Ian Blake

Until I stepped out to the ledge
to find out what the tile in the roof
was made of on the building next to mine,
...

No nudge,
however fitted to the contours of the shoulder
by impassioned ergonomics,
- pyrotic and smoldering, engineered for self-ignition
...

Pilgrims, do not smash your idols now that you’ve found God,
Though knowing what you know, they must seem hideous and flawed.
Don’t throw them to the bonfire, or bury them too deep,
Though looking at them shames you, and gives you cause to weep.
...

One day these catacombs will be exhumed,
and then they’ll carbon-date me
still coiled in my sleeping bag.
Next time I race you up the stairs
...

But this, too, is essential:
That nothing you call consequential moves me;
That the differential of what benefits you’ve weighed against what costs
Leaves you lost in the ledgers;
...

On my back,
the bedsheet is impassable like mountains.
It was not so long ago I would have
kicked the mountains up like gravel
...

yes well inasmuch as
chatter keeps the dark away
and night-lights being lame
off to tie two cans together
...

Murray Stanhope, local pagan
doesn’t think he is mistaken.
Not that he’s the flinty kind
to go flipping off his pastor,
...

We look on over the flood
The city block beneath me, for once.
A spiral staircase on its side sticks out,
A plaything for the trout, no entrance
...