Issue 10: John Kinsella and Drew Milne
from Reactor Red Shoes
that was the badger that was
before human news sprays
its dark prints into greased
and permanent nocturne: this
marks the gene pool stern
banks blown spore diffusion
how abstract is the spreadsheet
liquidation of infected agents
after the initial lag phases is
sore depletion membrane wars
the data mined to spill cries
saying here was the deadline
there is a crease fracture done
to rivulets, the slickwaters
will find ways in the bloods
the dusts so silting said pools
even as space labs still fall
among compromised oceans
to the sound of one trident
fracking still, so ever stills
the cull, the sorting out,
the levelling of all playing fields
to maximise interest: plenary
is as plenary does, address
to chest or ribcage, full-blown
lungs to take the flash,
a lustrous broccoli, bronchioles,
anterial clutch to pin all hopes
of marathon elusiveness,
pleural creativity, which
precedes the utterance or thought
in damaged centres, mind
gaps, computed tomography
ionizing cellular repair making best
of what’s on offer, down
the track, down the hatch,
light up pretty picture contrast
resolutes what age expectation
halved to infant variable: take
heed take hold take stock, weigh
degradation’s lost morphemes
and phrases, so little time
proffered for acquiring languages,
for the good of, what alternatives,
choice of two evils mark down
the hatch is just the start up
rigged metaphor marking
heeder is for stratifications
and heeded is one firm drool
in the mashed value ladder
for which sin is the going rate
but there’s no hatch to speak of
and nothing but the takings
saying on down in the mouth
is reason, here’s to the dumped
and maudlin recycling plant
in which song is but stains
among remaindered noodling
with the curious orange of
agent chemical factor and
its burnt ring of acidic in the
virus plume, cross hatched
something about cheapness
brings the fight back to livings
with the table newly cleared
for red shoes over dust bowls
how post-withdrawal tautologies
accrue on production lines,
shopfloor cleaning products
cleansweeping ballet de cour
among brass shavings, depleted
uranium, cartoon fixating
cultural cringe, co-pilot to ground
control, weapons systems
chaise longues reflexological
Hellfire air-to-surface translator:
‘it’s a joy it’s a joy it’s a joy’
and: ‘love is PlayStation
love is Xbox love is all fingers
and thumbs’, that Labanotation,
that ballet d’action, that
contrast of freeze-frames, voids
as snowbound passes are closed
to ground traffic; rewatch
on your toes credits to rewrite
hardware gift vouchers,
lingering notation or weapon’s
signature, a specialism of absence,
a sticking your nose in
to our great choreodramma
that’s OUR with capital blazons
the royal fighter leaving its
contrails in media ambers
how the rose quartz lifts
hears the thrill of bandits
in the morning mushroom
John Kinsella's recent works include Divine Comedy: Journeys through Regional Geography (2008), Shades of the Sublime and Beautiful (2008), and Jam Tree Gully (2011).
Drew Milne has been the Judith E. Wilson Lecturer in Drama & Poetry in the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, since 1997. His books of poetry include The Damage: New and Selected Poems (Salt, 2001), and Go Figure (Salt, 2003)
Reactor Red Shoes, from which this extract is taken, is forthcoming with Veer Press.
