Aidan Semmens
CORRUPT TEXT
‘For any truth to exist one must be able to make a false claim about it’
all along the tracks
we saw the soldiers
and the war machines
a system of complicated traps
and the way the light scores your pathway
making the footing precarious
a statue of Lenin brought down to size
so you can see the pitting in the granite skull
run your hand over the lichened brow
pockets of ancient superstition
in the indistinct and subtle heart
of a greening industrial waste
water full of broken instruments
and scraps of torn paper
classifying a history of doubt
a few logs and bits of shattered machinery
a moment of delicate transition
where deception is second nature
the possibility of extreme revelation
among the nostalgic smells
of an abandoned railway station
a coffee stain and a pair of glasses
a shelf of persuasive spines
on mildewed books
a site of decayed meaning
an outlived revolution
among discarded cigarette cards
depicting cricketing greats
fine species of butterfly and moth
and forgotten venerable trees
we never mention our gods
among those who propagandise others
yet every morning the trucks collect the bodies
all deviations are corruptions of the text
we infer from experience
a subjective sequence of events
as multiple drafts of narrative fragments
coexist and coalesce turning
perception imperceptibly to memory
the grant of identity papers
is a great event conferring
the illusion of rights and citizenship
so we came into this land of spies
where borrowed language shifts
and seasons migrate
the days are no longer lost
what the memory has preserved
is never what happened
when the statue weeps it weeps blood
we seek the comfort of strangeness
a familiar landmark obscured by fog
with our end the world ends
someone has simply torn out
the last page
Copyright Aidan Semmens 2013
