Youre probably right, Dave, but I felt the piece would move from the cows to your 'slow animal' as a connection, animal to animal, & a faster slide...
Doug
On 2011-11-01, at 2:21 AM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
> Thanks Doug. The deletion though - I think it would unbalance the poem to
> the point where I wouldn't consider it viable. The bovine constituency is
> certainly required for its democratic base (!) while the impetus of rhythm
> would disappear. I looked at bit without the lines and found myself reading
> a relative of those moneyed poems of perception that travel throughout
> English language poetry.
>
> Why did you want to delete them, might I ask? (The bells are electrically
> operated btw and the tower has a kind of squat, muscular look that hints at
> a neighbourliness to nineteenth century muscular christianity, despite its
> catholicism. The abbey, you might not know, has a dark side, in that it was
> enlisted in running a reformatory, at which the monks were hopelessly
> incompetent, but the experiences there were used at the base of the late
> 19th/ early 20th century children's penal system: the monk' incapacity in
> dealing with precociously tough kids from Liverpool's docksides became a
> further argument for disciplinarianism.)
>
> best
>
> dave
>
>
>
> On 31 October 2011 21:14, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I too like it David, but unlike Chris, although I understand why he liked
>> those lines, I would suggest deleting
>>
>>> All meat and milk
>>>
>>> in steep sunk sleep, a cud of dreams,
>>>
>>> untroubled by the muscled tower's
>>>
>>> electric prod, its bells' peals' starry tongue
>>>
>>> this herd has never heard
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> since its first day tired.
>>
>> as the rest seems slippery & more interesting in the way it moves...
>>
>> Doug
>> On 2011-10-29, at 8:10 AM, David Bircumshaw wrote:
>>
>>> I don't know whether anyone would like to comment on the following piece
>> but
>>> it is something I've been pushing about recently following a short stay
>> at a
>>> Cistercian monastery guest-lodge. I'm not a Roman Catholic myself, so the
>>> poem has no doctrinal sensitivities or claims:
>>>
>>>
>>> *Monk's Guest House*
>>>
>>>
>>> Some distant schools of stars in swarm
>>>
>>> above a spire, and farm,
>>>
>>> and drowsing cows. All meat and milk
>>>
>>> in steep sunk sleep, a cud of dreams,
>>>
>>> untroubled by the muscled tower's
>>>
>>> electric prod, its bells' peals' starry tongue
>>>
>>> this herd has never heard
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> since its first day tired. My watch face
>>>
>>> says three and my slow animal wakes
>>>
>>> as the bells' claw and clamber breaks
>>>
>>> the burr and mumble
>>>
>>> of where am I am. Legs and arms, feet
>>>
>>> to hands assemble
>>>
>>>
>>> like lines racing a plough. I snub
>>>
>>> forward into night-buttoned, carbon
>>>
>>> promising air, head down
>>>
>>> toward shell spills of crackle, side
>>>
>>> slips of gravel and a door
>>>
>>>
>>> homed low on a still stone hull
>>>
>>> where a shy
>>>
>>> bay chapel waits
>>>
>>> us and the hushed sparse wash
>>>
>>>
>>> of dark and morning vigil.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> David Joseph Bircumshaw
>>> "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe
>> is
>>> that none of it has tried to contact us."
>>> - Calvin & Hobbes
>>> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
>>> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
>>> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
>>> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
>>> twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
>>> blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
>>>
>>
>> Douglas Barbour
>> [log in to unmask]
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>>
>> Latest books:
>> Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
>> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
>> Wednesdays'
>>
>> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
>>
>> Why poetry? And why not, I asked,
>> my right brain humming sedition.
>>
>> Phyllis Webb
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> David Joseph Bircumshaw
> "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is
> that none of it has tried to contact us."
> - Calvin & Hobbes
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
> twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
> blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
>
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
Why poetry? And why not, I asked,
my right brain humming sedition.
Phyllis Webb
|