We all have a right
to exist, or so some better
angels would say. But I have
received more
ambivalent forms
of messaging, saying
something directional,
colours
red and
otherwise. Colours
are quickening
as one decides
them. Red is a flush
in the foul noise
of doubt and
being closeted. I await
new evidence as
some so-called free
thinkers await
multitudes.
Thin lines
appear to
remind me of
hierarchy:
passports, for example,
tickets, emails, scrawled on
passageways, shopping
lists,
notes found in
the underpass, the
number on a
taxi,
underlined sentences,
the most literal of all
prescribed texts,
these as ultimatums.
They all ask
for the same thing,
they all depend
on acquiescence, the
preservation of the terrible.
Welcome to Australia ~
Upon touchdown
a shivering which precipitates
constant sentencing,
pressers, declined
offers, emails arriving late,
stop, the lady
crosses the road,
she reaches the mailbox,
the call is missed.
In the shopping centre the
shifty move, the lack of
looks, the
trepidation,
all read like a book.
This is real time
transcription.
You are in the silent
field, you descend upon
the entrapment which is
feudal thinking.
Everything conspiring
to whittle down some defence some
sacred inner
sanctum.
You thought it was special.
The line goes flat.
The trick is to
play dumb.
Like a visitor in
another colony, overhearing
some hater laughing
harshly in a foreign
tongue, sincerely saying, I
Don’t Understand.