Excerpt
FLASHPOINT 1The moon has a larderand a kitchen,wears a nightcapas Father in the Night Before Christmas.2The moon hoards pistachios,marzipancommands the shadowsis mustachioedsleeps in a sloop(at least when I look)like the boatowl and pussycattook to sea.3And on country nightsin high summerfishing nets seem drawnabout his face,reveal ribbons of light,eerie panhandlers grubbing quarters;a sinister sailor with a sackon a pitch black wharf.4Between clouds,leafy barquesthe hinge reflected on thethick, ashen doorthe moon will pirateyour sensesset them adriftamidst twilight islandsin the mind's Outer Hebrideswhere mystery is kingand the hem of robe you kissis an envelope pilfered.
MARZIPAN 1A thick hole in the darkfrom whichstars pour silveras in pailstheir runny divideink-strewn scalpstorn from the roof of the sky.2Padded footprintsgiant ferns bloomingconstellation prints,the wind an athletepacing about a trackdrying thru fingerprintsthin, nectarine light.3Sand down whitest skinmoving past your handa gown, mauve to green,iceberg lettuce,the black festeringacross a ribcage;while night arrangesmoths to dusting powderpucker-lippedfronds from afar4Afar, the word a gypsytangled in the waves,foam from a medicine bottleagitated and strewn,bubbles calculated in gaspslight into the distanceforlorntree-frogs, the cricketsound round deep--movement of night asa rumbling in the ground,
SANTO DOMINGO In the crypt with Columbusin the crypt with Giovanniof Genoa, the diaspora driven Jew;watching flecks of the cathedral floorjade-eyed and mica afraidyawning down brown the abyss, his skeletal coffinthin accae wood,phlegm colouredflamed ointmentof the saintsin holy waterbridging the little centuries.2Serpentine heavensin coiled starsheaving like passion fruithung down piano wire.3Meteors douse the lightof black stems,eye holes cut of old Spanishsailors; thin ghostsplundering night.4Melange tableauxpeut-étre les étoilessont oiseaux.
WHITE CHINA PLATES I The moon hummed like a refrigerator,light thru shadows--the solitude of dusk closing in;black scars visible acrossthe moon's face shaped likemountainous hands, allsilent, the occasional leaf rustling.2My fork at plate's edge listening,listening to the haunting one eyeon the staircase wall whiteas the numb light outside palest night.Caught off-guard, the musty setteeand armchair acting as hallucinogento the nostril, the calendar of eventsplaying ghostly tag with sheer curtainshovering, shroud-like, on the family Biblebig and brown as the Lord's foot stool.3The unravelling tale slowly much asthick yarn with a kittenbatting it, one event at a timein sepulchre movement down alinoleum floor. Two twins burning,fever scalded in frigid water onlyshock setting in, dying to jointhe black creek water from whichher unwilling buckets borrowedthis liquid crucifixion and bitter vinegar....