At Work in an Old Asylum
there is an anteroom for
stationary
its walls once padded torn
spattered with piss shit blow
directly below the
ceiling fan
people swear they’ve felt a ghost
and come to think of it
my hands
sort of froze when i was fetching
manila folders
on the grounds are rubbished
barbecues
benches missing planks and palm
trees dying or dead
in under-heated underfed ranks
out-of-towners sacrificed to conceal
the terror
of wrecked levers and crankshafts
of brains
sent now to underpasses
multipurpose facilities
tombless flowerless graves
so every subdivided lot has
space
enough for three car garages
and the cubicles in my
office three monitors apiece
like a quavering lip the lawns
move unknowingly,
every blade weighted by ants
or wind, matt sweeping static
flickers to be praised and
sat amongst, brindle
leaves too damp to set alight
become spider webs
in out of focus eyes
become thorn garlands chainmail
hairs, eucalyptus mush slaking
curious thirsts, egg-specked
bearers of autumn’s uniform
autumn’s sappy vestments
cumquat saplings dripping
from fresh axe wounds
In nature I am anxious,
loath to disturb what is
no longer mine,
but of whom should I ask permission
to sit on this bench daubed
with lichen in the old asylum garden?
Beside me the beetles are dead,
cracked and petrified,
birds asleep in trees rooting
for water in the dry earth;
patients gone, dead, dying
somewhere with neither
mastery of their habitat nor their minds –
bereft of a figurehead
to authorise my presence here
am I not liable
to pay a fine or be locked up?
Then I see houses on my left,
gables for sliding down,
guttering full, and water tanks
still wrapped and detached
spread uselessly on their sides;
no-one living in them can help me.
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