Robert Conquest
Seal Rock: San Francisco
Quite close to the abrupt city
Set on a circuit of bay,
Rocks shrug off the Pacific
A cable-length from the cliff:
Non-humans inhabit that spray.
Last night in a North Beach bar
I was shown, by a fine poet,
Arrangements of syllables
To the levity of dance
And the labour of thought.
Which it’s tempting to match with
The accomplished arc, all
The swing of the seal’s dive,
His romping swim in
A sun-and-spray sparkle.
How can a real being
Float, tamed to another’s
Symbol, though? The differences,
Escaping such aquaria,
Plunge superb. Yet reminders,
Connectives merely, may
Splash illumination
Over his hot solids:
If his tight fury is absent
May spin the wake of his action
Across the more often forgotten:
Arrogance of pure art,
And gross humour of enjoyment.
—The blue heave bans all set
Choreographies, for a start:
Not trying to be, just being,
Subduing the willed; the poem
Living the poet; all that move
Amphibious, so emerging
Out of a dark, deep medium
Where they can live but not breathe.
Meanwhile, watching these
Big-eyed, unanxious sea-things,
We can enjoy the merely
Actual: a good thing for verse.
Page(s) 28-30
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