Repaying the debts of robots,
I see me in your screen fatally, which is
to say oozed certainty across a whistle of craft.
The rhythm Bauhaus once had for us, like steps
to the apex, auto-antiphrastic pulse
to a skyward turnpike recomposed. Bathed
in crude, parcelled dry with ply, wastrel born
of the plastic nowhere breached by the faint.
The vernacular machine of doom
returned to the plaza, with exclamation.
But they never wrote about Ireland. Cybrid
food. Somehow, we blandish as the winners
crest. You are sandwiched in surface,
calculates no-one. Calculates you.

I see you in my screen fatally, which is to say,
you—calculates no-one. Calculates
surface in. Sandwiched, are you. Crest,
winners, the as-blandish we, somehow. Food
cybrid, Ireland about. Wrote never. They, but.
Exclamation with. Plaza, the. To returned
doom. Of machine vernacular, the
faint. The by, breached nowhere plastic. The of
born wastrel, ply with dry. Parcelled. Crude. In
bathed. Recomposed. Turnpike skyward, a ‘to
pulse’. Auto-antiphrastic. Apex the. To
steps like us. For, had once Bauhaus rhythm, the
craft. Of whistle. A. Across certainty oozed say to. Is which,
fatally. Screen your in me. See I.

These stravaiging hands, cradling your phantoms,
but ignoring the billabongs.
The hard right becomes a hook. Raptoresque
pursuits of hiding. Scales where wounds
once whorled. I have been borrowed, of course,
where once I flowered. Terribly, terribly
a reader. Pilbara rivulets of sweat. No purport
to address you differently. Where once
Robo-debt took you rabbit-holing. They will speak of our
digital ipseity as a carapace; the carcass as a rainforest.
We knew it was all about the water-coloured
crystal. The hard right steals my beak.

Beak, my steals. Right. Hard, the crystal-coloured
water, the about all was. It knew we rainforest. A
as carcass. The carapace. A as ipseity. Digital
our; of speak, will. They, rabbit-holing; you,
took. Robo-debt once. Where differently. You address to
purport. No sweat. Of rivulets Pilbara reader. A
terribly, terribly flowered I. Once where
course of borrowed been have I whorled once,
wounds where scales. Hiding of pursuits
raptoresque, hook a ... Becomes right. Hard, the

billabongs.
The ignoring.


Image: Afif Ramdhasuma

Corey Wakeling

Corey Wakeling is a writer, scholar, and translator living in Tokyo. In 2013, he was granted a PhD in English and theatre studies at the University of Melbourne. Corey has lived in Japan since 2015, currently working as an associate professor of English literature at Aoyama Gakuin University. His most recent poetry collection, Uncle of Cats, appears with Cordite in 2024.

More by Corey Wakeling ›

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