“and then, I hear it”
after William Stafford
Listen: it is your voice,
calling back and forward,
run into my head
by a digital stream
I’d like to imagine
you stooping over,
bleeding into.
It’s just noise; there
are bones in me, trembling
under the weight
of your pebble cadences,
fracturing into phonemes
that clop and chew my senses
on dark nights and dark roads
when coyote yips
carry my throat
into unmarked distances
of fir tops, creaking
under new snow,
too raw for tyre tracks –
placeless, all-over sounds
falling and falling –
lifetimes of insects
stiffening in sharp
grass, canyons of bark,
the cleat treads
of stumbling feet
that grew lost.
Deprivation Tank
questions leave you stranded dip your fingers if you want to get the gist
of refraction to understand how light lies immerse yourself in negative
space you’ll feel your topography recognise the elevation of your skin
you’ll understand that depth close your lids needn’t be charged
with so much authority you can’t plumb the bed of a thought can’t
measure the ends to its disturbances it’s the ping of a voice push it
from your head it will chain-react relocate itself in echoes
like you the ripples stop and don’t memory’s the same
breathe concentrics overlapping interfering rebounding
through chambers not so different from the impact of a footstep
from insides bubbling to air listen there’s been a change
of current you might be standing up casting noise across the surface
you might be inside-out fathoms from home for all
you know you are gravity
Space Jump
He doesn’t watch
the live stream,
just lies back,
the whole world
at his feet,
trying to make sense
of all the lights
he can’t see.
At such altitude,
up and down
switch places.
A nod to posterity,
then the voice
of god, telling him
it’s pancreatic—
and that’s all
the sound that catches
as he drops,
from over 120,000 feet,
to the thinness
of a hospital mattress.