Graphology Materialism 42: against the trends of opinion polls
Each loss means fewer palindromes
as fresh ‘observations’ stall before
reaching midway through the sentence,
collapsing back to where they came from.
And though we were closer to the rawness
of that ‘first wave’ of dispossession,
those striated curves in sandstone,
we still leave a more damaged land
than when we arrived. A loadstone,
the colonial gathers and accrues
habits of various terrains and skies,
nuances its modes of dismembering —
museums collecting then apologising,
compressing time into different manners
of presentation. Some ‘artefacts’
and body parts are returned, others
sit in archives waiting to be rescued.
Out of the flower-press an extinction
shows vivid colours... if only... it might
have been tapped as a panacea...
It seems so brutal laying it all down
without disclaimers, remediation —
simply underpinning
with footnotes,
reinforcing with bibliographies
and appendices.
John Kinsella
