Running Sparrows

Ruxes and Sphills

Sixes and Sparrows

Mathematics is perfect; reality is subjective. Mathematics is defined; computers are ornery.
Mathematics is logical; people are erratic, capricious, and barely comprehensible.
—Bruce Schneier, Secrets and Lies

it begins with three libraries, three swamps. one that cut bright segments
from the air. with backs to black powdercoat: a shiver of hand,
turtleneck. with hand in hand under the osprey nest: a guide through dark.
stop and watch the time—this will repeat: a black cat on the em.

and head up dear, you’re shallow and blind. it begins with mathematics:
questions of whether white is one or zero. crow equals zero: too easy.
make an adder from nand gates, broken alternator belts, sparrows’ feet.
all sums go to zero: distance between black cat and reasons to wake.

a wake: the hours ductile, made of unquiet desolation. wait, we’re getting
ahead of ourselves—it begins with advice. violence. it begins with a radius:
pain, six weeks with a cast left arm. in the aftermath, hagiography:
chorus of meanings / layers of black. a history of threat: face framed in crow.

add another: no saint. case made from metal: for earthing; for capacity
to withstand. thin bleed of warmth: eddy currents under insulation. always
a magic word: helo for email, jfif for picture, stalker for impact. bits missing
in truth tables. braided paper carries weight: force and point for passing skull.

it all boils down to threat: black cat on the keyboard, glass shards,
actor-network theory. inside a skull’s osmotic action, always revenant:
a shade in the substrate. and, of course, the software says black
isn’t black, only zero traced in the shadow / an indecipherable cause.

relax, relax. a six-day panic attack gets you plenty of work.
that, and eye-burning: light the way to fresh-washed skin, cotton;
a black cat on the femurs. is sleep a black cat on consciousness?
how much of that happened? where’s the evidence? is this enough?

again. it begins with email—always does. helo. how do you cope?
it begins with admission: negative zero. a hand at the back of the neck
is either quiet or threat, one or zero. and hand on the wrist, an empty
mantissa. it begins with a library, third swamp, adios florida.

it begins in a hall: old library dusted. you could hang a blue whale
in there; someone has. how much steel suspends a jawbone?
who braids metal cable? and could they braid baleen? it’s a black
leather jacket and the smell you’d know anywhere: the one that creeps

out, spreads everywhere. it begins with accusation: magenta sensation
spread through the flesh: birds of paradise, bison. what kind of life
in a glass case? is there reddening (back to accusation) or a blanch?
bison, birds—taxidermy—the black iron branch: passer, deliciae.

passer: evacuee. it begins with flight from the city, set aside the sparrow
at six. all the stories say never look back: the gods get salty. spend time
in a skinner box: never get sick of beginnings, go back for the kick.
whether the birds are black or white, this one flies from sight.

no. start again. it begins with ativan for dinner, with sleep disruption:
the kicking all it knows for affection. is the black dog a black cat in disguise?
pyjamas? what colour’s its moustache? it begins with friday this time.
with the thickest coffee you can make, black cats’ breakfast,

and head up dear, the rabbit may die. it begins with sorry fourfold,
third swamp’s banks, difficult pills. jfif: dusty pink, black feathers
in her hair. his empty pockets, face drained away. he’s in some hell
or another and no ladder. empty pockets. the thing about time

is its engineering: no space for suicide plans in the jawbone of panic—
good show. who braids the cable? what load can it carry? it begins
with conversation, with revision, with critique. a threading. operations
can be parallelised without common critical sections; with panic

and memory function: the high whine of platters spun to seventy-two hundred,
oxide dropped off—as if dlp6 roped off questions of pad, sparrow, chrysler
spire, night skyline. it begins closer to home: one or zero footprints
on country, black cat dodges the djiti-djiti. it begins where it always has:

splined under railtracks: old dog and what he wouldn’t give for a kick;
a black cat marked the edge / of one of many circles. it begins with fascination:
that which can’t be clawed back. someone’s been hunting: low to the ground,
toes angled for purchase. helo. how do you do time? its ends? and in between

it begins with spilt red wine: magenta sensation in his face.
it begins with secrets: jarrah wood smoke; something unsaid, low walls.
it begins with black cats, never the wine—quarry and moon.
it begins with sunlight in irises, white pullover, thrown rhizomes.

it begins with orphée. the slow descent has begun. adios, yes.

Running Up That Bill

'…the projection of that armed force and its civilian apparatuses into the world.'
—John Kinsella, 'Ecojustice Poetics and the Universalism of Rights'

Maybe Kate was right—Stranger Things have happened—
about how god doesn’t deal, some kind of wonderful
card shark or used car salesman, too much product on His
itchy scalp and the gator-skin jacket; that or croc,
which it all is, thank-you-very-much—what you’re obliged
to say when He says congratulations, and all the while
you’re thinking yeah run up that bill, no problem, not for Him
with His penchant for asphalt, for old amber glass ashtrays;
out the plate glass it’s a scorcher, two crows hunting the lot
for a ninety-five Corona underneath the bunting, and after
hours the old spice must flow and it’s old blue eyes on the radio,
old one-eye going freegan: two crows eating from skips
behind the Coles; and gunning it twenty paces away with a brown
paper bag on the console outside Liquorland, headlamps
scanning the action: kids preload before Northbridge; all-chrome
Saturday sundown, big three litre twisting gas-filled suspension
so even a princess would be rendered anaesthetic—no pillows
required—and when the money’s run out it’s never Him
held to account—refluxed and smelling like roses: more ambergris
than amber glass, the doll unconscious beside Him—
definitely benzos, definitely bought off-label off Amazon
with twenty-five vials of vape juice: nicotine rich, natch,
for max plumage peacock-style, windows rolled down
and that tash haloing the gator-skin elbow—how’s it going
darlin—emphasis on the argh—in the southern suburbs
where the dog track’s still going strong and the emu’s
on tap in real glass to this day, no dickheads round here
love, that plastic’s like drinking in grandma’s cataracts
and nineteen litres per hundred k’s good for old Vlad
the tame impala and speaking of tame, speaking of grace,
and, actually, on top of that, having children doesn’t guarantee a
deal with god and, actually, anyone fixed on changing
places must be huffing too much Hg, Nelson or elsewise,
or wasn’t His name Horatio, or George either III, W,
or HW—those were the days, axis of evil always
orthogonal to jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs: Steve
McQueen was your model there: chiselled, or was His name
Alexander or Khe Sanh: your model there: chisel, oil rig,
cobalt overalls standing in for dad and terry towelling bar mats,
stool leather real as that armful of croc, track rabbit, pineapple
on the dog against the rail and a bad back arced over the bar
since Carousel was just a pup: Coles, Myer, that’s your lot—
all beige vinyl flooring all uphill no matter who’s changing
places: Stirling and Roe before the red paint—bronzes a long
way from Pinjarra—Forrest and Vecna, selfie stick, treetop
walk—so far from the eighties you’d think a dingo took you
but then that ozone lark went and wrecked everyone’s fun:
all the Turkey Creek stuff, how back in the day we’d rub alcohol
on the votes to blot out bloodstains, never works eh Lady
Macbeth or was her name Mondegreen when she’s stretched
over the impala’s bench seat, sleeping it off, dressed to kill
or be killed in Vera Wang or King Gee, yellow on-the-shoulder
number anyway, white strip lit up like cat’s eyes in the headlamps
and steel toes, back when One Nation was all about the land
grab at Surfer’s, none of this tailgrab in Freo, yoga mat budget,
great replacement: Pauline or was her name Silverchair,
mmm-bop; this is after Muirhead, after Whispering Jack’s
a wee Ripper: gee—oh, gee, never thought we’d miss the yellow
pages, chopper squad and Wittenoom, gorgeous; or Juukan
so there’s no question the rivers run tinto: celebrate with yellow-
cake from Jabiluka, mojitos in Karijini—so many ascenders;
an hour south of Meeka it’s arsenic in the tailings, Pond,
and pure gold: sprig of mint and a section eighteen; so much
for royalties—pigs might fly-in-fly-out, an open cut.

Ingredients: Australia [Western Australia (32.9% v/v), Grace Tame (2.0%), Tommy Dysart (0.8%), Scott Morrison (0.8%)] (95.4%), Kate Bush (1.1%). May contain traces of Hanson, Stranger Things, and Evil Angels.