A prose poem by Graham Clifford, whose second full-length collection, In Charge of the Gun, was published by The Black Light Engine Room Press in May 2021
Intentionality
All this meaning everywhere. And the history in things, how it’s just my hands and head that is not made and presented raw in this room where the syncopation of intent and reaction is the only music I’ll hear today.
And here comes more history, and here it comes again. And a chemotherapy story and a budget line and a promise that is a lie but we pretend it isn’t because there isn’t an alternative. Not in this life.
Here comes the weather again, brainy clouds puffed on light remnants. Tomorrow isn’t dead certain. I’ve got a course to go to that’ll accredit me with a taste for hoverflies and crass turns of phrase. No one wants what they already have. Didn’t you used to be better than the whole world, able to just say it into being? And weren’t you made out of mahogany? And wouldn’t you like to get into the workings of everything – under the faux leather of my bureau, behind the skirting board, past the margins of pages of his bestseller – where real meaning exercises its magnet?