transience

 

by Iain Britton

 

 

 

 

I grab my share of the industry

 

       there’s much to put on display

 

     to be repeated

 

                          enough for everybody

 

to feel their eyes watering

 

     as if you were born in a grotto

 

            to satisfy requirements

 

 

                 / individuals smell

 

of old clothes old furniture           this crowded house /

 

                                    they smell of putrefaction

 

 

      photocopied heads

 

             

they dangle my image from a ceiling

 

     glossy banners          flapping at a dysfunctional system

 

 

            hangers-on spill outside on bright cold days

 

to drug up on frosty white crystals on the emptiness of streets

the stripped bareness of gardens the skeletal indifference

of huntaway messiahs

 

 

they’re constantly alert

 

to the horizon lying down

 

a silhouette of contours

 

of statues

 

mollycoddled

 

and dipped into the sun’s red box

 

 

such is the transience

 

of migratory things

 

 

I flick forward the shadow of a wind wand /       snap

at yellow bones

 

 

others     like you      hoof it with shrieks         the frivolity

 

of cohabitation /         they go

 

 

        with pieced-together memorials

 

the precious gifts of living within a pantomime

 

             convincing themselves

 

             all is constant

             no need for refurbishment

             the sweeping out of books

             the eradication of overstayers

 

 

you were made with certain duties in mind

 

one look /       slits the bellies of clouds

 

      heavy on hills

 

the rain bloats the dirt

 

                         houses regroup

 

 

 

after the seventh day

 

                            (to hell with keeping it holy)

 

                   hostilities resume

 

 knocking the tops off makeshift enterprises

 

 

I call the shots

 

I shift the points of the compass

 

I point you towards magnetic north

 

                       or where it should be

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iain Britton is online at IainBritton.co.nz.