INSTANT MESSENGER

Passing it on, not knowing what. Trading cheery remarks

for a three minute gap in the clouds. Collateral is not an

issue, but a one-off 'constructed image' is. Whoever's out

to use us, even our moment of glory, likes to imagine we're

game. Sparrows squall as if the bush they're hiding in isn't

enough and maybe that's so: maybe ants on the pavement

come across nothing without craving more. Lights at their

darkest write up catalogues we can't stay out of. You see

who I see? Lick your finger, but don't you tear the page.





SEEING OFF THE PROCEDURE

I know you not so much for the double-spacing as for an

engagement with the second-hand, he said. And I said,

that's because the 'subject' there is not so self-evident, it

being more like one of those loaned umbrellas the man

who bought it's totally lost track of, regarding text not so

much as the 'never before seen' as something any good

observer/reader/self-examiner knows already – there in

the air we breathe – which accounts for the spacing and

sporadic experience of breathlessness/light-headedness.

And whatever else may contribute to the tapping of keys.





WHAT IF THE STRATA CLOSED IN

Around us were the tunnels and the buried stone circles and

I like to obey few rules. With a capacity for embracing the

demands of those I like to be demanding. Spread another

fine pool of shadow and shake the overweening tree by its

root. You can't be too careful – the fruit when eaten before

sunset is so sweet with memory, you start casting shadows

of your own and maybe wish you hadn't. To think the state

is nothing like it was. Original as sin, it's hard to sidestep.

The sea of know-how almost as redundant as you dared to

think, as a white stone lay across someone else's life, so is it

any wonder – sleep shines on like mica, sparkles in the rock?





VERSIONS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

It would be like making a dash for it. Should anyone think

other? A reminder to minimise impact and solemnise such

a neat relationship as currently pertains led to the impasse

in the first place. Lightning will operate on several levels:

cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-air, cloud-to-ground. You know

or should know when it's time to get out of the park. Bells

ring if only you'll hear them and according to procedure. I

resemble the predicament that needs fixing. Wish lists are

all Bristol fashion, and counting. Safety factors nothing in.


© Peter Dent 2014