( via / via )

In Victoria's day one could be a respectable academic painter & still specialize in depicting see-through nighties.

"When the world came back steadied, in the big carred-up arena, tyres were still burning."
—Barefoot in the Head

Best "White Rabbit".

"pink world wrapped in salt clouds"

a bedrock wusp that all mild rhapsodies perjure
& even cynical mischief serves as vessel
seraph if stewed in this murk we fain would wrestle
questions out of Dante's lark & pitchfork-urger.
getting things done, the plaintive dog in the manger,
when all one wants is spraypaint on a trestle,
into bulleted tasks would shoehorn epistle
& murmur. cultivate the will to injure.

coal seams being slow to self-extinguish,
waiting on days that carry the lesser stigma
so tiny you could keep it in a matchbox
so vast it blots out even the blaze of anguish.
my burnished steering wheel discerns enigma
after enigma: one-off, flow & batch-mocks.

Scheherazade.