The Trouble with View-finders

The past is in front of me and I am filtering it through into narrow boxes.
No: 'he'.

The past is in front of him and he is filtering it through into tiny boxes;
as features gain density
he files them away with a growing intensity.
No: 'I'.

I am over -
bearing.
The world is wider
than I
but it does not fit to the shape of my view-finder
and my long-searching
eye
only ever composes itself before the same long-found landscapes.
No: 'he'.

He has an idea of a beach
and somewhere within is held the thing he is lacking,
the core of that he is striving towards;
somewhere inside his head's poorly written romantic novel are the
hills and moon
and a face he does not see,
obscured by the shade of too many wine bottles,
a high tide
and cheap cigars.
No: 'I'.

I squint into the recesses of imagination
lying
deep in crevices
beneath the elegant necks
of muted glass bottles.
I curl my eyes up
and proffer my nail-pestered labels
to an empty box I drew
round my heart
with a HB pencil I found
in the pit of someone else's handbag.
No: 'he'.

He is filling the empty face he is hounding
with the mannerisms and mistakes
of every Tom
and dick
he'd like to marry.
He is trying to write an epic
on one page.
Beyond paper-mache,
plastic dolls and vodka; he has grown stronger,
his bones are made from filing cabinets.
No: 'I'.

I am trying to empty my folders.
I am trying not to rely on face recognition.
I am trying to keep my gaze at my feet,
or, at the very furthest, the end of the week.
I am trying not to travel in my sleep.
No: 'he'.

He is trying not to make his mark on everything.
He is trying not to live on the beach.






Nov 2009.