Matthew Hall

Language and Sediment (the subsets).

North East

flares of light
recede ‘in absentia’
day transcends all local knowledge
the woven architecture of ash striations
ruins encoded in sky
reverse halation. crematorium.
the reliance of space
captured. uprooted. concealed.
the immanent stretches
of ambuscade light
distillate.



North West

barely audible
pathway apprehensions
the white indifference.
suppliant bondage
spilling. staggering. arching communication
no provenance in stasis
words float through sere
elemental movements suspended
in the inchoate dim of snow.



South East

dawn intimacy
adumbrates the landform
the seduction of acuity
distances too limitless to name
the preservation of the compound
maligned sight
streaked with the efficacy of want
witnessing the equations of habitat
mute scenery of coercive colour
the augmentation of numbed hands
mime the history of indelible speech
the assemblage of sanctuary
erasure. translation.



South West

the acetate meditation of water
on figurative granite
parallel defaced sublate
remote constructs of ghostly perceptions
the ‘glacial depth’ of field
measured beneath tongues of shore
its getting late
the gestation of a more primitive verse
innumerable destinations. innumerable voices
the landscape locked in those words
beyond visible boundaries
presence. initiating.
understood in fragments.

Matthew Hall is a doctoral candidate writing on J.H. Prynne and Violence at the University of Western Australia and is working on a series of essays that pertain to the radical pastoral. He is the author of Royal Jelly (Black Rider Press), Distant Songs (Sea Pressed Meta) and Hyaline (BRP). He is a Visiting Academic Fellow at the University of Saskatchewan, and the Features Editor at Cordite Poetry Review.