Capsid*
*the protein shell of a virus, enclosing its genetic material
Prehistoric virus booted from swamp business.
Capsid floats free of origin, forgetful, ploughs into new terrain.
Foreign origins transferred, triggered, transfigured.
[It figures.] Plague joining up, lit nodes.
Brain burst, snow shower, backwards bent.
Hysteric hoop, roll down storm drain, grey abundant waters
dark-flowing, growing, glisten of ecstasy, protean.
My 3000th mention: the bonus features.
Shiny elevator, executive attendant. Reconvened in panel form,
three speakers per episode. House style – metaphors
& analogies from culture of denatured sadness.
Memories gone to the dogs. Off-leashed.
Capsids, floating coracles, bundled thread, trailing.
The downside of small histories, vented nothings.
Speak across tongues, toss an imaginary cigarette.
[Lights in corner of mouth.] Put down thin boards
across seethe of plasma. Shelled words.
Venture forth, unmaking past. Everywhere see gaps.
Down the long, disparaging cliffs the birds take flight.
Encampments. Lights glow.
Gaps and caves. What’s the password?
How do I restore my loved ones to factory settings,
O maker? [Details requested.]
The Melting of Heaven (Covid 1)
Gaslit
Absolute will to lose yourself.What does this mean, really?
Each night slugs eat your flowers.
Days are wallpapered together,
polite, meaningless seams,
reluctant energy of departure.
Friends are flash agents.
They talk as you leave, take note
of the time, your manner of exit.
When you ask the mirror
how this episode will conclude,
it smiles back, savouring the joke.
In other news, you are
a dust mote under a rug,
knowing the life between stitches.
In Flight (Covid 2)
Mannequin
The Virus doesn’t know me. Since the Plague came, I have thoughtlong and hard about the durability of my being.
On the deserted esplanade the play of sunlight tells my stories;
each contact recalled, each accidental witness; each corrective to
the desires of idling passers-by.
I’m the remnant of love, its cipher; the gene sequence of narrative,
formulated in polymers. The Martians may learn from me.
And what they will learn is anarchy, a beauteous sculpture born of
disaster. I will not let you down, I am your foil.
My right hand outstretched, I appeal to the air, my left palm open,
ushers in each moment. Uncontaminated, I am the vessel.
Let the Martians land, I say. Let me minister to the vasts of space.
When all that was made is gone, I’ll marshal your atoms, speak for
you; this will be better.
Stephen Sunderland is the author of the surrealist film-novel The Cinema Beneath the Lake, three BBC radio dramas, and the visual poetry collections Eye Movement (Steel Incisors, 2022), Oneiroscope (Kingston University Press, 2023) and Refrains (Steel Incisors, 2023).His work also appears in anthologies Seen as Read (Kingston University Press 2021) and Seeing in Tongues (Steel Incisors, 2023); and in Mercurius Magazine, feminist-surrealist journal The Debutante and Lune: A Journal of Literary Misrule. Find him on Twitter @stephensunderla – and on Mastodon @Corsairsanglot@mastodon.social
Banner: A variant of Covid #1 by Stephen Sunderland, created by Robert Frede Kenter. Twitter: @frede_kenter. IG: r.f.k.vispocityshuffle, icefloe22.
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