[sonnets]

my words are vacant
it is difficult
to imagine
circumstances different
to exactly these
I write process documents
so that anyone
can do it
so that tomorrow
a temp can come in
and have no excuse
like simple poems
where a poet can walk in
and have no excuse
*
what I mean
is something about
administrative labour
and simplicity and directness
the point being
about what happens
before you get in the door
maybe when
that building’s foundations were laid
but also not
that it is lost
in advance
what I meant
I said imperfectly
*
the poem is not simple
it is complicated
like getting around
the town or country
or between
is complicated
I wish I could
enumerate how
but I can’t count higher
than seven
and sometimes that seven
is like the upper 
part of an irrational
fraction
*
the ingredients
were mushed up
in the cream
then poured onto a plate
and cold-fried
then she scraped them up
into rolls
and put them
in a cup
a desperate artisanal
present in regress
from passive
to active
the skills like shells removed

BATS

this bat is named

do not kill pets

when the food goes away

what do you have

what

will you take

hunting a shape-shifting

road sign

from the doorframe

creaking

in the mountains

which cancel

the seas

the lakes

cancelled

by the hills

trees

by roots

birds

by slugs

imagine

the third person

over there

in a cage

the cage

cancelled

by the surround

that person

cancelled by

imagine

the second person

and that person

by the

first person

cancelled by

imagine

the null person

we were a small stone cottage

at a gate

having our signs defaced

by twelve men in hunting livery

rat-catcher attire

then we were the spray paint

amending the tolls

the fines

then we were the ladder they were using

then their shoes

those hands

drape your shoulders

like bags of blood

the arm

broken

at the elbow

reaching out

elsewhere, children torn to donkeys

or in a still life

being made to sit

for five years

still debt agencies hunt

these people

touch the problem

then jump

into the

swamp

to get

something obscure

at one level

as a relation

embodied

practiced

honed

isolated events

in a prism

a point of view

fearful wings

control

the agency of the object

asked

to rationalize itself

it flips out

the window

no admittance

but a break

for emergency

access

only

to undo

the great injury

of now

not with

agility but

slow and brute force

the prime mover

in all its regalia

here it is

simply moveable

like a squeeze of the

wrist

just never leave me

no pulse

and the crawling

to resist

an ulcer

to tonic sheets of brined skin

and sure they are

moving fast

me to them

them to me

to avoid being food

there is no such thing as a city

of the immortals

there are no immortals

but goons in balaclavas

heavies

with a British van

outside 34 North Frederick Street

the occupants, torn

thread to thread

tendon to sinew

owning

is the application of angle grinders

they flit between empty houses

and electron-fizz
in the dusk