Hi Bob,
The last line you're thinking of is "one thing we have to get, John, out of
this life." It's from November, which was in Zoom, and I think the Selected
Poems too.
Love the poem, Colin. I never get tired of Robinson being revived, and I
think you've breathed new life into him here. I wasn't mad about the lobster
line, but I think the rest of it works really well.
Matt
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Cooper [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 08 September 2003 21:44
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: newsub/Sabbatical
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Hi Colin,
Good ol' Robinson again! Sort of Simon Armitagey (I write with a smile!) and
OK for that! Such a demotic, energetic, style fits the subject matter well.
The last line has an echo of another Armitage poem in it (but, even tho I've
searched I can't find which one!)... Something he used to read with the
preface that he'd taken the line from the old TV cowboy series, Alias Smith
& Jones. I'm still finding myself startled by Robinson being like a lobster
in "altered" water (not sure if altered means warming water?) and not sure -
if the journey began in the morning (I mean he's driving to work and I'm
assuming he's not a night-shift worker! - how it can have become night so
quickly. Oh yes, another thing, "a rag man, a bone man" - we used to have "a
rag & bone man" (ie one man, not two separate men...) but I almost miss
noticing that because I'm caught by the rhythm of your words! It's a fine,
fun, serious, rememberful read! Bob
>From: Colin dewar <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: newsub/Sabbatical
>Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 20:12:56 +0100
>
>Robinson's Sabbatical
>
>
>I was too confident
>driving that route to work, day after day.
>I took for granted
>the vast distances that armies marched in a month
>that I passed with my foot on the pedal
>so carelessly it seemed I dreamt my way
>along the road.
>
>I wasn't paying attention.
>I got distracted
>by a crow that flew straight overhead
>and in that direction
>turned off at the roundabout
>when I shouldn't have,
>and it's not an ordinary day anymore.
>It's not as calming as things are
>when they're dead familiar.
>
>I had forgotten what hazards I roared past,
>much faster to rabbit and robin
>than it seemed to me
>dreaming at the wheel.
>I'd become accustomed to the hedgerows
>with stiff twigs aligned in one direction only,
>see now what I'd missed before,
>the upturned thorns,
>mud caked on the heifer's haunch
>and the ruts on the track
>to the knacker's yard.
>
>If I drive in a straight line
>I might get back to where I was,
>to what seems precious now
>and not be diverted and lost,
>the hot car hard behind me,
>making it impossible to stop.
>
>If I could only find my way back
>I would not feel like a lobster
>that finds the water altered
>for the first time,
>so guided in
>to a rough area by night.
>
>Some people live here all their lives,
>in houses with dark windows,
>in doorways with plastic bags,
>blank faces of children staring back,
>syringes by bridges in moonlight,
>the genitals on walls in red paint.
>
>Heaven knows how I came to be here,
>in such a state.
>I will work as a rag man, a bone man,
>a banger of nails
>but I have to get back to my life.
>
>
>
>Colin
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