95

He is at the sink watching the
Front of the house when they
Pull up. There is a handgun
And two clips of ammunition
In the sink, a length of rope,
A stanley knife and some tape.
There is a strong wind and
Big wet leaves are blowing
Down from the trees and from
The guttering and hurtling past
The window in confused groups.
There is a sheen of rain over
Everything. The day is overcast.

Four men get out of the car.
His vision seems to have blurred
And he can hear his own breathing.
They are silent, watching the house.
One has a hand inside his jacket.

94

Wasps gather at the open seam
Of wood where the stump lies
On the driveway. There is sap
Under the bark in a strata of
Pink and they swarm at it.
As the shadow of the still
Blade of the chainsaw passes
Over they boil up in unison
And scatter and then recluster
In. The engine sputters and it
Produces an acrid wave of
Smoke that engulfs them and
That trails in ragged bits
Across the stump and disperses.
Then the saw bites and
A torrent of wooddust comes out.

The wasps weave and spiral in the
Rushing matter like embattled ships.

93

He stood before the refridgerator
And it was dark in the room.
The only light was from inside.
Bottles of lager and stacks of
Smoked ham and a brick of butter
With a clover leaf in the side of it.
The butter and ham and the beer
Shone with condensation in the
Blond light and he looked at them.
He heard the boiler firing on
The outside wall of the room
Adjacent. He slowly reached in
And took a beer and the ham
And the butter in hand and he
Opened the cupboard and he got
Bread and started to butter it
And he made a roll of ham and
Spead it with mustard and folded
It inside the slices of bread.
He paused with it in his hand
And listened to through the wall
To the low, dampened sound of
The man and woman next door
Fighting; the fall of feet on wood,
The formless howling noises, and
Then the obscure sound of a
Concussion vibrating in the wall.
He ate the sandwich slowly
And he went back to his bed.

91

He is at the table with eggs and
Coffee and cigarettes and the paper.
His face is pale and he leans in
To read the paper with a white
Scrap of egg hung from the prongs
Of the fork in his hand and he
Is motionless but for his red eyes.
The paper is old and the coffee also.
There are tracks of nicotine over
The surface of his palm as if a
Grained form of predetermination.
He reaches for a cigarette and for
His lighter and for a moment light
Visits the cavities of his still face
Flashing in and shaking on him and
In his rheumy eyes flames shake,
Until he snaps the lighter closed.
The only sounds are the articulations
Of a clock, and the cigarette burning.

90

He sits under the window in a
White silk shirt listening to the radio,
And drinking orange juice. It is 6am.
His hair is abstracted and greying
And rises to a pale crown that
Shines vaguely in the little light from
The windows. The curtains are drawn
So this comes in narrow cataracts, all
Is a dull blue and mainly it is dark.
The radio is low and it is something
About the war. Calm, measured voices,
As under some kind of anaesthetic.

He cradles his eyes in his hand.
They are far back in grey recesses
And they are closed. He gets up and
Reaches for his cigarettes and stands
With one in his mouth doing up the
Black buttons of his shirt. It seems big
In the half light—as if he were a clown,
Or a mime, or a child in a nightgown.

89

I followed her through the back
Fields and the air was humming
With motes and white particles
Of cotton and spores and insects.
The high grass was burning as it
Caught the light and it dropped
Into shadow where I trampled it
And I could see patches of her
White dress as she skipped ahead.
But she was lost because it was
Getting dark out and the stars
Were prickling out like burrs.
I heard her yelp and fall down
And when I got there she was
Lying in a depression of the grass
Grown ragged all around and she
Was laughing and her dress was
White I could see the shape of.
I stood over her where she lay.
She stopped laughing and she
Pulled me down slowly to her.

88

The potato plants are dying and it
Has just rained and the sunset
Is paling out beyond the hawthorns.
The dry joists of old growth are
A yellow that lumines of itself where
They cluster brightly in the cool and
Falling air like shabby fireworks.
Structures grand in death, they
Gain a deep light as the evening
Lets go itself, ending almost white
As if their former tubers had shed
And abandoned elaborate wings.
They resign their intricacies now,
Become jaune blurs against darkness
Like gouts of soft smoke broken
And drifting after a downpour. They
Dissolve and refigure, and with them
All shade and contour and motion.

87

It is after the rain the passerines
Cross the gulf from the far trees
To the cherry in the lee of the
House, the branches trembling as
Solitary drops leave them as the
Sunflowers limpid and bright sway.
Then the passerines cross to feed
In the premature gloom, a light
That pulls colour from the plumage
Of the birds and from the earth.
They pivot on the air in contest
And reorder themselves continually
And eat the dry millet from the
Plastic vessels and meshwire tubes
And come and go from the bushes
In abrupt clusters of wingbeats
With no system at all in their action.
Their hearts race all the time inside
Them, made up of ligaments and
Valves like minute components in
An archaic and dense clockwork.
They are all motion, recrossing dark.
They starve in their sleep otherwise.

86

I sit on the porch and clean
My gun piece by piece first the
Receiver then the rotary magazine
Then the operating rod and the
Small valves like the chambers of
The heart. The rotary magazine
Seems to stick as I reinsert it so I
Get oil and a cloth and work it
Over until the action is fluid. Then
I get wood treatment and I take
The long joined piece of the stock
And the misshaped butt and rub
The wood with oil and reattach it.
Finally I affix to the iron end stub
A small bayonet. This is for if the
Shot should bring the animal
Down maybe hitting only an artery
Or the spine but not kill it in which
Case we use the bayonet as a mercy
And an expedient. I stand the rifle
Against the facade and sit a while
In the yellow atmosphere out here.

85

That night I remember I was up
Late at the kitchen table drinking a
Glass of milk when he came in all
Messed up. He was stumbling around
And shaking something terrible as
He took off his work clothes in
The dark by the door and when
He came to the table he was red
In the face drinking a glass of water
And closing his eyes. He didn't talk at
All and I only heard days later
How Job had become caught in
The thresher and how they had not
Been able to shut it off and how
It had ground on for a quarter of a
Mile with them all heaving at Job
And at the machine and screaming
At each other and how when John
Finally ripped the tubes out of the
Ignition Job was mutilated so bad
His arm was gone to the shoulder
And he was sick grey, and how they
Had carried the body five miles to
His mother's house and laid him
Out in a stretcher of old plastic.

84

I came in from the yard to get
A cup of water and Dewey was
Sat up at the table with a glass
Of milk in his hands underneath
The lightbulb that swung above
The table when I opened the door.
He looked up and the light was
On him but I couldn't see his
Face real well. I went to the
Faucet and got a glass of cold water.
I was real tired and I didn't
Look at him much but then I sat
And I looked at him and he
Drank his milk and I could
Feel he was watching me because
I was so tired. We sat that way
For minutes and it was like
His eye sockets were black because
The lightbulb was so bright
And after a while I went up to bed.

83

He makes cover and shoulders into
The mud and he feels it soaking
Into his fatigues and the lash of
Rain as it breaks into the earth
Spattering his face and he breathes
Ragged and swallows and lifts his
M4 carefully over the incline and
Draws the stock to his body and
Staring into the dense atmosphere he
Takes aim and repeatedly discharges
The rifle into the enemy positions and
Reloads counting his remaining rounds.
Ordinance is falling around him where
He lies in a recess and as he reapplies
The rifle to the distance he is deafened
By a mortar detonating several metres
To the right and he fires silently
Through it the only sound the blood
Palpitating in his auditory canal and a
Thud in his chest cavity as the rifle
Recoils with the force of each discharge.

82

He is in the gun turret behind an
Iron defense painted khaki and
There is a corridor in the center
Of the shield wide enough for
A sight and the breadth of the
Machine gun through which he can
See the terrain agitate and reform
With the constant jolting of the tank
On which the the turret is mounted.
During the moments between jolts
The landscape ahead clarifies and it
Populates with figures that retreat
As the vehicle approaches and he
Recognises their formation and the
Motion of them and their paths
And he isolates them sequentially
In the crosshairs and operates the
Machine gun in order to arrest them.
The figures fall out of continuity. He
Fires until depleted and then loads a
New cartridge and continues to fire.

81

He catches it in the high post with
Parish at his back and turns at
The waist jerking his gigantic
Gaunt frame and holding it like
It is fighting from his hands his
Arms a circle and he cranes his
Neck back to fake Parish and lose
Him and strides huge across the
Foul line in two articulations and
With a rocking motion leaps from
His left leg and cradles the ball
From low into his hyperextended
Hand and wheels his arm up into
The air away from the basket and
It trails out there as in orbit only to
Make a collosal mechanical pass
Wheeling back up as the other nine
Fall away into a yellow darkness.
His joistlike arm reaching its apex
Is as a spoke and his hand the vessel
And at the moment of release a
Transcendence rules and his grand
Skeletal structure dies out of the
Air and there is only mute trajectory.

The ball describes its arc through
Space and duration and it revolves
Outside of momentum and it falls
As in the track of a predetermined
Alignment into the fastness of the
Hoop and the net shivers up and
Falls, its fibres like a tissue of light.

80

They stood in the intersection of
Three streets in black uniforms and
Helmets with resin visors and
Acetate riot shields fixed in line,
Maintaining as they had been told
A static position of assertion in
The centre of the empty junction.
A change of atmosphere occurred;
The front lines began to step back
And to accelerate and break form
And calls came out of the dark
That sounded like dogs and there
Was a precipitate increase in volume
That became a mass of voices.
Projectiles broke into the ranks,
Half bricks and bottles, and then
The darkness began to relinquish
Quick forms of masked and hooded
Men in black and grey and white
In a mass, in excess of a hundred,
At full sprint and howling for
Culmination and launching missiles.
The two bodies collided and broke
With the force of an explosion and
There was fire over the rooftops.

79

He held the hose for what it was:
A live conduit. The waters around his
Feet rippled and frayed in the heat
Coming off the building, seeming to
Boil across the pavement and to
Transubstantiate into the heaving air.
The hose was buckling behind him
And a thundering cord of whiteness
Described a parabola into the flames.
He seemed lifted with its power,
A lesser will subsumed and made
Again in a din of massive combustion
And straining, pale hydraulics.
A sudden wind drew the fire up out of
The building and it made fugitive
Shapes in the black and resolved. The
Fire fighter crouched low into the black
Smoke and fastened to his aperture.

78

He got up strangely from the

Instrument and sat at the bar

And poured himself a double of

Augusta Dry ten year old and he

Sat with it in his hand letting

It swill and paint the glass sides

Thin amber and he put it back

Quickly coughing and swore and

Laughed and poured one more.

He looked at it for a while in

The half-light and the rain

Persisting the past hour made a

Sound like trees in wind as it

Swept the roof and he sat an

Hour more until the door grew

Darker and drank the bottle up

And the rain and wind held out.

He was swaying in the trees in

Their pale branches and singing

And then he was on the floor

Holding onto the stool laughing

As the bar swung like a carousel.

77

Washington stood at center court

And Kunnert was bleeding from

The nose and another holding him

And he stood above them both

On the balls of his feet. He was a

Good six foot eight and reinforced

And girdled with muscle and as

Tomjanovic ran from backcourt

To break it up he ran full into the

Arm of Washington delivering a

Roundhouse. His motion was

Arrested completely and he fell
To the floor a dead weight and the

Report was heard ten rows up

In the stands drawing all into

The quiet wake of its concussion.

Jabbar said afterwards it was like a

Watermelon hit the floor and broke.

They stood Tomjanovic up and he

Tried to get at Washington and he

Swore but he fell back on them

Tasting his own spinal lubricant

Leak into his wrecked mouth and in

The locker room he blacked out.

They found his skull was detached,

The front all lapsed and slid away

In three places like facets of an egg,

And they called for an ambulance.

76

I was inside the vehicle and

My seatbelt on and the beams

Projected into dim water like

Half a bridge and motes of

Silt were rushing in the light

And I unfastened my seatbelt

And my arm caught in it as

I tried to free myself and my

Lungs were burning and I got

The door open and pulled him

Out in the dark water a ragdoll

And fought in the obscure force

Of its uniform pressure kicking

And dragging the body through

It like fires burning burning I

Tussled in flame livid and blue

And broke into night air and a

Matrix of headlights and cries

And I cried and gasped the air.

They pulled us up the bank and

His body was a whitened mass in

The mud and I struggled inside

My dress ripping it to get it off

And heaved and barked the black

Water from my lungs and I sobbed.

Within the water shone the car like

A pale carriage crossing over.

75

John came down the staircase

And stood at the foot of it

Dazed and looking around the

Kitchen golden in his hair and

At the outline of his forearms.

I was eating corn flakes and

There was cool air at the sill

Pushing the flakes like boats and

John said good morning Dew.

His face was burnt and his hair

Messed yellow and he smiled.

The rye I could see out the

Window of the back wall was

Sawing down the wind and

It was shivering like weeds in a

Scrappy verge against the sky.

I swallowed a pap of corn and

Said when'd you and pa get in

And he said late when you're

Done come out in the yard kid.

He made a darkness at the door.

74

He played a chord of D minor

With the seventh and let the

Keys go and the articulations

Inside rejoined their first parts

And the sense sound was yet in

The air and the fine glasses over

The bar rattled in sympathetic

Unison as he set the device in

Motion again and augmented

The fifth and allowed a flourish to

Ease chromatically from his right

And as the cadence fell and the

Wood of the harpsichord spoke in

A century for which it had been

Until this moment dark and mute.

He stopped and cracked his knuckles.

A light rain was still falling outside

And he began to play again but

Softly and as if careful not to wake

Anything, as if it were night music.

The lighter and cigarillos and his

Wallet and keys and watch and his

Rings and two coins in his pocket

Were suddenly of large gravity

And he felt dull and as half-asleep.

He came out, and back into the bar,

And for a while all seemed augmented.