A Legacy of Spies, no. 1
“A professional intelligence officer is no more immune to human feelings than the rest of mankind.”--LeCarre
Case Officer
I came into this sector to rhyme the darkness
with belling
so I had convinced myself
understand the misbegotten
trip up the entangled
bead against wrist
tooth against tongue
tack against tomb
when the spy was wrong
and the boom of his heart groaned
click
a bullet twitched between the book spine and the pageantry
of his family
story and cover so often fell apart
in the documents cloaked in a teak cupboard
the ink-stained forefinger, the espionage
in a divorce settlement of nation and a couple
of spooks who flank the mole burrowing
in the tunnels beneath a home
honor goes quick for a schoolboy
falling apart at the knees
the nascent nation an ocean’s shoulder away
Nursemaid
blotch of sand, smudge of heart-stain
the dark snow-bitten window, the spy’s
dust & mesh
expression, a man shadows by the door
unkempt paper caught casual in the rain
deaddropped in a pocket, coin or code
the cow-lick wind bites into the knock of a sudden
twist of an arm
the language you learned works the same, dear boy
demarcation & decoy
Dezinformatsiya deadrung
your conscience dry-cleaned
sublime betrayal in the bark of light
cloaked an unheroic nose
Achilles’ rage & regret
you are all birdwatchers now
as time brushpasses treachery, poem and heart
so long
Case Officer
on a remote mountaintop
somewhere in the distant world
accessed by taut funicular dreams
she detonates into the world hanging bright, 花火,
all phosphorous and luminescence and scent
beneath the stone and tide where mating comes
the rise-up bright from gunpowder and the sky's sizzle
more sound than sight
the spy’s game, love
an instinct of taste
the remarks by a clockwork glow
the night set his tiktoking pace to Greenwich Mean time
the coordinates of a lost heart due south
a reverent fuse-striking and hiss
Kaoshiung to Taichung along the clacking rails
an agent-in-place trapezes into the world
the lesson of the lesson in a black book
the un-lessened leans into the wind as the Tsumani came creaking
the world, this sea of tree
a legacy of spies
as love and order cluttered as pocket litter
caught between stations and everything
we cherished
fell stone by stone
Nursemaid
beneath your feet the tide turned dark &
life barked white when the language was blown
so much for precautions and prevarications
window dressing to cover up a wet-job so you ran
turned toward Calypso and shoal
where once generations met over grave & gravel
blocks of named stone, a bridge
shouldered east & then, dear boy
she appeared once again
west in the ebbing light
assurgent recklessness penciled in a cypher
from the alphabet of affliction & cartilage
the brushpass in the alleyway before the bus
once again, once again
the cobbler’s dropped cover and then you
knew
loyalty walked out the door
death, love, and nation
everything after the war, marriage
best-laid-plans, skin & bone
gone
the question in the compromised
can our hearts armed and trenched
go forth
swaying.
for: Robert Black, Lawrence T. Larmer and Marc Nash, all good men
