Chris Hutchinson

# posted by Chris Hutchinson : 11:53 PM  0 comments

Day appears through
a sieve of dust, through a maelstrom
of institutional schemes and designs,
as other people’s lives kaleidoscope,
a whirlwind of butterflies, photogenic
as a nation-state, perpetually
childlike—

Night appears through
tear-translucent glass, through insinuations
of blue and the spiritless quality of ice,
as other people’s lives glitter and slip,
beads of mercury beneath your
fingertips, or a keyboard
of fireflies—

I’d rather reflect the sleep
of twenty castle-shaped clouds—

quiet as an unplanted garden,

a belief saddening
in the saddest of times,

clutching the wine cup without
letting a single telltale drop

insinuate itself like
a crystal of aluminium oxide

slipping down the peacock’s
effulgent throat.

In my worst moments alone:

eucalyptus diving in-
to the green lake of itself,

cricket at night cheeping beneath
the floorboards, or placing a foot

in the valley
in which I was discovered

so tears of blood
might brighten

the medieval statue’s cheekbones—
wondering,

what makes the experience
exquisite? Mineral-hard

proof or simply rocks in the beguiled
jeweller’s head—meaning

crushed like light through a chandelier.

Though I’d rather masquerade
as something easier to conceive of,

a designer brooch
amongst the high-stepping set,

sparkling wit of the vehement
intelligentsia—who these days

can afford not to invest in their
pageantry of feelings?

Or isolate as an alcove
where the wind shakes its fists

at the remnants of sleep, as I who
was murdered

awake
spitting seeds of red worth—

Serving spoon or
funhouse mirror—

so enamoured with the tool
you sometimes forget

its function: gramophone or
satellite dish, anything

machined, moulded, made:
whatever lasts, not

the object but its task:
what you see, not always exactly

what you get: slide trombone or
shotgun barrel, this place

where uncertainty breeds
potential, where appearances

lay their traps: polyamorous
as a flower, polymorphous

as a glance fraught
with innuendo and subtext:

the way, in 1913, Duchamp schemed
with stool and bicycle wheel:

the way desire defines itself
in the moment before

the application of your will:
weightless as a hammer

at its zenith, then
downswing, decisive act:

that which exists in the hand,
less phenomenological proof

of your own cleverness
than reminder of what

you’re striving for: timepiece or
wedding band, or the abstract

work of words themselves: breath
harnessed to sound, sound

fashioned to whatever
meaning suits your need, serves

your fleeting purpose: every
invention, a jerry-built attempt

to nullify the distance
between your reach and what's

forever beyond your grasp:
telescope or microscope, or

even the weapons you turn
upon yourself.

Hello sodium-lit street. Complicating
rain. Bicycling wind. Gyratory wind-
sexed rain. Hello reflective pools. Ripples

flexed like bowstrings. Ancient
cavalcades of mist escaping streets
known only to those travellers the cold

has led astray. Hello wolf-coloured
smoke, guarding the entranceways,
marking the unseen exits

with your scent. I am the maze
that greets you, the cold that turns you
by the wrist. Each footstep

a question the other answers
with a question. Each breath readdressed
at the intersection of each breath.