ILENASHADBOLT

[ilenashadbolt]

[ilenashadbolt]

[ilenashadbolt]

uploading 4 genius dont mind me

[ilenashadbolt]

The wing tucked in the darkening light. How long will I spew automatisms until what's left is real mind? That's a question you intended to answer. In the park another fight. Blows and cuts exchanged as currency of the few euphoric. Must go to the ends of the earth singe the flesh to salve what's left. That real mind; naïve, too earnest, shy. Give up reason. Declare form obsolete. Someone won the fight but their face was not clear to me. Do you get it yet? The back of the bus is pulling away Children smearing the windows smaller in the night. It is all a big dream isn't it. Shadows hasten along the street and you yawn after them as an answer. Everything seeps away until it is you and a stove in the living room where mother and father spent themselves. In folds of stars reveal a wreath. Bestow upon the neck. As you fold in the planes of yourself Place yourself in the drawer Place yourself in the highest corner with the family of birds Become the room as it became you Fling unspool Obey the rule

[ilenashadbolt]

Let me see you in the moonlight

punctured by palm and needle star

sheets swirled up and face down, cries

that care unravels too neatly

that threads are often strung too loosely

craving isn’t a bad thing but

it stopped me from thinking

Sat on the side of the road in the grass;

dying to know ways of living that last

still, the body has a way of getting by

all purely mental

sickening, the metal gouged sky

I run in the light in the breath of the skin

I talk to your wounds instead of your eyes

I catch myself in the mirror- suddenly- know

that you've never needed to yearn

Myself unbearable: I turned

to take own hands, to

till the soil, months plough despite all

I am never giving it away but haunt

sidewalks, so enthralled

[ilenashadbolt]

didn’t expect you’d accept the promise

unbreakable except when you want it

weather angel shreds

mimes flamed dread

you over there, where you always are

upending the roots and sealing the jar

quiet germ, pull eyelash

kiss and sell, gaslight cache

praised be her proof to herself

that love’s an island far as health

tactile slid to boot

fingers’ thicket soot

I forgot to catch her name

all things slowed in place

buoyant vacant now

horizon sever upside down

[ilenashadbolt]

[ilenashadbolt]

In five years time

In five years time, we'll be five years back still honeyed in this moment you promised nothing on the bench all euphoria bent, spilling down the stairs You never meant to throw in this towel or the gauntlet over your shoulder. I cannot blame you, so this rendezvous can’t work I figured out what's simply nature, sublimate what's true   Wish I had a will, then I wouldn't keep waiting We could keep at this strange dance- sorry, want to- keep at this strange dance even though we misstep, misinterpret miss more & more while drawing portraits drawn-out til arms are taut, taunted all you've taught me is how not to lose a game by losing you, by starting again you strain, you strain you construe, you lose read a book yesterday & it felt like you shining light in my eye, of course I'd end up blind The last thing I'd expect would be to see you here leaking out the corners of every turn of despair surrounding, eclipsing, missing you but wish I'd missed this vision of you Thought you cupped what was had connection cosmic; how ridiculous is that I enter the sun and emerge without a burn but then you turned, saw me, turned again without a word The best lack conviction the worst just remind you seat me opposite reason, paint yourself out every time This is the grand denouement You spill yourself into work and call it art because it hurt I spit teeth into my hands in front of the mirror This cannot get worse We point like stars to a cataclysmic end light candles in defense, peel back the wax of us until useful life is spent I spill hatred in pious measure in my coffee the morning spilt red wine on a carpet this evening, lone performing like a sponge, breach the brim, can't take the form I've been set Vast vaster now, something echoing grows black I watch my spine spread out behind me & mourn the fact that I'll be back Now the carnage is over, the carnival is too dark except for the gymnast's cigarette in the hazy valve of morning I'd give myself time but the fields run frantic tends to happen in a sheet of water poured over eyelids congratulate yourself; that's what I did I walk through the apartment, turn over books and then my head push and pull on brains in boats in the saltwater lake too blown up to see what's near, too flippant to cast eyes away even in five years time, I wouldn't know what to say

[ilenashadbolt]

Being tender doesn’t come easy softer when it suits You want them to notice it change so loud it pours from your skin purer in this skin I don’t know who you think you are to tell me I am dwindling Crossing wires of mindfulness and obsession unbearable to un-know how

[ilenashadbolt]

To have faith is to subscribe to a constant losing

The pastor said it, but it’s the same with anything

I walk along the bottom of the sea

as blue as the sky it doesn’t have

I’m the you that didn’t get free

sinewed sheet as soft

as crowds fused to binoculars watching rockets launch on beaches

as softened body and senses, easy gradation into graves

It’s like…

seeing your silhouette doubt itself

as it splinters in the bottom of the pool

toes cloyed in cold and doubtful of even the atoms

each realisation washes over, dull knocking against the wharf

It’s like…

embodying a fortress dented for centuries by stubborn cannonballs

shaking rosaries through narrow streets

convinced you’re so easily resolved, delivering

litanies of what mystifies and matters to you

It’s like

she could not accept

such unfettered access

-or something

That sinking feeling that

exhale as pedestrians lattice across the street

Art is the being, not the reflection,

so of course I could never emulate

It’s almost like

to taste awareness is to embrace it- this is forever now

You can learn peacefulness here,

splash so deep it annuls a canyon

I want to be my own lover!

One finger dipped in acetone

Making ourselves smaller in the wave of all that has come before

I have no mission, I just watch rockets

watch you gesture, watch me love it

[ilenashadbolt]

Post-impressed

Bruised train windows punched inward

hang like paintings in the Louvre

like heads hung down by wind and virus fear

Oh sweet metropolis centre

sprayed with insecticide by rich hypocrites

so we scuttle to the edges

still gold-rimmed at heart but

burying wire-thin dismay

sprinkling chalk on some grave

every day! every day!

I live and I die in the same unfolding way

No point in writing when the heart is the exhibit on display!

No glory in outpouring about the flippant zeal of each zipped day!

In the coffeehouse in the window

the diamond in the light in the window

smeared all over elderly faces, smattering backhands across

each papery cheek

[ilenashadbolt]

a beautiful game

Sky splits light veins along Montmartre

apples and mangoes spilling onto streets on sale

motorcycle after motorcycle palming the same shortcut

apartment shutters peering up in the wet light

leant against by smokers mothers tired children

cough into slipping scarf in vain to ward off cold

the trains are delayed, doesn’t stop the machine eating your reduced fare

we are all shouting at each other in the Métro fish tank

charcoal into tunnel and out again

breathe in his neck and earring

turn a corner, carriage snap into Forever

hands like a centipede curling the endless iron bar

snake pit of snake pits

find refuge in corner cafe

steal a corner of sun

reflect in the sun, in the quivering lime water refraction, melting degas sculpture

and fling back out once you've overstayed your welcome

eat grief along the bank touching the water

Pissaro latticed water in last slivers of light

same sun that luminates your hospital, that numinous resting place

that wakes me through the thin window of the second floor

where I stare through the roof, impossible to reckon with a day

just fling out like the cafe, no plan or cash, spinning up an existence with every step

diarise each moment or die trying I guess

[ilenashadbolt]

don't forget the deserts

it’s always dawn somewhere

oh beaded Smokey night you

rip out onto the street

toiling away to make something of nothing

backless dress Friday best

I walk with confidence

swollen by a song that once stirred me

If someone’s listening, may the echo of that feeling sustain me

maybe I should contain me

suddenly without point

sudden, derail

fly like a kite

/

all red with

faces red I wish I’d

catch the red like a fever like

a stubbly teenager like

the blood moon

it eats away this

red it eats

like I cannot

desperation fire in the gut

hitting like

the dawn raiders

taking your women your children your

security

all that’s needed is security

so red it inflames your core makes you feel less empty

glass empty

and finally

you sit in the smoking area with a handbag

containing all that you never wanted

[ilenashadbolt]

Postcard

Begin the year split in two:

the crack of nothing makes me move

Shut door on the fear that follows

no wall to steady you now

It’s easy to weave another day, crocheted thick

upon the face

a ton of blankets at one’s side, another ton in line

another day to overturn the last one left behind

The sin of idleness, the holiness of work

All solitude points towards madness- if madness circles

the intensification and dissolution of the self

We could talk of barns and changing room chatter

but some essentials can’t be denied

walk a thousand miles and you’ll be surprised

how coarse it really feels

you’re fading

you’re not helping

gouge the dam apart by the nails

[ilenashadbolt]

Maíread

Dew combs the grass

Bracken tossed in winter sun

unearthing an enormous glossing of the mind.

In my slickness I am feeling sick I

don’t know this body of mine

I wear your grief around my neck:

Twelve pearlescent sinkers

jaded upon my collarbone.

She fell asleep with a cigarette in the shed out back;

the plumes threw their hands to the clouds and left nothing behind

You told her mother it was a car crash

You told yourself you were fine

His lip wobbled as he looked at me clearly:

‘Why do we have to get old?’

fingers playing with the armchair frays

with his tea and shortbread every day

We’re all having heartfelt conversations somewhere

it’s not reserved for those who record

looking out the cabin window, playing some god

the evening sits different now

[ilenashadbolt]

NYE (somewhere else)

I wake erratically, roll over and over into sleep

unseeing white-hot phone screen

hear chimes fingered by peeling wind

I'm scared someone's coming in

my heartbeat’s gone but I don't know why

the kind of un-sleep that brings no rest

just a solitude that expands your chest

Here in the state in the city in the beach island

in a condominium in a unit in

this corner bedroom with these blue sheets

I let the solitude percolate through my throat:

anaesthetic, but my heart's still not beating

and swathed in this duvet I think of nothing but you.

Communicate all my being to you

angled like a satellite to your corresponding orbit

radio wave strung from heart to heart

beat pulse through the earth (please inflate mine)

I wonder if you feel the tapping, willing you to turn

Need to know if it was final:

Need to see if I’ve learnt.

Wind gasps and

chimes unfurl again

I loosen my grip

light tumbles the horizon

[ilenashadbolt]

Apothecary afterhours

The only way is to cherry your mind; spit the blood after the wine February tossed its forks against the mirror Anne paused for thought. What’s hope for? The cabin eats the chairlift eats the twisting men eating schnitzel and grief we’re born in chains of circumstance, bound by rope of relief Beer can left on the crest of the world mountain body billow like sail In another alley, dog’s nose is wet snuffling, lifts aside the month’s cutlery set