stubborn wood

old driftwood trunk

before the vows and boasts

before the oars demanding water

before the killings

before the killings and the weepings

before the poet’s song

before the later tales about the killings

the ones they made from fish and cigarettes

+

Long stretch of wood with nothing there

except you know patches of drifting grain

maybe a piece of cloud maybe a tiny stream

a few books

and on the stream-bed the stones knocking together

you can hear them clock

when you turn off the noise of the world

there they are going clock cluck

clock cluck clock like time itself

a busy creature deep below the surface

each time you put your ear to the timber 28

+

Well anyway I think I prefer the inland forest

birds with their dings and dongs and dusky wings

making some beauty

making all of us shiver

even when crying there’s a sail a sail

telling us over and over yes and forever

that the ghost can’t stand the graveyard

+

Ancient man clad in bells

he jumps and terrifies the children

the adults too clang clang

we wonder a bit why we came here

something on the radio perhaps

or maybe the kids had heard it somewhere

anyway here we are yelling at him you fucking

fucking cunt we yell and why

have you come here clanger-cunt! as he runs

into the forest same old forest

followed by all our women

chirping and cheeping and chasing

off once again to hide among the birds

+

The where-am-I bird is singing again

deep in the woods the bush the forest

people lost in the undergrowth

swearing at each other as you do 29

as you mostly don’t when you’re hunting

and now the where-am-I bird

is reshining its song

up-in-the-sky up-in-the-sky

everyone looking up high now of course

taking aim and lost for an answer

gone-now-for-good

and now just to settle everything down

the bagarup bird is squawking again

on the general’s desk by the caged canary

by the potted daisy oh there’s the telephone

+

The god rises up out of the river

so we make the temple on the riverbank

big white flowers like plates we might eat from

then the bodies the blindfolds the blur

and rain puzzled by its own prosperity

one and two and three and others

blessing the coming and the going

the generous bodies hauled high

as blood weeps out of eyes and ankles

the shame and plaque and tangle

so the world will be better now god help us

now that the god is finally helping

+

The huge man carries his tiny candle

he stumbles forward picking people up

then yes tossing them aside 30

his hand is huge, all handle

he gasps behind his tongue behind his smile

walks into the water apparently

and soon he is remote like a ripple

like something sighing

like the troubled echo of a sigh

and someone comes up to us and says