I like the formulation of this poem but my eyes started to mist over after
the half way stage. I think the idea would carry better if a lot of padding
was trimmed and the poem therefore be more effective. I know we need to
break out from the 40 lines we are conditioned too by poetry competitions,
but sometimes the poem tell us otherwise. It told me it wants to be shorter.
Hope this helps.
bw
James
>From: "Dewar Colin [FVPC]" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: newsub(building)
>Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 11:53:37 -0000
>
>At work in this building
>
>
>
>
>
>This building is awash
>in an autumn wind
>where branches curl like waves
>
>about to fall and surge up,
>where kaleidoscope clouds
>pummel the air with their turning
>
>where the moon thunders by in its bowling alley,
>where meteors like missiles
>zip invisibly in near misses
>
>while the dark centre of the galaxy,
>the ghost hole that crushes and sucks in all that approaches
>goes on sucking and crushing like a cosmic gullet.
>
>Soon this craft will be sunk by time in a stone ocean.
>Bricks slip from its side, slates loosen.
>Rain trickles in from a window pane
>
>or drips through the ceiling to a plastic pan.
>It is being worn by the same forces
>that wedge rocks apart and level mountains
>
>but in its sheltering hollow
>we know none of this,
>walk obliviously in corridors,
>
>labyrinthine as a rabbit's warren,
>past illuminated pastel walls
>as bland and featureless as marzipan.
>
>They offer us no record of time.
>The floor of slotted nylon tiles
>is firm on its boards,
>
>shows no sign of lifting in a sailor's wake
>nor what abyssal currents bear us on.
>We may not love but we live here.
>
>Our roles are given and we need them to know each other,
>would be lost if we met elsewhere
>but here we play our part in a process,
>
>co-operate like ants,
>enact titanic ritual to the end.
>Even as this vessel slowly sinks
>
>its warmth is steady in winter,
>as homeostatic as the human form,
>a second skin to insulate from all that would terrify and subdue.
>
>The waters of the world have not broached its boilers yet.
>The fluorescent tubes give constant light.
>We cannot even see the moon
>
>until we enter an unlit room
>and that moon is kind,
>when watched outside its freezing flight.
>
>We cannot feel the wind.
>So why should we know that this refuge is fleeting
>as a cave of branches in a battered wood?
>
>Cups and plumbing pipe tamed water to our lips,
>assist customs that we spin out
>as if endowed with all the time in the world.
>
>Cupboards hoard cassettes faithfully in our voice
>until we come back.
>E-mail lassos connections in absence,
>
>distorts dead matter to electronic presence
>as though the world's elements
>were there for our whim,
>
>the universe made slave
>and not a bulldozer leaning on an ant's raft.
>Right to the end of the day
>
>it maintains us in this limbo
>that is and is not life,
>familiar as the human face,
>
>where we stare at each other bewildered,
>comforted by substance only,
>yet knowing exactly what to say.
>
>
>_______________________________
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