Stones by John Murray
Stones
Basalt
grand hexagons
make a geometry of six,
Fingal astray
Chalk & Flint
dried blood
as black as lacquer,
the geisha’s face
Conglomerate
yesterday’s porridge
gone hard in the drawer,
an empty house
Lewisian Gneiss
birth lines winding
in an endless galaxy,
the old man’s face
Limestone
pavements
dissolve in the rain,
those empty questions
Mica
white crystals
encrypted in granite,
heart broken
Sand
quickly through time
even as glass,
window on God
Sandstone
infinite floor plans
forgotten,
many beds unmade
Schist
silver half seen,
half grasped in the streambed,
that secret wish
Slate
split leaves
paper the rafters,
pages turn
— John Murray
“Within the ‘stony limits’ of haiku form, texts try to contextualise rock types in ten spontaneous responses to aspects of culture. Often this is attempted through references to time, geological or human. Marks made by absent form is a prevailing theme. The puff of breath, an attribute of haikus, as a vehicle for materiality, is ironic.”
— John Murray
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