The beginning
That life. That poem. Anywhere’s luminous drift, begin
with, there,
Here, one more white low passing unreal gull, say, begin
There, Stornaway, the fuzzy blue outlines, lochans
and isles.
Blank, sky, the white sheet. The page. Begin, yes.
Luminous drift, white low passing unreal gull, begin,
Begin. Brine, blankness on blankness, sky, sheet.
By the warm funnel, looking back, the creaming wake,
blustery,
The guilt-dark water. Or Cornwall. A gull, a blank sky, grey
Dunes, grey wasting sands, some sort of factory across
The bay, begin there, forty-six, a rust stream
Cutting sluggishly its way to the sea. Begin
At the dead, J.S. for example, fine-featured,
Almost gone now, twenty-five years, twenty-six,
shoulderlengthhair
Smashed & bloodied, a man barely, perfumed dribble
of Incense
In the room, afternoons, curtains drawn, ‘This Moment”
Playing. And Tristan’s stone. Words melted by rain. Names
Perishing, faces going. Anywhere’s luminous drift
Beyond all this. Cherries, mock-marble, throat scar.
Luminous drifts of knowledge, of fiction, of
Incandescent lines. Places. Valtos. Delos. Bug River. Smoo.
To get back to it after eighteen years you begin,
broken-winged,
With anywhere’s luminous drift, begin
By the bowl upon a mock-marble surface, cherries
Wrinkled and moist beneath, the putrefaction
At first like ash, then fur. And table salt. All
In the blink of an eye, the first phrase, word,
Words, so that you forget this fat, this grey,
Thinning hair, throat scar, and go with it, with them,
Desirable cherries, young faces, grey wasting sands,
Some sort of factory across the bay, the creaming wake,
The blue outlines, lochans and Isles
Floating away, float-float-floating away.
Page(s) 4-5
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The