Hi all, this is the ten verse sequence the first four of which I posted
under the working title 'the heat from my head'.
Grassy and Arthur both commented on what was then the 'concluding' verse -
verse four below. Perhaps it make a little bit more sense in context now.
No, Grassy - I'd missed dreary old Leonard (only joking - I used to have
that album). To Arthur's point, well I'm a great fan of ambivalence, indeed
multivalence, in writing. In so far as that verse refers to a state of
almost manic depression it is intended to flip between the throw-away
stupid and, especially if one picks up the Basho reference, the very
bitter.
Any and all comment welcome as ever. Thanks, John
--
midges bathe in the heat from my head
before they too are gone
a pheasant calls me all the way from China
oaks pull upward from their moorings
deep within the floating world
but truly monkey did you give a poet's
stroke the pen across the page
and now the heron's feathers blue
a dog will bark no matter what the season
trout fly sideways from the surface
upstream of the fisherman
a stranger stops to ask me for directions
from the steam train children smile
a greeting to the unknown lens
the rattletats fade before they too are gone
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