Issue 31: Charlotte Geater

a langorous period

the period between eating a salad for dinner and bedtime

the period of time it takes to cut a plum tomato in half

put a slice in your mouth

and chew

the period of time between when the cancer is said to be gone

and

skiving off another periodic visit

at the hospital costa

easier those mornings to pray

for a revival from our cryogenic chamber

then passed a rather large interval of time

each of the successive phases in

the progress of a disease

without the implication of

recurrence

menstruation and crime

at unprecedented levels

the name comes with snow

and winter / in his

periodical distempers

allotted time; a natural lifespan

his natural period, her

girls of the period

dreamed of travelling ever into

a big cigar

it was outside my period

said with possessiveness

the clothes were out of period

every period of my life

these lucid periods

lurid with period colour

much longer periods

allowed

too long a period

a new period

a blue period

in this first period

five periods a week

end of each period

or

of rest

a sea-bed in the glacial period

one big lump of stone

annual periods of the sun

her synodic period

or revolution

a disembowelled period of the blood

the tour it makes round the body

when the crab is exposed

to natural light

waves of different

stars recognised as variable

by proper canals and passages

his lunar period

she danced

though sick

in honour of

the evil flower

the reds and blotches of her eyes

a periodic visitor

her disastrous period in

her eyes scratched peridot

on an old sheet of paper

in thick crayon

the period

of wall painting

the period

after

the period

living through

the century of periods

beneath black wax

pink paint

a period

in bad taste

an undated bowl

of copper. of cold red soup.

in the antarctic research station of my soul, i

core an ice shelf like a baking apple

this rustic wind in modernist hands

a southern christmas

under snow

in the cold fathomless sky where inside

the plane engine oils freeze midair

& my hands act as

a series of radioactive waves

through the southern cross you speak

it's august i'm preparing to operate

on myself this longest night

a small patch of polar air

the engine won't combust beneath

my thighs either side

a scoop of crushed ice

from the middle

translucent quality

of plastic bags spun from starch

composting / dilute ashes in stale

water. one morning the window glass

wouldn't stop flowing down.

behind each waterfall was one eye.

a knobbled stick. where the join

breaks is not central. it's

southern lights down here.

halogen in my favourite

part-time bar

where each drink is mixed

by a climatologist

the rising levels of gin

in my tonic. the juniper wind.

a house made of tupperware.

closed in for winter. freezers

full of freezer burn. canned sausages

on sunday morning. radio travels a long way

under dead winter sun

& heartless calfs

of ice / lunar visions

on a buried raft / down here

with the old night moon

my bunk blinks

one wounded eye / this small white bed

on my back with puffy scars

transmitting dreams back home

on the polar nights of my 33rd year

i packed my yoghurt heart & rode

a northern dogstar sky

on my knees

photochemical wrong colours

lights sketch out a sheepdog’s mane

below the horizon spins

another ship

beneath the decks

a cache in purple silk

psychoanalysis journals & old bones

acrylic dreams under a fishnet blanket

from my long sedation hallucinations

i wrote a letter home. three bells

rusted from the ice water.

all winter & never

holding you. telescoping

my eye through the thawing glacier.

telescoping back to you

at the other end of this line pulled taut.

thin air winter up there.

through the hole punch in the sky

another brick of snow.

i’m shaking out the aspirin.

my brain’s yellow twisted lid. each hard shell dissolves

under my tongue in bitterness.

they sent the dogs home forever.

i left the camera shutter open all day and all night.

my snowmobile heart & feet. frozen bread &

whale fin soup

float to the top. the tiniest oil rubbing

gutted rainbows / take out my kidneys

and stretch out this waterbaby’s

bubble oldest sealskin

worn down to nothing

from the sky to the top of the old foam.

shimmering. if this was a mirage / nothing broached.

there once was an ocean here.

peanut cancer

how i put the small name

next to every

other word

in my column of life

picking up a small shred of peanut

i think of how it might swell & bleed

heart peanut

early-stage peanut

a baby inside a green shell

dreams of salt, cracking open

under moonlight romance, a hot kitchen.

roasted already in there.

googling, can peanuts get cancer.

writing an invoice for peanuts

& time spent eating peanuts

asked at the hiring stage, was this gap spent --

cracking them open from their cases

secondhand dresses made from

rayon, which is plastic

spun from bamboo pulp

flat cold and smooth which sometimes

feels like wetness between my fingers

badly adapted

to the wet

and the cold

               and little shreds

of curds

and lace