CLOUDLESS

CLOUDLESS

a cloudless sky
stopped my scarlet red
Citroen
  to open the farm gate

cannot pretend to
understand the physics of
colour or
   indeed, the physics
of sky
you lost me as soon
as you spoke of wave-lengths
and light diffusion

but here we are (or at least, here
I am, your presence with me
somewhere
  between metaphor and
simple rhetorical gesture)

here we are
as if shielded from
the Universe (which is
the case exactly) virtue of
us being
    (no clouds
to distract me) right
at the epicentre of
a surrounding sphere, looking
out from
inside the skin, the translucent
skin
   of a beautiful blue ball

expanded to a size, a height,
that just works for us perfectly

reminding me
        as this time of ultra
advanced return
of feudalism
              of the music
of the spheres

with all that economy
with all that cosmology

nothing in a million years here close to
      that darkest conclusion

that things beyond this
blue bubble

moving away from us so fast
they are
beyond
all
   Doppler red-
shift
     beyond very
                  speed of light

and
so

back down
       to Earth as always
for
sheer preservation
of sanity, not

        let all this here
overwhelm me

wanting
those clouds back

wanting not to imagine myself
inside the skin
of anything

wanting
to just go
       where it is all heading
commit
to that glow

   light speed beyond
but (blessing of
relatvity) with it

one
    feels

                just
floating

moving in one’s mind
from
      incarnation to
incarnation

no desire
     to be laboured by

understand
the physics at all

SYSTEM

SYSTEM

and now I find
and now I find

gymnast and
syntagm
     are so intimate

anagrams
of each other

spooky action
     at linguistic distance

but what do I know
of such unique connection

all my lovers
        ghostly, some
actual ghosts

the dust of all
    that was desire questioning
my stridence

gives the idea
     puts me on notice

that it is
                   all simulation

and when you undress before me
in name only

getting the sweet syntax
     up and running

see what you are up to here
Mr Shakespeare or
Earl
    of Oxford

whatever you wish to go by
privately call yourself

spilling from Juliet’s lips
the philosopical truth of
                    a true rose

even if
a thousand years of cynicism
scepticism stands in its way

when you
        go inexplicable mystery
and wrap yourself around me

making us (yes, channeling you
Professor Noam Chomsky)
branches, leaves
       upon the same tree

graft taking
      we can grow now together

happy
     (who would not be) though
this all
     feels pre-planned: our
perfect simulation