What do retired people who write poetry do but fiddle and fart around with
their own words. Here is the latest and perhaps last version of that lumpy
text I threw at you earlier this week. Thanks to Judy, Patrick, Doug,
Frederick and anyone else who addressed the mess for me. Off list, Andrew
Taylor also helped steer me right.
The Poetical Works (title)
Forty six years on
and still I warm my hands
over it. It opens me out like
a choir singing rounds
in eighteenth century London.
I take it down from the shelf to
remember her now, sophisticated lady
who in a Sydney harbourside mansion
placed Blake's poems in my hands,
me in my overalls and boots, and said,
'We've been waiting for you.' She
patted Blake's flimsy skin
aged to a cream veinless patina.
'We know you'll enjoy this , boy.'
Alf, ragged aged removalist,
said, 'Let's go.' I went
down my own back roads
since then, through cities and fields,
to land awkwardly as a pelican on
this seat this morning
to remember my bottle-scarred muse, alive
with Blake's pulse in the skein of days.
Thanks all.
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
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