When it rains can we be the blackout again

the one-hundred-and-forty-four gun salute

while stepping through waves of molten glue

and gauze skies siphon ink in this pen

 

Turquoise and amber lights, and lightning

I run inside Clive's carmine scrapbook

bent like a cigarette, a screamed kaleidoscope

oh merrie band were they; the fighting

 

1.6 million, at the turn of the century

spun on flapped wings of dust and grit

wheels strain beneath the procession

with sweat fresh stockpiled for re-entry

 

And could we travel over and backward

falling through years to ancient days

clouded slopes carving light and shade

and old faces dug hot from diamond

 

Alone again, above cooling city streets

I'm freeze-framed on embers of knives

chiselled between pillar and pool, thrown

to the sunrise by the whooping parakeets