Hi Arthur,
This is good stuff, though I've made some comments in the text.
bw
James


>From: arthur seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub: Untitled as yet.
>Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2002 08:09:34 +0100
>
>  I'm not sure how close this is to being finished but I am giving it an
>airing and then may sit on it for a while. Comments welcome.Regards Arthur.
>
>
>                                (i)
>
>An hour before my train left, I strolled
>under the shadow of the great cathedral’s leap of stone.
>The close streets warm and gloomy.
>An antique shop, the bell tinkled, a step down,
>smells of lavender and damp, polished wood bloomed.
>
>Beneath some stairs, half-hidden,
>the clock, works housed in black slate,
>trimmed with ornate brass, leaf and vine,
>intertwined, hands frozen at ten past three,
>mute and lost where no sun shines.
>
>Time is understood through motion observed.
>Hands orbit as springs uncoil,
>potential is expressed kinetically,
>declines to a system in seeming stasis, but what was slate
>and brass before? And still to be unwound? (Instead of posing a question 
>why not just make a statement eg "slate and brass were unwound before")
>
>The tick of escapement, reciprocal tock, (escapement grates for me)
>the flicker of a hair spring,
>toothed wheel meshed with toothed wheel,
>mechanical division of the indivisible,
>Zeno’s slicing of the unsliceable.
>
>I traced my finger through the dust,
>looked at the price tag,
>let it drop with a soft suck through pursed lips,
>squinted at the dazzle of the day beyond
>and made my way towards the trains and home.
>
>
>
>                           (ii)
>
>The swish of cars down wet roads
>their lights move over my closed curtains,
>then night resumes, the arrow flies
>across my room, glow of numbers changing,
>the electronic toll of the dark hours.
>
>Soft insistence of the heart (These two lines are a little hackneyed)
>and tides of breath beat out my span,
>per second, per second.
>I shake my hand, deadened by my body’s weight,
>and feel the loosed blood thrill again.
>
>The sun climbs over the leaden dial, (Does it have to be leaden? Doesn't 
>really work for me. I'd just say dial.)
>stone plinth scabbed with lichen, fast rooted,
>aligned to the earth’s tilt
>it measures and enumerates
>a gnomon’s shadow.  (gnomon?)
>
>I have watched flies butt and buzz,
>eyes flash, wink, fail and dim
>birds flit, clouds drift, sands shift,
>leaves quiver, grasses sway, seas lap
>and rivers run under the apparent journeys of the sun. (An overdose of 
>adjective here but works if you dampen adjective in other stanzas to 
>increase the effect)
>
>A golden leaf taps my shoulder,
>the bird-abandoned nut swings freely in space,
>swoop of shadow on the patio,
>leaf and petal -fall, moons in thrall, pendulous nut,
>all evaluations of the same equations.




bw
James


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