Precise and generous technology. Alignments stream right

through us.

Southeast, the Great Bernera Hills,

the “Old Woman of the Moors.”

We don’t want to go back to the car.

Speeding ahead in the vehicles of our bodies,

in our clouds of dust,

everywhere we go is in relation to them now.

As if a happiness felt there might shelter, and survive,

even though all that gave rise to it has passed away.

ANCIENT REMEDIES WITH CONTEMPORARY APPLICATIONS CURRENTLY IN DEVELOPMENT

In the company of

heath pea

(or bitter vetch),

suppressor of hunger

and of thirst, or of the need

to attend to hunger

and thirst —

though not of the need

for more bitter vetch

to remain off the lead

of hunger and thirst —

one may go off-road in the clarity

of depletion, the licorice

of depletion, its anise.

And free of the body

on wings of

the inflorescence,

by its standard

and its keel, fairly

glabrous, on freedom’s

transethanol,

300 times more potent

than sugar — its bursts

of lateral physical energy

followed by peace

in which to settle the rootstock

among dark tubers,

no pain there —

one might remember

when joy appeared

like a horse

crossing a river.

Joy might appear differently

should it do so again,

bitter vetch

(or heath pea)

prepares it a place

with the broom

of metabolism —

should one be worthy,

having sold the laptop,

purified accounts,

in an emptied room sleeping

on the floor

of the spirit —

fog burned off the senses

and the seconds

on fire.

56.1833° N, 2.5667° W

May Island, born under the firth’s unstable bed,

an eruption deep within the ritual subconscious.

Sill of an underworld planed by glaciers

crawling east-northeast. Ragged incursions,

occlusions, perspectival falsehoods

wreck boats. Heavily birded, sealed, befouled

and anointed. Its resting heart rate is very low.

“The Isle of May,” imposed upon it

by foreigners from the English Ordnance Survey,

represents it on contemporary maps and charts

though not in the hearts of people with any sense.

Virtue has deserted its brackish wells.

Sanctuary, a grave peril, sunk to its neck.

Small freshwater loch like a light left on.

The Isle of May lies just outside the western boundary . . .

The Isle of May lies just outside the western boundary

of danger area D607/55

how long have I been sleeping, Paul?

not that anything’s changed

the army of black rock marches from the sea

black rock at a military angle and the seabirds, the spies

poor weed at the cave mouth, I thought winter would have killed it

very little sunlight for its use

roots in not much

wound around fingerbones of former occupants maybe

I find their junk lying around

my affection so reckless it tries to animate

cold objects with its friendship

laugh if you will

music at the fold of appearance and disappearance

may be what I’m hearing

played in the octave between two kinds of darkness

the excess of, and absence of, light

from which do you transpire?