65

When is midnight? Now.
Black behind the laundry. Outhouse.
I have nothing much to say.
The concerto should end shortly
the early morning programme of pre-
recordedmusic will play until the six o'clock news.
No DJ. Some taped interviews, perhaps.
Stars even broadcast, even the sun.

Long live zero

Radio on soft. Lie flat,
corpse position. Eyes adjust
as the lights cool, rings
left by a cool drink glass on the glass-top
table of my eyes. Mantra
soundbite. Faint recitation
of prayer. Zapped. No
falling back to ritual comforts:
let the black be black.

66

Spools: Loops. Midnight’s past.

All’s still. The radio’s gone silent.

No rain now. I can still see the red light.

The entire world could be off the air.

The interview tapes and the portable

dictaphone kept in a Tupperware box.

Do I still have them? That expert

That I met in Blackpool. Or was it

Cleves? It might be good to listen

to him again in the morning.

67

These notes are nothing

petty trivialities, tokens

snapped up, picked,

stolen out of the night

seconds before sleep

the wind’s washing line

concerto recorded,

played back, to

the red-legged crow.

68

in the web
the speaking place
place where the lips hear
place where the lips speak
moving against the black
the red against the black
the pouring out
the pouring
of speech in speaking
thought in thinking
all those voices
of those promises
of going back home
going back to the roots
finding the nymphs
in the woods rivers springs
telling their truths to you
in the mesh of the leaves
the listening place
place where the nymphs speak
place where the hunters sleep
dreaming of a word to fill
original nothingness
pouring out
midnight
midday
a missed space
or step
the wonder of breath
silence of her washing
amber light
glory
of spring water running
shock of magenta hair
nymph aureole
her names are only your names
taken from the babbling of brooks
you have tried to pin the flow
and the pouring of her song
do you doubt
her music
the origin of her song?
what you will
cannot remember
the limit of her dance
as she spins
in the slow running water
only her mother’s daughter
hunter only your words to fill
the spaces in your dreams
indicibilité
the end never comes
comes to a never end
loops back
an 8 in the mirror
mirroring her song
and back
to the place of the flowing
if there’s a song to sing
she’ll take it
she’ll want it
she’ll keep it
you want to step out of the song
leave the wood
but she’s still in the water
her back to you
bride veiled nymph
to you her back
is the page
palimpsests faits chair
promise
of the tomorrow’s song
the other night’s return
again to the moment
she turns and kills
you

69

singstar
popstar
minuit

i'll show you who is queen

i'll –

wannabe

70

remains of moonlight
leaves, golden brown mowed grass

I raked the back lawn by the laundry
waiting for sleep

My sole voice in the night
carried as far as Deneb or elsewhere

there was nothing else to do but nothing but wait

71

Yes, I’m tired of it
tired of it now, well
now so much tired of it
as wondering whether or when
it will take place; tired of dice
and cards, speculations
hesitations, pauses
shuttling between this and that
lying in the dark for what
must be days or at any rate
the space between days
waiting for a call, or a voice
even my voice if I could
recognise it as such
(I don’t like the way
the s turns z), infinity
against infinity means
nothing in my book
although I love those
lucky number sweets
mother, my mother
gave to me as a child
he always wanted the 88
I always wanted the 77
what was his name now?
Gorji? no, not him, the other one
in the house, the brother
what was his name?
it’s all going to pot
as if it had never been
can you believe it?
as if it had never been
today that is, that was
now it’s the night
the rain drops, falls
down, not that night
minds day or day
minds night, not that
mind minds at all

72

We are here now
we had time in our hands
we had spaces in between
the midnights make the days
able to pass—you want
to play the silence
but you cannot play the silence with notes
or loops
but it’s still my saying to you
my choosing to speak
even if I can't mean what I say this time
my choosing to speak
that lets midnight pass
here, now,
the time and shadow of our hands

73

Here I have to make do without stories
I'm left with traces, impressions
what's all been thrown together
tohu-bohu
my voice when I call you
brings your face to me
tomorrow we'll walk the garden
tomorrow we'll wait and see
we know natural's not in it
we're just the copies of the copies
but we love to see the mist rise in the valley
we too are just so suspended
and we'll wait as long as it takes to wait
as long as it takes for the wait to take place
as long as it takes for 'I do.'

74

The two of us. The sum of us
may not amount to much
we’re more than nothing
and we’re bound to say
all our sweet nothings
all Venuses and our all Marses
all our disastrous stars
charting destinies,
destinations, all
our tomorrows one step
(un pas) outside
what we own or
know

75

Sometimes I sit in the laundry
In the late Sunday afternoon light
Children tinkle, coins spangle
Through trees over the neighbour’s fence
I take-off; I’m unbound
like a Montgolfier balloon
This time (ici, maintenant)
I’m good for nothing
I keep a jumble in my head
Of all the spaces between the named
Of all the numbered items
Of all the stars and grains
Of all the graceful pauses
The waxes and the wanes
The waxes and the wanes

76

Rien à faire. So unfair
& how to make that nothing.
(And how). You wait for midnight
it comes and goes in an instant
the space between days. You wait
again with nothing to be gained
from waiting. Something comes back,
or nothing. You wait. And then you
stop waiting. So unfair?
Rien à faire. And how to make
it all for nothing. And what to do
at the stop.

77

The number one comes after the nothing.
What if the music covered nothing?
You measure the lines, count the beats,
loop the breaks, break the loops
over the nothing. You need that for the notes.
In order for the notes to be played,
the flows to escape. I’ll throw to you,
I’ll throw to you, Un coup de dés.
If this is truth then I’ll doubt it
You’ll miss the space between tracks,
you’ll miss the gaps in my seamless skirt.
Rattle of rain, whistle of wind through cracks
My soundtrack, our pertinent facts
Now numbers burn the world.
The sound of the morning garden has gone
The sound of the morning garden will come back.
Tell me, tell me, tell me do
What kind of nothing is that?

78

Nothing for music. No thing. Music for
a plain unmarked field of snow. No thing
signs for nothing. Think again. Abominable
snow, making me cold. The turn of the loop,
trick of the tail turning back. Transistor light:
I am here. I am still here. I’m waiting,
I’m on the step, my foot’s at your door.
There’s something outside your room
my feet at your door. Yes, I’m restless
I can’t say about what. Yes, I’m uneasy,
I'm not sure about what. Maybe it’s the
nothing, the something not worth worrying about
that keeps you up at night. While the bull’s eye
turns. The mirror says that being's in the eye.
Me, I’m not so sure but the music adds something
to the field of snow.

79

Midnight. Chi Chi had washed her hair with conditioner instead of shampoo and was feeling manky. Then the rain lashed the window. In the dark I felt for my hanky like a Mancunian charwoman looking for her teeth. The red light of the transistor on the dresser was Aldebaran low in the south. The strings on the concert programme grated my nerves; a squeaky white board marker. On the floor Beckett’s Malone Dies laughed at me like an unlucky steal under the coat from a second-hand store. What story did you want then? You read it and then you just seem to go back to the end again. I thought of the photo she showed me before she left of the Austrian Doctor in the white coat pointing at something out of shot while a boy looks on. 1938. Hans Asperger. He worked with children. She gave me the book when we had our little talk while we were having our little walk. About a condition. Difficult to live with. For me as well. Now I’m back here again in my black lagoon.

80

Wars are everywhere now God’s in his ghetto
so embrace the coupled logic of conjunction & catalogue
each word’s a plum, each bite’s a syllable
revert to type but with difference, remove all local referents,
treat all intelligences as artifical, convert
Indian strings to koto cords, hack
The Mac, the bike, the culture; remember
realism is no excuse for paucity of imagination
correct diction a matter for the authorities

81

Mediocrity is your prerogative. The same recycled tongues and identities. Mandatory tats and body piercing: just to cross the rope. Not much hope. If it's good enough for Robbie then it's good enough for Gobbie. But Gobbie's got nothing to say, he's busy texting NZ Idol the winner of the 'breaks' and 'electronica' section: a club singer's version of Blue Monday sponsored by Mars Bars. "I see a ship in the harbour" crooned as we cut to the panel chomping on said confection. Lazy thoughts of idle idols. Like punk never happened; like nothing really matters. Never mind: "The voting mass is number one." The voting mass is the number one song. Sell it back. Sell it back. Sell it back to me. Your mediocrity.

82

You never listened to a single word. You never do. You're too busy describing to me in detail what I, like the landscape, am like and how I, like the mountain, can be seen from many views. All of them incidentally yours. I tell you what I'm never to do with you. I'm so sorry my eyes are porcelain blue. And how. The words are lost kites. The words are discarded newspapers blowing around the railway station like unwanted spectators. Tell me again. Tell me again what I like and what I'm like. And how. Tell me again what I'm never to do with you. You always do.

83

mountainous, battleship grey breakers, you ride them waiting for them to push you down. Don't raise your arms above your head, don't open your mouth so wide.

84

& everything. There was too much conditioner in the morning air. It looked like Chi Chi. Sprites in the laundry waiting for the lawn to dry. She was in the bedroom reading a research bibliography. About a condition. All those doors and signs; all those diagnostic tests. “The world is full of creeps and freaks and you” (Minuit). I’m going to put the shower on now and after me and you are going to have a little walk. I could barely hear her over the machinery next door. Blood is thicker than water.

85

We don't do natural: we do theatre. The bride punched black by the bachelors; the bachelors punched out by each other. The bride looking like she packs the biggest punch. Now just act normal before the camera. Talk about 'breaks' music. I'll give you breaks. Our homelands are assembled in the lens of the cameras. Likely stories. Watch ya fink den? What's it going to be then? Marriage like being in a band is bloody murder.

86

Counting down the days. Just for the sake of it. To stop you forgetting, in your mother's room, the papers coming and going. not working for money. Midnight in the middle of a bad week. Rain at the window. Candles. You count so as to reassure yourself that you are moving on. You count down: starting and stopping, dreaming of loops.

87

"But I'm not done yet" (Minuit). Midnight. The rain was said to lash againt the window like a Mancunican charwoman throwing her dregs out on the flags. I was dreaming of waves looking at the red light of the transitor radio floating like a buoy in the room's dark ocean. The concert programme was on softly playing a string concerto that tightened all the nerves down my back--just to be sure that you're sleeping alone--Beckett's Molloy on the bedside table laughing at me like an unlucky deal. The concerto sounded like Minuit's breaks: linear progression was always a dream of the jingle when we're all really spinning around in elliptical loops coming back to same spot in the path but a little older for the journey. We're all looking for a place to defect to away from all our own defections. But we find ourselves back in the same place, a little older, not quite done yet. Just to be sure.

88

"This music is good" (Minuit). Our intervention is by extension: we want new vocabularies to be spoken at the local before they close all the pubs and the clubs. (It's not what we're thinking; it's how we're thinking.) Carpet slippers for all as we tuck ourselves in by 10.30 PM. Our roots are fibers. Our green fatigues are dirty. Enough of the drop already, enough of the fall. There's a space between us and the garden. A break and a loop. We make no claims to be who we are--you can pretend we're not from 'round here if you like. But we could be from next door. We're as natural as Polly & Ester, as filthy as Danny & Lester, and we're mocking the mandatory local accents.