Mike, more of the thoughtful comments I have come to expect from your
quarter.

One line I cut out was "for once it does not matter". I hope that the
vandalism is perceived as less distressing than normal because the house is
falling apart anyway. So the kicked kettle is just one more image of
dissolution. The view thing is central and it's a pity I haven't expressed
it better. I often ponder how a space is changed by human structures over
the top of it or how it differs when they disappear. So the view is and is
not the same. The view from the window in whatever room you are in now has
certain connotations because of the place (metaphor for context) from which
it is viewed. But if you take place or context away, what is left? Quite a
lot obviously, but what? Unshackled suggests that the clouds are no longer
harnessed to a particular perspective, because there is no longer an
occupant viewer. Soon there will be nothing at all but a space on the moors
that people walk through with out stopping, choosing their own viewpoint
from further up the glen. The poem is in part a metaphor for the dissolution
of a particular perspective on things or way of being  but is grounded in
real experience (I was there and thought/ felt those things). I don't mind
if the reader takes from it a comment on their own perspective of the world.

Thanks for taking an interest in the poem.

Colin




----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 7:49 AM
Subject: Re: newsub/dissolution


Hello Colin,
            I think you´ve got a good subject, tone and focus in this poem.
A few small points you might like to look at again. I´d cut `that´ in line
2. I was a bit put off by the vandalism in line 5. At first I thought
stamping on a rusty kettle was too trivial for an act of vandalsim, unlike
defacing the wall. But now I think the problem is that in such a location
the presence of a dented, rusty kettle would not appear as an example of
vandalism, whereas a defaced wall would. In line 8 I´m a bit puzzled why the
view was `once beautiful´, surely the view has not deteriorated along with
the house. I´m not sure `unshackled´ in line 11 is really the word you
want.´I´ve only mentioned the things that I felt might need reworking, all
the rest works very well and creates an interesting atmosphere.


Best wishes,   Mike




--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Dissolution

Around the bend
a house that we enter,
wary of rafter and falling floor.
Vandals came before,
staved in the sides of a rusted kettle
and defaced the wall.

Heads of grass dance on the bright sill,
overlooking what was once a beautiful view
on an afternoon like this.
Watery moors shine through
and unshackled clouds cruise overhead.
This house is returning to the unhuman,
into the pit of the earth,
ground under the hooves of cows,
washed into the beds of clear streams.



 Colin