thevicarslice's review
4.0
Ethereal, haunting and spare. Strange poems where I felt like an outsider peering through a window onto something that hadn't been seen before.
deea_bks's review against another edition
4.0
I thought that poetry was not for me, but lately I have started to develop a taste for it. And the effect of some of these poems really lingers...
The Couple
They turn out the lamplight, and its white globe
glimmers for a moment: an aspirin rising and falling
then dissolving in a glass of darkness. Around them,
the hotel walls slide like a back-drop up into the night sky.
Love’s drama has died down, and they’re sleeping now,
but their dreams will meet as colours meet
and bleed into each other
in the dampened pages of a child’s painting-book.
All around is dark, and silent. The city has drawn in,
extinguishing its windows. The houses have approached.
They crowd in close, attentive:
this audience of cancelled faces.
___________________
TO FRIENDS BEHIND A BORDER
I
I wrote to you so cautiously. But what I couldn't say
filled and grew like a hot-air balloon
and finally floated away through the night sky.
II
Now my letter is with the censor. He lights his lamp.
In its glare my words leap out like monkeys at a wire mesh,
clattering it, stopping to bear their teeth.
III
Read between the lines. We will meet in two hundred years
when the microphones in the hotel walls are forgotten –
when they can sleep at last, become ammonites.
_________________________
From March 1979
Sick of those who come with words,
words but no language,
I make my way to the snow-covered
island.
Wilderness has no words. The
unwritten pages
stretch out in all directions.
I come across this line of deer-slots
in the snow: a language,
language without words.
_______________________
Black Postcards
I
The calendar is full but the future is
blank.
The wires hum the folk-tune of
some forgotten land.
Snow-fall on the lead-still sea.
Shadows
scrabble on the pier.
II
In the middle o life, death comes
to take your measurements. The
visit
is forgotten and life goes on. But the
suit
is being sewn on the sly.
________________________
Fire Graffiti
Throughout those dismal months
my life was only sparked alight
when I made love to you.
As the firefly ignites and fades,
ignites and fades, we follow the
flashes
of its flight in the dark among the olive trees.
Throughout those dismal months,
my soul sat slumped and lifeless
but my body walked to yours.
The night sky was lowing.
We milked the cosmos secretly, and survived.
_______________________
Island City, 1860
I
One day when she was rinsing clothes at
the jetty
the chill of the sea rose up through her
arms
and into her soul.
Her tears froze to a pair of spectacles. The
island
gathered itself, its white grass bristling,
and the herring lag streamed in the
depths of the sea.
II
The swarm of smallpox caught up with
him
and settled on his face.
He lies in bed, staring into the ceiling.
What huge effort to move through this
silence.
The stain of this moment spreading out
forever,
this moment's wound in its ever-
widening pool.
The Couple
They turn out the lamplight, and its white globe
glimmers for a moment: an aspirin rising and falling
then dissolving in a glass of darkness. Around them,
the hotel walls slide like a back-drop up into the night sky.
Love’s drama has died down, and they’re sleeping now,
but their dreams will meet as colours meet
and bleed into each other
in the dampened pages of a child’s painting-book.
All around is dark, and silent. The city has drawn in,
extinguishing its windows. The houses have approached.
They crowd in close, attentive:
this audience of cancelled faces.
___________________
TO FRIENDS BEHIND A BORDER
I
I wrote to you so cautiously. But what I couldn't say
filled and grew like a hot-air balloon
and finally floated away through the night sky.
II
Now my letter is with the censor. He lights his lamp.
In its glare my words leap out like monkeys at a wire mesh,
clattering it, stopping to bear their teeth.
III
Read between the lines. We will meet in two hundred years
when the microphones in the hotel walls are forgotten –
when they can sleep at last, become ammonites.
_________________________
From March 1979
Sick of those who come with words,
words but no language,
I make my way to the snow-covered
island.
Wilderness has no words. The
unwritten pages
stretch out in all directions.
I come across this line of deer-slots
in the snow: a language,
language without words.
_______________________
Black Postcards
I
The calendar is full but the future is
blank.
The wires hum the folk-tune of
some forgotten land.
Snow-fall on the lead-still sea.
Shadows
scrabble on the pier.
II
In the middle o life, death comes
to take your measurements. The
visit
is forgotten and life goes on. But the
suit
is being sewn on the sly.
________________________
Fire Graffiti
Throughout those dismal months
my life was only sparked alight
when I made love to you.
As the firefly ignites and fades,
ignites and fades, we follow the
flashes
of its flight in the dark among the olive trees.
Throughout those dismal months,
my soul sat slumped and lifeless
but my body walked to yours.
The night sky was lowing.
We milked the cosmos secretly, and survived.
_______________________
Island City, 1860
I
One day when she was rinsing clothes at
the jetty
the chill of the sea rose up through her
arms
and into her soul.
Her tears froze to a pair of spectacles. The
island
gathered itself, its white grass bristling,
and the herring lag streamed in the
depths of the sea.
II
The swarm of smallpox caught up with
him
and settled on his face.
He lies in bed, staring into the ceiling.
What huge effort to move through this
silence.
The stain of this moment spreading out
forever,
this moment's wound in its ever-
widening pool.
More...