"Intercapillary Space"

II




        do you still have doubts

        when it began



        fill gap



        make note to attached self






III

        is that that aqueduct

        it seems like nothing

        just a few forms

        pressing out from the light



        for I have lost by crossing

        and recrossing the line

        where his accumulators

        and reflectors

        slack-slack

        into a cursal block

IV




        it reads almost as

        though it were an appointment



        there has to be that

        satisfying click of the wooden ball



        here too no sign of war



        just those stacked legs

        neatly in a clearing






V




        that intimate sound is

        a disturbance of memory

        afloat on bulbous legs

        above the strangling of water



        we're allowed to walk around it

        three times



        many wander off

        (these short bursts of drama)






VI




        I’ve yet to look

        into this modest score



        like an experiment on a bird in an air pump

        she is as close as wax






VII




        the land doesn't

        even exist anymore

        and I must use all my inventive talent

        to turn a spinning wheel and a raincoat

        into a powerful electric machine

        with lanterns beating time



        everything conceptual is supplied free of charge

        but the understanding is to be taken away

        which makes him even more determined

        to go ahead with what's unpopular



        I like the character limit: no cold head,

        the sea



        it suits his eye to

        fill gaps to sense



        she sits disconsolate beside

        the intercrossings of iron and copper, the saltmark






VIII




        sight-paired people

        nail technicians

        with kit of fabricated parts

        and the strange minerals of a new soil



        I turn down work

        still at the middle distance of my desk

        arm pinned beneath a twist



        but I can't read this strange angle

        with original colour tints and titles

        even when nothing happens and nobody comes






IX




        what are they wearing on their heads



        it's chalk, well defined

        into a grid of fixed concepts

        and resembling a cataract

        and by this I mean a portcullis, a waterfall






X




        these men all have different mothers

        and their figure is from

        the round head period



        I characterize them by uncapped armour

        I assert their ability to think and

        act independently of physics



        nonetheless, a thing we can see or touch

        something to spell

        something to say

        disclosure of lineaments

Richard Makin's St Leonards is being serialised on the Great Works website and was recently reviewed in Intercapillary Space. It will be published by Reality Street Editions.