Lockdown notes: 1. 54 days is a variable that depends on where you were when it began 2. 54 days is a language with no alphabet or sound 3. Mute sorrow has the same genome as cold outrage 4. The chasm without a bridge is a chronic wound 5. This death knell moonlights as a … Continue reading Curfew: Day 54
24 migrant workers (travelling on top of a loaded truck, were killed in an accident, on a highway far from home) no eternal flame/ no memorial/ no statues/ no flower lined graves / not even a bunch of poppies/ not even names scratched on a crumbling wall/ though this is still a war/ though there … Continue reading Curfew: Day 53
1 migrant worker (and the baby she had during her long walk home) Hope too is curfewed, hovering 1.8 metres away, masked and gloved. Everything points to the appearance of a god, let’s say goddess (but what are the odds?), to take matters in her own hands which of course makes the causality problematic, but … Continue reading Curfew: Day 52
Six migrant workers (were run over by a speeding bus while on a 1000 km journey home, on foot) This poem knows nothing of your suffering. All it can be is a poor witness. A public record book is more of a poem, it has your name, your story, even the colour of your eyes … Continue reading Curfew: Day 51
Trapped inside walls, death on the loose, outside, where once days mattered — you say we are safe in our primal cave, while out in the jungle, tigers wander — this night must somehow end in an admission of love or in lovemaking. Maybe it is an ice cave, you suggest, seeking warmth, and I … Continue reading Curfew: Day 50
Isn’t this the womb that should birth great change? The momentous correction that will resurrect time? So all that is askew, adrift, alone will find a home? Then why does opportunity contort its neck and retreat into its shell? Where it is safe, where it is in control, where it is the way it was … Continue reading Curfew: Day 49
Five migrant workers (travelling home in a truck loaded with mangoes, killed in a road accident) This summer of the sun that is and the light that isn’t. This summer of waiting in queues – the line of the poor, the line of the poorly, the line that cannot go all the way home. This … Continue reading Curfew: Day 48
Sixteen migrant workers (were run over by a freight train as they tried to make their way home) No matter which way our world falls, only one side is soiled, only one side is wounded, only one side bleeds. This inequity is favoured by a sky that cannot tell day from night. The illusion of … Continue reading Curfew: Day 47
Lockdown writing: ten things about The Poem. 3/3 7. Teach The Poem to run its fingers over sharp edges. To cry in an unknown language. To bleed until living and dying are equal options. 8. If you already know what you’re going to say, don’t say it. The Poem is not your lover. No part … Continue reading Curfew: Day 46
Lockdown writing: ten things about The Poem. 2/3 4. Let the day walk around turning off the lights, turning off the sun, let the layered shadows become a despairing womb. The Poem will appear as you remove the blindfolds, one by one. Don’t be gentle. 5. Imagine desire. Imagine satisfaction. Imagine a heart that has … Continue reading Curfew: Day 45
