City of words title (4.68kb)
2003

Colin Baxter


  
Four blank walls in space
The exhalation of a sigh    answered by
The whir of motion

  

A slow electric shock
Of freeze frame jumps
The discrete motions of
A chain of days and turns into
Something rich and strange

Manhattoes rise up
Like the smile of a Nazi through a periscope

10
  
  

Down the ramp    in the tunnel
Round and about above the bass
Of timeless tunes
Crackles the warmth of blues

  

Out of body   forgetful to myself
Floating upside down    peering
 

Through liquid crystal
On the dark sheen
Beneath the noise of heat
Perpetual currents in motion

20
Weave between amnesiac water
That disappears
Down to
The dark centre

  

  

  

    Cast yourself upon the shore
Entrapped by glare of the universal roar
The euphoric space in electric air
Bewildered reflections of shadowy semblance
Furtive figures up and down sides of streets
That pass in blind muffled alternation by:

30
Roar of mother blood and
Blasts of heat beating faces

  

Neon snakes across and up rained
On sienna glaze streets
In luminous licks and erotic streaks
Hisses along the electric nerve's happy surface
Pink bright green violet violent flesh...

  

Swishes wails and screeches
Jolt and flow in synaptic shock
The scrambled pulses dot and dart

40
Split and fuse then sped up flicker
As the fissures of human nerve are shot in strips

  

Hiss and shot of smoke and steam
The bellowing earth beneath our feet
Inert, implacable selves of
Faces stutter, flicker and blur…

  

Smell of sewer and
Rotten metal gassy yellow glares...

  

Wan and drugged watery faces
In white and silent empty streets...

50

  
  

Hot wires humming sizzle and crackle
In static emptiness, spike
Nerve, blood, flesh and bone...

  

Syncopated stab then jagged flash
And scream of light...

  

Raucous clacks and stutters and howls and
Strangled squeals:
Sad black smoke exhaling sighs...

  

The streaming mass awash with light
Moves in lines infra-red and breathing heat

60
Long and shrill up avenue and street
Blasts of air and shadow sweeps by

  

Past sandstone sphinx and slate-grey pyramid
Shifting, flickering signs and
Phantoms prisoned in panes of glass
Past fractured cube, parabaloid bend
And sharp oblong sphere
Shapes of phosphor and the ghosts of
Light ablaze in ice:
Ruins of stone in a circle and

70
The Winged Beast of Babylon
Snaking down a grid
That pours itself into sea

  

Eternal loops of Love Slaves
Tortured To Blood Dripping Death
In the electrical nerve of message strips
Their debt a string of digits...

  

The skeletons of giants possess the sky
With bright and shiny ebony bones
Slats of silhouette, sinuous struts 

80
And orange shoulders that swim in late sun:
They glow gold as they smile
Suck in success and exhale their genius

  

Circuit crawls up steel glass skin
And moves in bars across the sky
Licks of flame letter the tops
That blacken and blaze in a sodium lit
Magical script that seeming smiles
In a cool spangle of toccata rhyme

  

Frozen sensations on sticks

90

Ice cream tops smeared scarlet
Plush and cream
With glaze carbuncle lip tints of
Berry, mocha and spice
Shriek up their spines and
Slice up the sky

  

Big, rich rubber red lips
Spurt electric serpents that crack up black night
Blast with light then backwards cackle

  

And shriek away:

100
Roaring laughter echoing rings
Upon the gold clouds metropolitan

  

  

  

    Lightning bolts crackle on top the
Bubble of air… black space behind:
A triangular eye looks bright above

  

Sunrays drop    beam liquid light
On a golden dome and glassy spires
Splash on tips sparkles crackling
Bright powder pink to electric blue
The beam paints as tints on the surface

110
A lit up smile of acid light
Warm sanguine welcoming glows
Twitch in phase with pulses
Light shot out of an eye
Fulgurations jasper, sardonyx and topaz:
Slick Ice
The rhythmic flux of a circle
A perfect sphere of stone

  

Longing pulses pours quenchless streams
That dazzle dark  mock the empty air

120

In magical proportions he
Dreams of self as shining like
The Golden Porches of the Sun:
Bright beams vibrant
With constant flicker flash
Of limb and dance of knives

  

  

  

    Static, flat, perfect smooth
The pitchy slick glows cool upon
The surface of each skin

  

The absolute god of adamant

130
Absorbs the flux of black
On slabs cosmic beasts scaly armour
In stupor we descend to glass
A lucid demon opens the door
His tongue swells
Then splits what it speaks
To static burst
And sweet dream    smooth verbs
Out of his mouth
Loop and ellipse    play answer
140
Echo each other    sparkle in sun

  

In times he turns his tail about
Unwinding sinuous loops
With a crack and tight twist
He snakes back    shakes out
As with a rattle
We suddenly face blank space

  

A beautiful angel impassively
Pulls the door behind

  

  

  

    Glass admits the rational sun

150
To light filled soaring space
The tumble and slap of water
Strange hollow and confused noise
And the clatter of feet

  

In his corner beside a tired palm
Intersecting speech and whispers
The universal stranger plays O freude
Rhizomatically weaving lines note to note
From the babble above

  

Empty and still symmetry of steel and glass

160

Seaming ligatures of joint knitted to
Joint that blacken in strips the
Surreal blue shadow glow

  

We quarter the world as we cross
Walking up and down the sky
Skins of mirror refract the sun
Shapes swim in light
In this woven space blind and opaque
We work in oneness with the whole
Each the replicant of the other

170

In a perfect loop of self reflection

  

Loud, incessant whisperings
Shot with darkness, air and space
Clacks and chatter and a cavernous boom:
The low buzz and hum below
The dense and empty motions of a monster's insides.

  

Silhouettes criss cross bars of light
And fuzzy dot flash of shadow
As sticks of figures vibrate and flicker
Luminous by negative light.

180
  
  

Red squiggles in thick, black air
Through beam and arch of dry bone
Asphixiated dust and sucked oxygen…

  

A smooth wave and sudden warp of
Catastrophic folds slowly unwinds in
Abstract lines of split level and spiral walk

  

Shafts of ice in angle shot
The liquid sun on frozen stone
Strobes twitch and play on conscious cheeks
Wet skin, white face and frosted coral lip:

190

In the glaucous eye of space
A mermaid is sitting on a marble cube

  

Floor of azure light
And wash of sparkling stone
Lambent gold the walls
Tensile metal rattles in the breeze

  

Her high soft voice
Toneless chant in cool repeats
Murmurs, whispers and never ceases
A throbbing current and waves of light

200

Writing in flashes on her skin
That the space answers in echoes:
Glassy ripples ring out
Swash, flicker and blur

  

The coded features of her face
Synchronous split and sudden glow 
Bright sharp to dark and light again
Skin exhales cool air
Her hot wet gold warmly glows
Softens, warps and melts

210
And in dissonant haze that fuzzily shines
Rapid flash stills snap inside
The glass piece face aglow

  

Stone agates her eyes she
Twirls a finger in trance to me
Ice sweat out of each pore
Eyes tingle flash and gleam
Pure energy, light and smiles
Catch me in their constant play:
Now a solid she turns and stares

220
Sickens the mind and saps the will

  

Beneath flower, fruit, rock and water
Mocked by bones and silent, hollow skulls
A sea-beast I frolic at her feet

  

Stone and water, marble and mirrors
Sobbing fountains and soothing streams

  

The Sun in dark reflector mirrors
Ablaze in glassy fire
Radiates his beams in long and bright lines.
A moist ripple

230

Flexing bounces and dazzles
Then breaks crackling long electric shoots
Threading all the green world
With a ruddy maze, soft sunbursts and slow
Silent shots of light

  

Flux stopped like a shutter
Splits in shivers
Eternity in an eyeball

  

  

  

    Stern, responsible lineaments
Sage and serious faces sheathed

240

In robes streaming with light
These now are the master souls of time
Brilliant mortals that move
Through vistas and vaulted space
That flicker a pearly haze upon mankind
Silver pale sad reflections
The floating apparitions that drift all day

  

Skin breathes gold paint
Puppet arms glide at sides
The dark vibrating shapes dazzle

250

Of frozen souls that shine in matter
Swerve in air. Coded features
In a line and endless changing faces
Sag, crease and fall apart

  

Lit up lurid suits of skin
Round and bright astral eyes
In powder white paint faces
Glowing dart and search
To jerky smooth jagged beats
That neonstreak across the sward

260
  
  

  

  

    Ecstasy and terror accelerate
The string of present moments
Nervous fibrillations
Strung on the thread of purpose
In lightning quick contractions
Illuminate the primal land

  

Bright eye cherry lip blonde crones
Fierce point fillet flesh and stab eyes
Contort, rack, crush and flay
Extract and pull taut each tract of fleshy fibre

270
To pluck and to play their sweet will

  

Red rash and bruise pink pores
Sudden sparkling sweat
Skin exhales dank mist
Blinds the eye. The ejaculate
Seethes and steams dripping wet sex
Swelling delicious drops that hotly glow
And vapourizes in sad smoke
With a sighing hiss

  

The maddened animal seduced by

280

Beauty that bares its breast
Sinks to Mother Earth
And pouring his passion on the sand
Fuses in the fast molecules of molten glass

  

  

  

    Flicker of light on ice
Mirrors frosted silver
The sun cannot melt
Wrath, pride and pain
In perfect frozen form
Flicker kinetic light across his eyes

290
Strobe light the pupils
Click sequential stops that
Refract a million facets
Needles of light, knives of pain.
He suffers electric shock
And sensuous thrill

  

Trickling a tear down his cheek
Of moonlight and dew
The swelling, tremulous drop
Shatters into slivers the glass smooth skin 

300
  

Printed by the author
at Chadstone
January 31st, 2003

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