from city state

Catherine Hales

from city state

§ 10

slant cast of light on roof tiles         weak         as luck
wd have it         tenuous         der gott der stadt
for delinquent imaginings         starlings
swarming at dusk         cracks of land left to thrive
away from cctv         various
conflicting patterns of control & in
terference         democratic deficit
limited by density of darkness
those of us who've acquired immunity
to eloquence         street view photoshopped         an
easy way through undergrowth         in which the
artist is seen to be at once far more
& much less than her         wireless vigilance
was not compulsory         that's my window

§ 11

trained sights of rooftop mounted battery
clear skies again         & the air warming       these
streets she inhabits         as an afterthought
in the exclusion zone         in compliance
weight of blossom pounding         a late april
that changed the body's narrative         as the
ground water is extracted the city
subsides         speaking on a poor quality
line she describes the scene         banks & ditches
of interest in the excavation of
urban settlement environments        just
below the surface         containered accre-
tion of the minimum position         but
they never found the time to be happy

§ 12

the obsessive spirit will always search
for means to ratify its borders its
nastier moments       on older maps the
country is a multicoloured bruise         should
the market be the arbiter of your
worth       its savage requirements       selecting
bugsplats       the core business of joined-up gov-
ernment delivering comfort in bull-
et points       taking out dead peasants insur-
ance       age determined from telomere lengths
the science fits the message       always on
cue       for representation also re-
quires participation to function         the
pawns benefit at best indirectly

§ 13

leaving a few patches of wildness here
& there       finding evidence of species
we weren't necessarily expecting
to find from reading the label        when did
wrongness set in how long was it merely
inchoate a shadow on the wall while
our attention was elsewhere        a break with
all that she decided & left no note
under the doormat or flowerpot at
her various residences       taken
together the indications widen
the pool        surface intricacies devolve
into feasible stratagems        filling
in the gaps        nobody felt like dancing

§ 14

more snow        & we'll all still muddle through some-
how        wholesome repetition of       it can't
be much longer can it        she mentioned in
passing the demise of the launderette
as a social phenomenon        accu-
mulated deities ever more hid-
eous in the attic       it all just felt
normal       that building is empty he said
pointing at the nearest skyscraper        that
one too        & that one        stucco figures or-
namenting common tenements from an
age before the bottom line        gritting trucks
out in force        pop-up news on morning so-
fas       malodorous aftermath        static

also by Catherine Hales: history lesson