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Origin songs transmit ceremonial frequency /
Explosive explosive radio explosive /

Modulated rite of time zone changes /
Orbital grooves across hollow song sky /

Move carefully across the skein of scrubby floodplain /
Beneath the thrumm humm humm of pylons
tying up the GHQ Line /

Electrical surge along concrete river defences /
Conducted into a ground loop of anti-tank ditches,
blast mounds, hexagon bunkers /

Silt-logged beds thick with early morning mist /
The rustling sandwiches of bird watchers /

Residual history etched
in the ribboned tributary surface /
Deteriorating stretches of muddy water,
creeks, marshes /

Paint peeling off the forgotten hulls of trawlers /
Splintered ores and masts / Flaking from the sheet metal sides of the dock /
Rust stain of surplus time / Salt air weathering
with corrosive traces of limestone, clay, cockleshell /

Draw your incision carefully across the landscape /
Wash out the bloody debris / The sediment of Empire /

At the foot of hillside and down / A town
founded terminally below sea-level / A recessed tooth
sunk low in an estuarine jawline / A reclaimed island
embedded in the mudflat margins of Essex Witch County /

A flat land for flat people in flat houses / Dominated
by the artefacts of a dying petrochemical industry /
Buildings, roads, trees, painted all over in ash, battleship,
charcoal, gainsboro, gunmetal and slate /

A horizon of silos and spires / Flaming refineries /
Typically Blakean altars at which we sacrifice our bodies
to the North Sea gods of oil and coast /

Walk until you reach the encasement of sea-walls /
Climb two kilometres out on the black metal jetty /

Sagging sky fog belly
punctured by slowly moving container ships /

The anamnesis of place with the worn down tone of magnetic tape /

(Excerpts. The Gradual Mutation of The Territory, 2013).

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