What is the person?

[Zero]

A clock ticks.

I fall apart.

a mess is made.

in the aftertock,

I try to put myself back together.

Clockwork

[One]

short of second-hand instruction,

keeping timely, time-keeping

I rewind,

from memory

think back to the beginning

identify the old motives

retrace the reason of my route

[Two]

But then

between what each other memory

can be to the one before it

another just-as-open gap starts to yawn

and, messiness like the rest of them,

is there to dis-close

A person will not be down to the things they remember about themselves.

[Three]

Ticked again

falling more apart, which makes a bigger mess.

waste of effort trying to contain the collapse,

It fails, it shows the failure

Efforts extensive of mess.

[Four]

Surrounded by pieces

I try to draw myself together.

Without first-hand support, a shape is outlined

it is inspired on the nearest fullest person

and I fill myself back in compact with the accordance

[Five]

soon though

the mould stagnates against the greater containment

the ex-machina stitchwork dys-functions

The emptied suit flies like loose flag

from messy corner to messy corner

in a pirate’s ship seediness that assails

A person will not be the space that keeps them to themselves.

[Six]

ticking

fall apart and mess.

waste effort upon effort, no containment

with each less contained, Each one fails

In efforts extending: mess.

[Seven]

Divided in pieces, reset someone together.

Without better counting, question the self

set my eyes on two people having their conversation

And listen to their differences and watch for their differences

[Eight]

But the back and forth does not relent

they joke all the same

and the distance expected but not found

measures the flaw-floor of my own gap in the approach,

floor-flaw messiness which spills out

A person is more together in a people than is a person by a person’s self.

[Nine]

apart-falling mess-making.

waste effort upon effort trying to uncollapse,

Each one fails, with each made failed

efforts and more mess.

[Ten]

Plane of pieces, what about just leaving myself alone.

Without better distraction, overlook the denuding

focus on fragments of speeches and unused promises beyond my site

consider how things look if mess be left to itself alone

[Eleven]

And in that perfect stillness

the total disparateness

suddenly looks like net-work

The distances taken place in me

and the disorganisation they mean

plead:

Surely the messiest proliferation has relied on nothing but attempts at its clean and clear avoidance?

[Twelve][Zero]

(A tock clock has been ticking around itself.)

Fallen apart that much further

To the size of a mess that is now claiming every future;

stubbornly concerted in time, emerges through its opposite:

[Thirteen][One]

in new vision make last effort to see everything back together

but it does too much, & fails again

And so fulfil it

Gives it its future

a mess of a mess and so finally the only right answer left:

Could this be the person, after all?