sunshine99
welcome to the holy island    they ask a lot of questions

and use words like apheresis and tetany    on the wall a wetland scene

portal into memory    someone laughs

and takes blood from my neck    someone sings

the body electric    apheresis and tetany

in the distance a boat moves slowly closer

who’s in the boat    we don’t know

counting on our fingers    one two miss a few

ninety-nine a hundred    longhouses

dot the shore    family relics

strung from roof peak to jetty

soft click of bone on bone    three eleven

sixteen eighteen    the numbers add up

free as birds over water    free

to step ashore on the island    yes it’s us in the boat

and us already wading into the shallows    to welcome

those voyagers who were once ourselves

from these numbers I will build you

a new body and a new soul    over the wetlands a cry

goes up    circling like smoke    or birds

first small tingling in the tips of my fingers

apheresis to take from    tetany concerning

the fingertips 

derangement 
I am happy when I forget    when I remember

I am sad    I open The Book of Disquiet

listening for these words    I consult the Portugal notebook

running my fingertips over its smooth surfaces

settle for locations between an orange grove

in blossom    and half a dozen waterfalls

cascading into the Lake of Tears

I  am  happy    I  am  sad

deep and dreamless    Chitra says

here are your earrings    put them on and dance

but the boat is too small    and God is great

a cat and a teapot in one fragment    and losing your soul

is like dropping an oar into clear water

a chance fragrance printed on x-ray film

I  am  sad    I  am  happy

the falling waters move about    ripping up

certainty    retrofitting syntax

a new body and a new soul    if you can read

soft click of bone on bone    repetitions

bloodwork    derangements of syntax

pouring into the liquid air    did I say

the boat was small    did I say the earrings

are silver and pluripotent    and Chitra says

I am sad when I forget    when I remember

I am happy    bones of two hands on dark film 

BEAM 
my march of triumph didn’t get as far as a teapot or an old cat

and in the clouds towards the south I lost my soul like an oar dropped in water

here we are    back on the lake

quotations intact    but wondering how to greet

the islanders coming our way    arms full of flowers

eyes full of tears    you have come back

they chant    for another night of poiesis

here is the teapot    here is the old cat

here is the oar    sun beams radical

effusions and suddenly we understand

tetanic fingertips to neuropathic toes

just what we’re in for    counting down to zero

knocking out resistance    a new body

a soul the shape of an oar    or even

the oboe they are handing over    bird’s-eye maple

flutes and drums    fragments that tell us

we are making poetry on the holy island

in the lake of tears    butterflies at sea 

day zero 
a stretch of the imagination    blue corundum

weeping blood    climbing a ladder

to reach the main floor of the house    on the wall

snakes lizards magic birds and monsters    they carry me

to a pallet on the floor and perform ceremonies

of purification    a wailing instrument

removes the precious substance from its icebox    singers

open the line in my arm and cells begin to flow    pristine

undifferentiated    into the body wracked by chemical barrages

a puppet-master invites the soul to enter representations

of the body electric on its journey to and from the underworld

falling waters orange blossom    I have married death

and wait on this bed of dreams for motion to return

dance body dance    the day is zero

the cells pour in and everything counts

vast and blue    the waters of the caldera wait

for a signal from the birds and monsters    the snakes and lizards

who protect this house and will not let me die 

bloodwork
as good as a house    or shadows thrown on a screen

birds and beasts conduct us    lifesize through corridors

day after day    the pilot vials have promised

fair winds and waves talking gently    shush shush

around the poles of the house    walking just them

walking and we are beginning the poetry of blood

counting every day the white and the red and the little coagulants

that tie everything together    I have to find your heart

says Ala    we want your body and your head

says Katya    blow with everything you’ve got

says Dakar    flinging her arms about and shouting

to bring the water dragons closer    these arcana

on strings    these spirit houses

on poles    these small footsoldiers

spreading out in formation from my bones

blood poetry    but oh my darlings

I am beyond repair    the dance is too much the house

too big    I am neutropenic

unable to move    waiting here and counting    days cells waves winds

a teapot and an old cat    the oar is lost

when will I see you again    it’s like camping

says Anna    it takes all day to do nothing

here on the holy island in the lake of tears    nothing

but calling up the ghosts of the house    the bone doors open 

heuriskein
but not before the stars

in her spiral arms turn one more time

and the stirring stick froths the milky

clouds of Oort    of Magellan hull down

over Malagasy and incomprehensible

to any but the most persistent listener

falling asleep now as the words

race on over the lunar field and sweet

scented jasmine curls under the sill 
ships in the distance completed the sea that lapped my terraces
I fall to pieces but not until

her voice walks me through

the skein of stars that milky way

discovering terraces

spiralling over archipelagos and oceans  
* 
Note
Preparation for a transformative but ultimately unsuccessful stem cell transplant.
The lexicons of medicine and poetics converge at haemopoiesis (bloodwork) and heuriskein (to discover).
Motutapu is the haematology ward in the sky above Grafton; its walls feature photo murals of New Zealand scenery.
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa appears and disappears in the dreams of cellular rearrangement.