because it is
     hidden,
secret (geheim),
                 & all traces
of it
      impenetrable,
                 distant,
like sirens
                 blissfully
                              sounding in the dark,
what enters
            so assiduously
                           broken
is also
            what ends – the enforced meaning
(Stop! Police! – how it enters the fray)
            after all
                              no one really knows
                                            what words want
                                                      (these songs wearing peasant shoes
            on strange stumpy legs):
the scattering
            random, bloodstained
                       & everyone running in the streets

as someone
            hears it
                       once again
(the unluckiest brightlit arrangements
                       of burnt ships fired into flame!)
            as it enters
                       the bones
                                  like a harmony
                       that awaits
            you
                       & everything
                                  just chokes
the world
   assiduously
 gasping for
                       air
                             amid the noise
                          of infantries
                               (clouding
                                        all sense),
the unbridled rush
           to find them
                            – like barricades unveiled –
        on video
             after the briefest
                        command – Run –
is impeded
        by the wild,
             intemperate
         meandering
             of silence and sex
& the big foaming
             mouth
announces that every rib
             is cracked
                              again

                        by the haute volée
                              of each utterance
             when being
                        human
involves just listening
   to the rain (the revenge of elegies),
        & mastery is just
      the impermanent, briefest
   of rests
    in desperate resorts
where we know it all ends
   & I am you
    & each wishful
moment
       is a decapitation,
           a thought
                   that twists
           because what it notices
  it no longer lives,
& it is impossible
     to say
          no, too soon

& how
          suddenly
                    (the sea burns,
drowned
          parched by flame), & someone beckons

          & reminds you
             that each gathering
                    is a celebration
               of the already dead
and
  each word
   matters
less than
      it should,
         (the hard facts
             fluttering
                like banners
                    over bloodsoaked pavements)

& methinks
       there are years
            here
ranged like so many antlers,
   memories
       of cognac & latin,
as anarchists
       start slashing
     at pictures once again
         & you cut here and here
           the asymptotic glimpses
     of the dark fluent sequels
                 in Berlin, London,
                         & at the great gates
                                     of Ishtar
where all the shrouds
  are veiled –
           which can only mean
                       that life is a Fälle (a theatre)
or that someone
           (the wealthiest art lover)
has reached
        down
             into each word
and cut out
               the name of each cameo
or is it simply
           because I miss you
running
                  through the rain-drizzled streets
           and all I have
                   are
(clouds
         rioting
in dark ancestral languages)

i.m. Sean Bonney

FROM
D.S. MARIOTT | BEFORE WHITENESS
CITY LIGHTS SPOTLIGHT, 2022