From my home? I live in Macclesfield (England) which is just south of
Manchester. Padley Gorge is a wonderful oak wood/fast rocky river about
thirty miles away, nearer to Sheffield on the other side of the Pennines. I
was lucky enough to spend the morning walking through the woods and up onto
Over Owler Tor, Higger Tor and Carl Wark (Iron Age hill fort)........ grey
cloud and the wind sometimes chill, but sun breaking through and it didnt
start to hail till I was eating my chip buttie at the famous Grindleford
Station Café - perfect! So you see I was in a very romantic mood..... I
should have put the chip buttie in the piece though, it was formidable!
I enjoyed you piece Max - the additions you made seem to have a different
voice/rhythm, I can hear Whitman more clearly in them - I did wonder if
lines 14-21 would be well placed at the beginning......
I have enjoyed all of these so far. Cant be specific because there are so
many - bravo everyone, it isnt easy to take the risk of just writing and
sending in an instant but it is a very good discipline and very healthy for
the list to practise simply being poets in front of one another, without
shame (see thread on homophobia!)
Liz
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
> poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of cooee
> Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 5:19 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Snapshots
>
>
> How far is Padley Gorge from home?
>
> I hope more snapshots come out, timed and placed. so much is
> stimulating...
>
> My pre-dawn piece was circa 6am, but already it has been touched up, so I
> now send the expanded version...oh, the italics (Whitman's words) will be
> lost on this default font...
>
> Max Richards at Cooee, North Balwyn, Melbourne
>
> Dawn Song of Myself
>
> I'm perfectly well, mutters my inner voice,
> stirring its first syllables in the darkness.
>
> Coughing then wakes me my own, and it hurts.
> That didn't happen yesterday
>
> the virus defeated, a few symptoms lurked.
> But resonating my dead father¹s cough!
>
> all rasp and splutter, throughout my childhood,
> that then and thereafter kept me off tobaccoŠ.
>
> Shuffle into slippers, to the bathroom.
> Ech! tousled crumpled lopsided
>
> A gargoyle needing a gargle.
>
> Mirror mirror on the wall,
> I've become my father after all.
>
> Whitman! I think of you:
> The feeling of health....the full-noon trill....
>
> the song of me [prolong that me-e-e]
> rising from bed and meeting the sun.
>
> Obviously not an early riser.
> I think of me, short of breath me,
>
> my before-dawn assignation:
> flesh, take up your burden.
>
> Eye-contact! Sing....
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