acrostic

  • Asthma

    Asthma
     
    atonement—
    my breath at one
    with wind wheeze
     
    sound break 
    between lightning forks
    in-gasp gone
     
    the breath
    I left
    in the clay
     
    heaven-holed
    dark matter
    clogs the night
     
    misty shore
    nothing to grasp
    but breath
     
    asleep
    the habits of being
    breathe easy

  • Cold

    Cold
     
     
    cold snap
    what's left of warmth
    in embers 
     
    oh! the words that do escape
    hang too long in the air
     
    left over
    from far brighter days
    an apple core
     
    deeper into winter
    the heat pump hums for me
     

  • Darkness

    Darkness

    dog
    breath

    with
    its coming
    back

    is 
    God
    :
    awake

    only in
    the
    midst

    of it
    :
    rerum
    novarum

    the progress
    of light
    across

    the working
    slum
    :
    knowing it

    the soft
    susurration

    of
    nay-sayers
    :
    'nevermore'
    a raven fills the mouths
    of the poor
    :
    extinct
    light douses
    a nocturne
    :
    solstice night —
    what does it profit
    amid the stars?
    :
    so
    eloquent

    drip by drip
    the withdrawal

    of
    sight

  • darkness

    Dog breath in its drawing back is God
     
    Awakened to a patient etherized upon a table

    Rerum Novarum the progress of light across a modern slum

    Knowing naught the soft suppuration of naysayers

    Nevermore a raven fills the mouths of the poor

    Extinct light-bringers compose a nocturne

    Solstice night what does it profit amid the stars?

    Soliloquy of the drip by drip withdrawal of sight

     

  • Garden

    Garden
     
     
    garden god
    in-breathing the smell
    of humus
     
    awake with words fall from the soil
     
    re-
    membering the dust
    I am
     
    down with worms
    fingering the cling
    of the earth
     
    eventide
    life-seeding the garden
    with little deaths 
     
    native chant—
    a kumara quickens
    in the void

  • Glaucoma

    Glaucoma

     
    glaucoma—
    a seer at odds
    with vision
     
    light
    strains the edges
    of itself
     
    astride dreams
    horizons gather
    to the flame
     
    under the weather
    my eyes acclimatise
    to their ends
     
    climate change
    I feel the earth
    for a pulse
     
    optic pressure—
    vision swells up
    in words
     
    measured—
    the range of vision
    and words
     
    all dark!
    between stars
    my light

  • Hiroshima - 70th Anniversary of the Bombing

    Hiroshima - 70th Anniversary of the Bombing
     
     
    Hiroshima
    in flames of being
    here and now
     
    is this light?
    a little boy's weight
    on the wide island
     
    rain fills
    the space that was
    once yours
     
    on ones so silent
    the full impact
    of a scientific yes
     
    silence falls
    like a mushroom
    from the Enola Gay
     
    hollowness
    rings out loud
    from the sky
     
    i am
    become death
    atom by atom
     
    mumbling sky
    the build up of heat
    to come
     
    a true man
    without the sounds
    of agony
     

  • Nagasaki - 70th Anniversary of the Bombing

    Nagasaki - 70th Anniversary of the Bombing
    (dedicated to Kaneko Tohta)
     
    Nagasaki
    where east meets west
    treading fire
     
    a fat man
    implodes in light
    the long cape
     
    ground zero
    a white wormhole
    opens at mass
     
    after light
    dark stains of martyrdom
    on stone walls
     
    seared through
    faces and forms
    at worship
     
    a fumi-e
    in deafening silence
    stomped under
     
    kakure kirishitan
    keloid hands break open
    the bread of words
     
    in light
    the death of martyrs
    reborn

  • Spring

    Spring
     
     
    something moves with darkness fresh green
     
    planting fruit of the earth human hands
     
    remember man the dust in we sprang
     
    in blossom born butterflies
     
    nothing so near lushness of now
     
    ground dark the end begin

  • Truth

    Truth
     

    the statement in the next line is false
    the statement in the previous line is false
     
    rumours
    of evanescence
    persist
     
    underterred
    dead sea carrion
    stilling stars
     
    testament
    of a foreign will
    the flea bite
     
    holding on 
    to its becoming
    a chrysalis

  • War - an acrostic

    War
     
     
    will thy will
    also be droned in heaven
    as it is on earth?
     
    another piece—
    in matching body parts
    she finds her child
     
    re-membering
    the love of the many
    in a mass grave

  • wisdom

    Worm casts of presence and absence as a single state

    In flux a showing forth of becoming

    Sound of water signposted at a crossroads

    Direct to its origins footnotes to the silence

    On a blank slate the breath of God

    Mirrored on the surface a missing word