Thanks for that, Douglas.
Curiously, the repeated 'Swirl' is one element of the piece I am,
instinctively, sure about. I wanted it there to frame both beginning and
end, to make the linearity in time of the poem ,as it were, circular, or
encircled. I wanted it too because it is ambiguous: is it a verb or a noun?
if it is a verb is it a command and if so who is speaking?
I still hold by, very much so, the grammatical disruptions of 'modernism',
for me they help lift poetry away from the threat of being merely
descriptive or anecdotal, and open 'voice' into 'voices'.
Best
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Clark" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001 11:30 PM
Subject: Re: While it is hushed
> Not quite sure about 'Swirl' at the end. Otherwise I like it.
> Back to 'A Bridge too far' now.
>
>
>
> Douglas Clark, Bath, England mailto: [log in to unmask]
> Lynx: Poetry from Bath ..........
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html
>
> On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>
> > As it's quiet, here's a nice little ditty I've been playing with today,
in
> > between some new website building, and glancing at the Aussies expunging
> > England in the final Test.
> >
> > Any thoughts? It's very early yet.
> >
> > And on a totally different subject, does anyone have any extended
> > information about the Russian poet Gennady Aygy's (sp?) career - I've
only
> > ever seen a couple of his, from the Sixties I think, and I was
intrigued.
> >
> > Best
> >
> > Dave (ditty below)
> >
> > ********
> >
> > Swirl
> >
> > I was lying there,
> > like ham on a cold table,
> > dead. Like somebody
> > elsed.
> >
> > I drifted
> > a ghostly hand
> > through the skull's
> > still catacombs.
> >
> > And felt the shock
> > of no current, a stripped
> > honeyless hive.
> >
> > Corpses,
> > they say, sometimes
> > sit up, sudden
> > as a compass jab, in
> > the mortuaries, it's
> > gas, I remember,
> > the stomach's does it.
> >
> > I must have been
> > my memories
> > hovering above
> >
> > an after-glow
> > on the retina, rub
> > your eyeballs
> >
> > the last imprint
> > before dispersal.
> >
> > Swirl.
> >
>
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