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Nathan Thompson

ashes to ashes

how much longer       you don’t really
believe        ‘the divine sepulchre’        do you?
this pen was made in a hotel and smells of sadness
ingrained with dust and oil        only
faded water remains        slipped onto a scrapbook open
veins showing through the leaves
                                                tomorrow I’ll travel
today again only less still        listening for
the scratches of Chinese characters
the glorious otherness of unknown cologne
take your pick
                              I’ve never been to either
and couldn’t tell you how the grass grows there
waving from the other side or why
equality in language is impossible and undesirable

I think perhaps I should unlearn to count
just to ensure we’re on at least equal footing
hoofing around in the barn of little memory
for designer truffles

because I don’t have
to be the other one today or go to work
your ponytail glitters condescendingly
as it sways across the square try it on!

this is not significant thank everything
but love is a rose that doesn’t close at night
swift flights of statues over yesterday
‘s forgotten promise
‘only with the highest
concentration do angels remember their hardship’

and of course we’re back
facing it all frontways

if only the phantom would stop for us
begin to inhabit cold daylight between bleeding

ejected to its pulse

restoring the street       automatic
multi-screen        too obvious to avoid
double-crossing
                                    visual circus
the circuit interrupted in volcanic fragments
rain now ‘like ashes’       waiting for you
in all this cover-up
                                    out of ink
to write my fortunes on your hand

I construct you from a flower fired at night

awkward statements        do you consider jasmine
where this almost ended
                                          where it began
cutting through gardens        a dress in miniature

the happy blue day

third memory from the left
informs time honoured medicine
for the modern world
across far trenches
soldiers rub their feet bare in anticipation

iron shoes a conversation
waiting to happen in front of a canvas
listing dried fruits as still alive

if you can I’ll give you a present
informed by passing fancies and open windows
generating cool air for clear-headed decisions

my eyes are silent language
around the clock
yours
the house of commons at work
lending fresh water to proceedings
a commercial break lasting an hour

what is needed here is some kind of
story under the microscope I think I’m telling
but somehow owing to the new diet
revolution missing
salient in action
dark riffs through dirt
attention is this you?

these are all matters for structure and design
‘how long this game is’
will you take some
will you have some

‘the obstinate resistance to misery in human animals
is quite remarkable’