

continuum distracted by how empty

the car park is

three floors

of concrete and space

light against dark 

spaces pulled 

into the greasy mouth of morning

lay awake illuminated 

cast into the comfort of 4am

a mould transcending tick

tock

small parameters

buildings shift

their ribs 

and breathe unoccupied

by the skin and bone of our beat

rhythmns slip 

into syncopated slits

our arbitrary breath

insignificant

my trivial feet

balanced on the body 

of what is not

mine

and joy

balanced on the body 

of what is not

mine 

my arbitrary smile

insignificant

a mould

transcending 

engine and temple

and the fractals

fell from my mouth

post apocalyptic

elipses

answers in the abstract

engine and temple

this polygraph pulse

this extinct air

absorbing the template

of a cliché

pigment and particle

my addendum my detriment

the demolished

sky line

casting off

the river didn't widen

it didn't procrastinate

it thinned 

into Gas Street Basin

lamplight lifting from the lock

casting off casting off
we passed a whispering boat

made of wildness and the artiste 

talked

loudly on her blackberry

he rolled his cigarette and sighed into the rust more

authentically than she

could ever hope to

taking two slow breaths 

before following
my question

into the marina

we watched
deep veins in the sky 

open on the tall 

machinery of this city

we watched a quiet man

fish

hooking bread onto a line

casting off casting off

I ask 

her name

my pound

of flesh she says

"remember what your mother promised you,

she promised you fuck all sweet merry dolls!"

and she shimmied down Moor Street

smelling of piss
and Elvis

the river didn't widen

it didn't procrastinate

it thinned 

into Gas Street Basin

lamplight lifting from the lock

casting off casting off