Postdated

ô mort
bel alpiniste dans l’armure du prince blanc!

Robert Desnos, 'L'Air homicide'

my uncles live over the mountain

the mountain that’s invisible when i give it thought

the thing is these words

are identical to something you wrote in another language

when my aunts were braiding your hair

i don’t start out intending

to speak of these events

long ago & shimmering

like a sweet shop in sunshine in rain

rather i wished to raise the question of truth in popular music

yet the question of the tendency

of dreams to consist

of the contents of an 1859 South Devon & Tavistock Railway timetable

remains forbidden

& the other day i wore odd socks

doctrine of never-ending terror

of universal peace through war

of the virtue of the rich

of the criminality of the poor

my aunts lived over the mountain my uncles are braiding your hair