Yeah, Doug, that connection is meant, but at a slower pace, I think would
go too fast (conceptually) with the deletion, and wouldn't build up the
speed of rhythm, the impetus, required, adequately. Too much slide in fact
. A sort of whoops with a whoosh :)
best
dave
On 1 November 2011 15:07, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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
>
>
>
>
--
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/
|