Thanks much for this poem, Doug, I like it very much, especially the way it sort
of breaks in the middle, here
> if it is love that fingers in the mind
>wake with a touch
> curious
>I remember only what was lost
>
>plotting my own purges and despairs
as if breaking, interrupted by feeling, into some deep questioning of oneself,
that troubling and being troubled, where these losses and lists intersect, so
many thanks,
Rebecca
---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 08:58:50 -0700
>From: Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Gulag system
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Some of the enws has been out there.
>
>I'm reminded of a poem by Canadian writer, Eli Mandel:
>
>Beware the Sick Lion
>
>They say Stalin at night
>sleepless in the suburbs of Moscow
>drew up long lists of enemies
>
> think of that dreadful paper
>
> to be sentenced by the pen
>of an insomniac sleep-writing
>
> new stars wheel over Spain
>bulldozers cut roads through groves
>in Africa moors rule who once ruled Spain
>
> sleepless I pace before barred windows
>fake-andalusian arches and toward sea
>a Parador only cuts lines against the dark
>where dark Greeks and Phoenicians sailed
>
> if it is love that fingers in the mind
>wake with a touch
> curious
>I remember only what was lost
>
>plotting my own purges and despairs
>
>& as a poet, connecting it to questioning himself...
>
>This has been a very interesting conversation. And I too was grateful
>to get the url for the Ash article.
>
>Doug
>Douglas Barbour
>Department of English
>University of Alberta
>Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
>(780) 436 3320
>http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
>
>The poet is ecstatic, having dreamt of this visit for weeks.
>He takes Erato’s face, dribbling and wild, between his hands
>
>and kisses her gently as if she were a runaway teenager.
>
> Diana Hartog
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