L is this another of your nightmares?
Fingers are getting tired; he can't hold on
much longer
P
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Lawrence Upton
Sent: 19 November 2014 13:55
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Triangle of light
Bright triangle turning into a sharp dog's head;
not a Border Collie's, but something like.
It's sky blue with a fluffy white cloud
as a break between canopying trees;
and that becomes a furry canine skull.
A seal comes up through triangular gaps
in ice. Someone passes a macaroon.
Traffic goes by outside. A fat-necked man
keeps eyes shut tightly and continues talking
to his wife though she is not listening.
They close the curtains too early. It's day.
It's still really very light. Brown shadows
dart about the fourth wall of the room. Two hands
beside guns on a low coffee table.
Later, when it's dark, you go back into
that room again, to the sudden darkness. Somehow
there's light there as if there were inner shine
in your head but you cannot see how much
it's heavily smudged charcoal. The afternoon,
then birdsong; melting butter loud-sizzling
in a deep-bottomed pan. Sunlight on a loch;
fishing rods upright in fishermen's hands; the hills
opposite beneath the sun, detail in glare.
Geometric shapes; industrial units
above the prefabricated new estate;
incandescence of the setting star; white light
blinking in the video camera; notation
of seconds being recorded with action;
jagged pan across nineteen thirties' apartments;
most of the curtains pulled back, but no sign
of activity, yet a sense that all those rooms
are inhabited. The Christmas tree from Norway,
fifteen degrees from upright, being tugged;
an expectant murmuring in a mad crowd;
an oily blueness in the stream as it
goes down, like petrol poured from a can. You know,
dear, says his wife, she spends money
compulsively. Everything she'll buy's sensible
in itself, but she never wants anything
of it. She spends money from need of work.
Paste blue fractures of paint superimposed
on the surface, breaking the illusion of pictures.
A little ochre-coloured pendant of rock
he does not recognise. She picks it up
and looks at it and says chalcedony;
but that's said just for its sonic effect
and's not a realistic suggestion.
Song of the reel upon the rod. Opens
his eyes. Still going terribly fast. Always
been scared of motorbikes. Am I on one?
Fingers are getting tired; he can't hold on
much longer. Horse with white down the middle
of its nose jogs out of the black and white
photograph crumpled up beside the gas fire.
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