James Byrne

Let me imagine you coming home
from the dark, between body and mind,

making evidence of yourself
...

i.


And what of the insatiable sadness of stepfathers

And her smeary mascara that slicks the rain

And the daub of red tape infecting a clean health bill

And what's with these singe-effects from the capitol bomb

And the dead telephone at the ear of a new generation

And when his welcoming smile widened like a crossbow

And how a wise oak lets in the new moon's eye

And the motel room with a stubbly kiss

And the jailbird in the yard firing rubber bullets

And the rotting fence surrounding the national comedy

And a white rosette for the bawdy little rich girl

And to wake after a decade shouting ‘malady malady!'

And the weekday orgasm of the academic coming on a Sunday

And how the crucifiers were struck by womb-lightning

And if the volcano would chirr just a little

And as they played jacks in the matron's office

And but for the sewage a smell of sweet sycamore

And the mind's polka played all through November

And the love gone to pot now cooks up the lobster

And with the years already shortening as it is
...

iii.


Or else god just loves a good thief

Or a buttery smile won't fill the pantry

Or because to breed them up is to breed us down

Or when there's nothing stranger than the rum of folk

Or when they die at noon they are born at midnight

Or what if the slum is only half-frenzy

Or a fig-less Eve writhing your eden

Or the schoolknife as the new son-of-a-gun

Or the library shelved with human ashes

Or the crazies in blue nightgowns at the ward gate

Or until this fable called history is agreed upon

Or to cut down the family forest is to preserve the tree

Or could it just be the bluster of jingoism

Or might Cicely and I enquire if you are fluent in African

Or when there's no change from the chameleons we voted in

Or in clean rags for a pail of water

Or as he cheated the wife's eye for the new cutie

Or as the prince was cracking his eggs whilst listening to Handel

Or because it's different when the mutilated are Muslims

Or else what kind of sinner are you
...

iv.


Yes the niblets surpassed the dinner party anecdotes

Yes a little more bling might clinch the swing states

Yes the icicle-eyes of the ad-man are to warm you

Yes another day in the life of Adam and his pet snake

Yes the unopened page cannot be properly read

Yes a concrete staircase that can withstand the blast of a full-speed jet plane

Yes the hologram at the desk is your attentive web check-in

Yes the Ministry of Circuses is the Ministry of Culture

Yes Ghengis Khan is buried here there and everywhere

Yes even the foulest water puts out the fiercest fire

Yes Hitler stroked his dog ‘Wolf' in the bunker

Yes the art auctioneer is a punch-clock for the business tycoon

Yes a cargo-load of diplomacy to buy up the munitions site

Yes the church chandeliers can be seen as heavenly merchandise

Yes the librarian did it with the vicar in the green room

Yes just keep nodding along to the coffeepot bohemians

Yes we are living in the era of squeaky arses

Yes the crevice-line tattoo above her buttocks reads DOGGY

Yes Artistic Impact woos the faculty committee

Yes nobody's perfect and he was just another nobody
...

v.


But for all the snowballs thrown in hell

But for every human grain in the Ganges

But the devil could give singing lessons to a voice like that

But the icecap reduced to a yellowy plume

But the louder they shout the less quietly we will come

But why do the dum-dums keep getting ahead

But they say dollars are better than change

But what if the fifth commandment means ‘Don't Trust Your Children'

But brother fire says death is hereditary

But what if there was a law on hunger

But because the hardest thing in the world is to walk straight

But these summer rumba kids don't want to talk about it

But in Sanskrit the Empire ruled very differently

But why more admiral statues when the roads are so shoddy

But the electoral headwind is for fresh cuts

But the plucked eye on the end of a cocktail stick

But to know more intimately the murderer's brute joy

But the gardener knows why the buds heart is bloody

But the ewe licks the feet of the lion (its natural enemy)

But still the fool's face stares from the smashed mirror
...

for Sandeep Parmar

‘…I dreamed
of a page in a book containing the word bird and I
entered bird.'

Anne Carson, ‘Gnosticism I'
Reading how Mansfield claims the word air
is to live in it.

Pure scheme vs. science anxiety.

Not the duck of a boy emphatic
nor the rich-leaning Rosemary,

more a chance to inhabit
adrenal pressure—
six hours of braided sky
pushed through cloud braille.

*

How to steady up when all at once
air batches you out to crash phobias,

night after night,
wing tensions grazing your head?

*

Small curve of trust in a child's joy at architecture.

At the terrorist check
threshold and counter-threshold—

a sparrow's fear of total sunlight,
a studious approach to Boeing assemblies.

*

Carefully your ration array of clothes
checked in tight folds touches

and is how air means,

clipped around the roots of a hand

as you look back gesturing—
once twice finally.

*

Air as the steadying of addiction:
how to breathe as the shadow dips?

Air-guides to breakers at the logic gate
the perfect crime, always getting away.

Evidences in landing vapour—
the movement of my hand on your back that says

‘go'.

*

The route I take I take on foot,
afraid and tenderly loyal.

At the ventilation tunnel
the smooth saturation of air vocals,
every tenor, decorous.

Your flaunting of altitude
is strictly west-hugging.

How the difference tells?

There was a cold bitter taste in the air
and the new-lighted lamps looked sad.
...

Star Wars premiered as they cut the exiguous flap of my umbilical.

‘The King is Dead' ran The Herald and the midwife handed over the genesis
of my unfledged, unwhimpering body.
...

Shaqti opens the gold reckoning case of his mouth to knock back coffee.

‘My teeth are only worth a concubine's room' he says.

Dented blue-grey eyes laughing over Ray Bans. London '77. Zurich '79.
...