Thanks for advices on this. The hiatus at the end of the poem has been
sorted out, the email has gone (replaced by a message in a bottle!)
the beginnings of the lines have been looked at and some of the definite
articles have gone, to good effect, and the ending is simpler and I think
nicer. Two of you thought it was a 'dreary' or 'weary' list and this
surprised me, because I wasn't trying to put dreary things down, just that
there were so many of them you could get weary!
Sally-ee
Hyperpoem: A new song for Simeon
And I have known them all already, known them all:
the logs lying on beaches in Australia,
ships going through the Panama canal;
the elephant playing with paints provided
by the recipient of the Indian equivalent
of an arts council project grant;
the great films and the worthy books
the words in the books and the cumulative effect
of the cellulose frames in the film;
the lame excuses and protestations
the mussels in the river without pearls
and the mussels destroyed for pearls
the stag baying on the hillside
the ant scurrying under the antirrhinums;
stories of survival at sea written
by those who have actually survived;
the walls of castles become insecure with age
and the neglect of the owners;
the turrets of castles built high and mighty
on the skyline;
a football crowd of Scots going home
after being defeated by the English;
the cousin, the second cousin, the business associate,
the intractable daughter and the aunt,
the pampered animal and the stray animal;
records played loudly and regularly on the radio;
musicians on city pavements carrying their
odd-shaped musical instruments in cases;
the leaves falling off the forest trees,
and those that remain on their trees;
the children filing into school, and the soldiers
scattered over the battlefield;
water turning to ice, desired and not desired;
mankind who cannot be called happy until he is dead,
but often makes a good job of the impossible;
the boat coming in to the beach, the long crossed letter,
the message bobbing in a bottle, forever unread,
and winter flowers that come out every spring.
And I have known them all already, known them all,
no end to them
until there is only one unknown left to discover,
and it isnšt the world which will end.
Sally Evans
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