BALSA JERICHO
Cal REVELY-CALDER
1.
system recovery may prove impossible. jerry
messed with the fucking wolves and
now his teeth are in their
salmon flesh.
abort his arc, it’s dipped,
just a messed-up bundle.
draw pixels back and lower the resolution.
call maurice. he’ll hand us the
ropes to the attic, everything
touch & balsa judgment
the lot, so coy &
so inadequately
terminal. catch that
if you can.
2.
there is no instruction for the
bottle feed. and where is jerry?
coming into balsa i expect
out of the long crack down to
pulsing and deepening. he rectified
the fridge. he calls this harmony.
it made us soar & soar / i was
not made for jerry, and nor were you.
watch the stacks again, international
orders wheel & fall from heaven
(thank you, it means well)
3.
tell me jerry’s tale again
sit me in your throat
take me on your knee
& tell me true,
& sing to me
his skull was global
like a globe. he tore into
his own skull and ripped
the radio out with his
nails. that was his
reception history, he
called it / he tore it out
the radio, he smiled to see.
he smiled like balsa, funny & free
4.
chemtrails in the air webbing
our falling sky so lightly
(how you never saw him there)
where his limbs were towed
in a mechanism it was
something undercooked, meat in
a holotype, fumes & relish
or the first things
backward.
each misprision, the procedures are to
format it in serif and call,
come dally, clot paint on the wall
nothing like the glass
edge under his sheets
(fractals, balsa & the ferns heaving)
it shorted, his myopia was left to buffer
haughty demeanour once in song
roast smell of grill & expectation
something more standard
each sufficient for
our beautiful connections.
find me in the cloud
make me proud
deliver me
5.
rigid forms in
balsa & laughter like a pose
each disco sank, we stayed.
he made them dance like
he was radioactive.
jerry fought the war against the stranger.
he betrayed a self / corners of his mouth,
didn’t know where to begin
6.
o take me weak away, the sounds are sweet! i can’t
go on lying to you, on balsa wishes & bells
from the railway
help me now? do not leave me?
these are jerry’s testament. he loved your transparency, your
cot
i knew / you were his green thunder, his centre
what kind of brightness in jerry’s eyes?
did you see was he lustrous? was he failed?
write it down my little lens, call me
lovely describe his skin. he remains
our comrade, more than a
struggle it’s a videogame. yes each
window is skinned by smoke. yes
you cannot feel my fear, so i
hate you for that
& now shuttle
between what’s slow
& full on tunnel speed
7.
but eventually he
went international
lost
colour & form, made it
big on centre-stage,
heavy & gold in his shining self
he was reducing himself down,
down to balsa tacks
feverish, gently blurred
we found him leaking fluid
like a bin, or a category,
or a bin
ampersand, said jerry
Cal REVELY-CALDER is a writer, and a contributing editor at the Cambridge Humanities Review. His work, critical and creative, has also appeared in The Guardian, Literary Review, 3:AM, minor literature[s] and Blackbox Manifold. He lives outside London.