Ah, that MacNeice poem:
"The drunkenness of things being various."
One of the lines of the last century, I often think.
I like your poem too, Jill, no carping about punctuation (!), in feel, or
mood, rather than form, it reminds me a little of Kenneth White, or even
Charles Tomlinson, actually in form too, I like it when people handle short
lines deftly.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Jill Jones" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2001 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: Poem by NonStopNY (inspired by: McCrae's "In Flanders Fields"
[1915])
on 22/12/01 10:23 PM, david.bircumshaw at [log in to unmask]
wrote:
> I'm never live down those commas!
Know how you feel.
>As I think I said, I deliberately posted a
> 'just-writ' first draft, only 20 minutes old. When I do the first
> 'roughcast' I either splay punctuation all over the place or put in none
at
> all, and then clean up the mess later.
Same here.
>
> I am chuckling about it.
>
> The heating will kick in at noon. Taipei, eh, for Christmas? Nice!
Visiting Australian friends. But yes it will be fascinating. I know Hk and
mainland China but never been to the 'ilha formsa'.
>Really we've had a very mild winter, blackbirds were still about in early >
December,
> as well as drowsy late in their lives dying flies.
Ah well. Thought I'd post a winter and summer verse for us all - though I do
suspect it's only thee and me about at the moment. First is Louis MacNeice's
poem and something of mine about summer (new and thereby prone to the same
living down you've been through).
Glad yr heating is coming on.
Cheers,
Jill
Snow
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for the world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes -
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of onešs hands -
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
Louis MacNeice
Summer
canals, parking lots
a hard diamond sky
chasing down the ball
sandstone and steel
scouring fixtures
tracts at the edge
a quick word
then godšs silence
and pain
on the surface
the slow cancers
nesting grounds
along the cliff edge
white birds, white sky.
Jill Jones
_________________________________
Jill Jones
50 Ruby Street
Marrickville NSW 2204
AUSTRALIA
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http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~jpjones
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