14    Basic information – a clone laments

In the region of stair twilight no matter is found at dusk

even shade breathes deeper where the centre owns a husk

We clear a fragmented emptiness as sombre brethren gather to sing

we assay one last landscape which a family of strangers is ravaging

The poor sweep the world dancing in the warm

they move moving movements laterally in the dark

until the stony realms become ethereal and calm

For our shade endlessly crafts wonder in the bottom of shafts

If anxiety knew

why sense flew

away from the new

Another fear brings a body down

(a direction to direct weeping until staring back

becomes a complete case of quiet encroachment)

simply rushing into rocky darkness

as if fear could guide a plunging soul

toward the tremulous notion of earth

Poor Lucifer watching lucid upper grounds

fails to notice this spirit once so alive

and meets this unimportant doctor now seeking

in black chasms all he needs to perceive

Beyond the dead space that eldritch man might fear

sense does not return except through the silence here

and encompassing the desperation of flesh

Lincoln greets the aides who fade until peace is pressed

Back come fine ideas as their acceleration ceases

to reign on new surfaces as lonely shapes and creases

and moving in the direction of tenebrous distraction

sheer quiescence becomes our own intention

No wonder we wonder without wandering

how experienced relatives can be so overpowering

carried everywhere and acting decrepit yet flying and fleeing

from the lithic shrieking of monuments and being

(Geoffrey Mark Matthews 24 September 2022)

15 IA Ate a Nomos Later

Its                            first                         iron                          fist

Even                        sad                          deer                         endear

Ecclesiastical           famine               ran                     godless

Weapons                 rain                          hard                        down

Found                     nonchalantly           at                             home

No                           encampments         last                          time

Fecund                    banished                 dreams                    longing

Word                       temples                   awaken                   secrets

Aeon                       maps                       leaden                     upground

North                       rising                       inexorable               crying

Nearer                     above                      eerie                         winter

Sterilised                 strange                    demon                     cinema

(Graham  13 October 2022)