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Video
1 – Cover
2 – Code
3 – Stories
4 – Safe House
5 – Signs
6 – The Opposition
7 – Inside
8 – Blown
I – Cover
That scent of air-conditioned air
as you pass a door,
cave-cold; fur
of condensation
on a beer:
Auckland midsummer.
The Mexican Navy’s here
in town, picking up
girls in khaki shorts – the lights
are out.
A yellow-backed cop
claps his hands twice.
II – Code
DRIVE Drive and sleep SLEEP
DRIVE in the whorls SLEEP
LIVE AND the moon creates AND LEAP
SLEEP a gap DRIVE
SLEEP it does, you know DRIVE
EUROPE Europe made easy EASY
EUROPE Ave des Perdrix EASY
RISE MADE Patrijzenlaan MADE REST
EASY I found it EUROPE
EASY by the birds EUROPE
III – Stories
Red truck on a stubble field;
red light – BUSH RD –
sparks green. Two figures, finger-
tall, talk: girl,
singlet, overalls, with man in
yellow coat.
Converging forces. “It is, above all,
to make you see.” Car heading up the hill:
tan field, red truck, dun
raincloud – static
signing, as I
vector past.
IV – Safe House
Shop-assistants in Dymocks
– Princesses lointaines –
a pack of plastic spines
to give them backbone
( xeroxed inside-out)
the pilot light deceives me
as I fail to sleep
later each night
– high heels, insomnia –
V – Signs
BREATHTAKING!
Rocks for sale
you are contemplating a change
would give the htrae
Marina magic
… sullen, brown, lagoon …
MILFORD PARK PLACE
No Exit.
VI – The Opposition
School for strangeness:
“this seat is really warm;
it’s scaring me.”
Trawling for silence.
Anne Batten MP
can you tell me
the way to the Mews?
Articulated truck
jack-knifes. Chew Juicy Fruit
(Alicia’s fault) – up there, the crescent moon.
VII – Inside
Indian summer – CK: Calvin Klein;
a grove of lopped, topped
eucalyptus trees.
Smoke-signals over the Waitak’s.
Abdullah Mohamed
lives, with his nephew, in a two-roomed flat:
$210 a week.
We cannot master
the art of parallelism:
so much, so many – so few.
VIII – Blown
white boat
you’re blue
contact lens
horizon
gorse-flower
buffalo-grass
headland
headland
headland
© Jack Ross 2004
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