Fragments of the Above Poem by Andrew Duncan

The swirl of flakes of the scene tumbling
rippling, darkening, glittering
falls out of the sky over Camden High Street
the only happiness I know or can know
a long fuselage blown across sunbeams and aimless smoke
between the Lock Market and Jamestown Road Workhouse
pieces fluttering past my hand, your mouthfuls of gnosis
whose dispersion is the stutter of your words
tip them as they fall
try to catch a life's worth

You can't find your hands
It did come out of the sky, a tile
from the roof-ridge of the Exterior.

A moment hangs in the air
between raising your foot and setting it down
the street an interior closed in a thin glass tube
the pulses so slow you can see them
of imitation taking speech and gestures like clothes
draped on the racks of the Market
of columns converging on the place to be
adornment redividing the light splashing off the body
a sexual flash like a blue wave fraying pearls of spray
in drapes of sun.
Every diagonal stands out like a track on a circuit board.
T-beam stanchions of observation platforms beside the raised way
blue pipes of scaffolding against the railway bridge
rivet-headed braces of the bridge bulkheads
windlass and key of the lock winding gear,
a moment dissolves and exhales.
Everything you want can be found here. A girl
swirling past my sight in Harlequin clothes;
the vortices of the market make your blood rush in a double-headed whirl

filmy wings in your hand, ash
clogging in the storm-drains along Chalk Farm Road,
clings to the knots of your sweater.
You shake and eddy and blow away
a stour a swirl of separate flames
hull drawn from spiral trails
breaking up in the light it spills