Occasional Impressions - music, prose, poetry and prayer on the web

15. Object in a Folk-Museum Pinned on a card A dry and smooth, not quite transparent something, ‘Caul, or’ (says the label), ‘membrane Covering some new-born babies’ heads’ (This dry thing swaddling A sticky newborn face, - Presumably preserving the illusion Of better days now gone for good, Of cosy liquid dark). Anyway, Keep this (they say) And you need never fear death by drowning. Let us reflect awhile on rural superstitions... You, gentle reader, Think that not many children now Are born with this. You’re wrong, Most of us are, only, somehow, It’s hardly ever noticed, and We wear it proudly (or we would be proud, Only, being behind, we can’t see that We’ve got it on, you see?) A wonderful invention, Refracting needle-colours from our virgin eyes, Shielding away the wind, The wind and rain and storm, O, That push up waves for drowning men. We walk like thieves, With nylon stockings phasing out The contours of a face. The contours of a person we need never see Both here and there and him and you and me, Seductive warming waves on nevertobecharted sea. Thank you, I’d rather drown. rdw - mar 1972 16. Eyes - now green, now hazel... Eyes - now green, now hazel, but clouded in fear, Or sometimes disfigured by malice infernal; So seldom they laugh, yet a look shining clear Will live for a moment her beauty eternal. jeh 17. Pity I have been tuned to a jarring key... Pity I have been tuned to a jarring key, That my strings pick up the sad frequencies in tunes, And play back a dirge in stead of music. Pity I am water so that sunlight is refracted Distorted Not Itself in me The Sun gets wet in me And that is not Sunlight. Phantasy How can I lie? How can I tell the truth? Me & the fishes speak a different language down here. lkm aug.1971 18. (return to policy of new poems) I am amazed by the way, mr poet hacks away at the dictionary, the bible & the words stuttered in his bed to say something with an edge as precise as stone. it is the white spaces that amaze where the brain has picked at the eyeball at this cuttle fish, to let the air in around the words - manured under a caged bird where the sleeping vocabulary in the black can only come out with this hack so precise - each person does it in his own way creates a slide & polished ride around a skull of words. amazing - so precise... ijf 19. Counterpoint One the heavy fastswinging beat of a large cheap clock by the bedside lamp, with thick black hands that-move to thick black tempo of a boiling kettledrum. Two the giggling hysterical patter of a small gold watch by my bookside fingers, with skeketal hands that dance to the scratching of an insect's fingernail on glass. Three the slow tumescent heaving of a large small pulse in my selfside veins, with wordfull hands that beat precariously to the muffled rhythm of a tide without a shore. This syncopation to a groundbass nobody can hear. rdw 20. The circumference is the centre... The circumference is the centre I have longed to be the centre where the pressure is greatest of love & pain. How I see in the pressure also a tearing apart. My arms are outstretched in the vulnerability of life in death From self-destruction to identification The immeasurable diameter of God To exist in the non-existent Moment of the intersection of Time & Eternity And so to create? Being Over Against - That is the intensity of Life. lkm 21. Chant (sort of)? here - take this - it is beautiful it is the skin of a refugee boy lying across my hand its shining sweat take it, not as a poem but as a beauty - do not tack it to the wall above your bed or wrap it round your head like a leopard’s fur - do not press it - so precise - between the leaves of a book do not stroke it with your finger-tips and purr do not screen it around the room where you sit or discuss it with pleasant smoking friends here - take this - it is beautiful it is the skin of an orphan boy. ijf

Occasional Impressions Poetry Collections - The Gemini Poets (1972)