the diary is a newstart fraud de art

& i am just a small practitioner, strings & beans

our memories promise us the threat

of fresh massacres and stale elections

props of the sovereign nation of the self

and unending varieties of the heart. And poor perfections.

I turn and watch the sun.

The sun is a red ball. The airwaves

cut through everyone and make corrections

liquid as paper

the last thing we want is our corrections

imperfections erased, when the imperfect is the purest form

– why else would red cars receive the most tickets?

or trains devour grafittied memories without tunnels ?

while *sigh* the grant they didn’t recognise rewards invention

ah! but is the invention rewarded without strings attached?

		I turned the page and found a small typo –

the cracks spread, tendrils like a spider web

the officers empty my gutter self out into despair

helpful as when but an out and none, may we say

eat the correction paper, fill my mouth with white clay

bloody my knees, ready for the performance

now I eat my heart out

and swig Tang between bites, watching

conscripted as you co-authored

what was thought to be something of importance

entitled ‘But Names Will Never Hurt You’

What is it like to be someone else?

Showtime!

But I can’t remember the word for …

wednesday in french. it was the day i renounced the nobel prize for literature

           after gazing into my diary and discovering no sense of myself in it,

           only the glimpse of a miasma shifting perspective in relation to the outgoing tide

I slammed my pen into red ink, or wrist tears, and wrote on

on with the stampede of paper eclipsing the shuffling breath

on with the Nefertiti bust glazing at my discontent

On! On! Never mind the cannons, Squash down the fear,

           bury it deep, colon deep, seize the feather