Month: March 2010
Dropped Back
The Mores (John Clare, 1793-1864)
“As fallen landscapes from an evening sky
These paths are stopt – the rude philistine’s thrall
Is laid upon them and destroyed them all
Each little tyrant with his little sign
Shows where man claims earth glows no more divine
But paths to freedom and to childhood dear
A board sticks up to notice ‘no road here’
And on the tree with ivy overhung
The hated sign by vulgar taste is hung
As tho’ the very birds should learn to know
When they go there they must no further go
Thus, with the poor, scared freedom bade goodbye
And much they feel it in the smothered sigh
And birds and trees and flowers without a name
All sighed when lawless law’s enclosure came …”
Tunnel Visions
Blue Pencil
Sharply scratching, gently penetrating,
the page.
A blue-led daubed era.
Beginning,
or Not.
Catch it, scratch it,
dessicated like Liz’s dog dream.
Rim-worn sunglasses,
falling cities in her eyes.
An urban trope,
suburban hope.
Wailing away,
inside.
A crying baby,
a gaunt wink –
within my eye,
outside my eye.
There is a lot to be learnt.