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From The Sylvia Hotel Poems, published by Quattro Books in 2010.
Betting that a hunch will strike small groups of foreigners sitting round a fire Snow pack heavy in the mountains this year death lacks only an opening line time to update the résumé Sun goes down laser straight little hope of rescue file an incident report Clouds crash into one another at this distance pantomime is all we get somebody stole the remote again Chainsaw sounds coming from the vacuum! hotel terror! negligent grace! the luxury of distraction! The moon was shining all over us lucky drunken daylight feasts while others fast Champagne and Chinese food the drip becomes a spectacle helicopters nervous but not us Around obstacles where possible over them when necessary water trying its best to be quiet Now where? nowhere apocalypse on both your houses distant fairgrounds Aperçus await recycling metaphor whores linger at the entrance garbage strike now five weeks long Change for the changeless help make the homeless homeful again swap spare motif for a little bit of process? Only five percent of collections on exhibit the good stuff kept in the dungeons beneath the dance floor Memory triggers comfort still hum the tune her phone number played police station coffee on a frosty morning This is the room all right cured within the privacy of the moment you were in fine voice that evening Up streets and alleys in between moving like participles cavity scarcity scar city Drained of words at end of day everybody wants more sentences the unexpurgated life is not worth living Yesterday’s chaos granted an extension cherry blossoms return to Nelson Street so concludes my weekly report Alleys are valleys between streets rivers flowing backwards from the sea disappear as mountain trickles Leaving me to imagine what spaces contain reveal just enough to keep yourself safe has the bamboo taught you nothing? Years of prep work for these few seconds no exceptions to universal truths failure keeps us young Noon at midnight lying there in pachinko parlours harsh light makes shadows for the dead