ANOINTING

1
couldn't find the story instead came to this
lonely flicker no one can tell what worth

a hole cut in ice a mouth of unknown ways
between them ragged outlines visible

across the river rain floating down
in broken design an entrance

as if this were home remnant of snow
dull on ledge might still feel flesh

could melt their mouths in the same way
to be reborn between one moment and the next

cover her whole rain deepening the stone
clean come to an end rub your eyes

drop by drop still dream of falling
never imagine it will be so kind


2

last carriage of the train resolved not to return
cautiously through the window as though

you look down through water 'leaving everyone
to begin a new life' draw with a finger

on sheets a cottage slowly
to join her in a later dream

of a room never seen little death white
wing brushing lake something sweet

turning over unbuttoned smell
of wet hair burning inside

a large key tenderly bright
'you make things hard how do I get

into you' back from side paths
and turnings no longer recognised


3

in the womb homeless
the little room where she slept

while she still did her duty the rain
before it fell not authorized by absolutes

looking back lakes and bubbles
story of the glittering plain

scarrings part of the landscape
where paths divided in and out

discarded silent child
between the image and the mirror

the body plastic hand printed
bits of self the rain doesn't stop

or remember you the shape
of the mouth its own truth





PURLOINED

dark windows to a country

never seen old wounds

still wet flower-headed

between frames what other face

so stark and turning the slope

veined where it breaks those

who sing the form upon us

shared with stones drop

by drop enter the gap

far within the other father

whose words lie

to hand shadow

through falling blades

pass without dying





THE SHAPE BEHIND YOU

Anyone can be looking at you or into
the faces of those who have gathered up
their dreams and set off to live
two lives at once. In the song before
it's sung, threads are set off and dropped.
Misreadings nourish the construction of strangers
who tinker distractedly with your cigarettes
and put you through your paces. If you knock there
along the bone, where codes of behaviour
are untranslated, smoke will tell its own story
as it passes through dreams.

The girls remain isolated through their outlines,
sleepily prayerful as they lean on a cold wall
in a parable of tall slender trees. Intent
on dreaming, they will later become tiny
discarded objects, reassembled with plastic
violence. It is the same blood as our own.
Scraps of skin curl inward, turn brown
in the flames. Ragged clouds leave behind
an invisible air of unfulfilled snow over
our abandoned footprints. In the end
it's only rain which puts out your cigarette.

The path loses itself in trees. Patches
of light are broken by shadows. Known
for their silences, these ghosts you dream of
are not able to enter the landscape, though each
brings a fresh eye. Running a regretful
finger over stubble, kissing the gashes
now cold, you have the impression
that he still looks at you the way he first did
when you sat by a train window pretending
not to notice, crossing a border, entering
a strange city for the first time.

© Ian Seed 2007