I'm with Doug on that comment, Jill. I found the passage hauntingly
beautiful. As the poem itself. Thanks, Sheila
On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 6:02 AM, Jill Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Doug,
>
> Thanks.
>
> I think it's particularly about offices built in a certain era, the grey
> era, let's say.
>
> Sometimes I scare myself.
>
> Cheers,
> Jill
>
>
> On 13/08/2015, at 12:33 AM, Douglas Barbour wrote:
>
> > Ah, could be many (any) offices, Jill, & so I felt a general malaise
> there.
> >
> > Loved the line break here:
> >
> > You didn’t know what you now need
> >
> > to know,
> >
> > And that penultimate stanza…
> >
> > Doug
> > On Aug 12, 2015, at 1:48 AM, Jill Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> CLOUD OF UNKNOWING
> >>
> >> Futures form in ignorance
> >>
> >> in stray spaces, weeds progress like seasons
> >>
> >> outside offices there’s more confusion just as within
> >>
> >> there’s a light which offers no light.
> >>
> >> It switches on and off, no-one lends a hand.
> >>
> >> An envelope leans against a door
> >>
> >> another hullabaloo has been ripped down
> >>
> >> events pass and numbers out date themselves
> >>
> >> the season closes down, the corridor seems furious.
> >>
> >> There’s a new fire warden, someone’s updated
> >>
> >> the security code, goodness, it seems to work.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> You didn’t know what you now need
> >>
> >> to know, there’s a weird kind of latency
> >>
> >> after dark though there’s still all that stalking.
> >>
> >> The photocopier seizes the paper.
> >>
> >> The computer seizes the idea. The idea seizes.
> >>
> >> There are no ideas, the paper is waste.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> We come alongside ourselves without warning.
> >>
> >> It’s scary, who are we? If you don’t know, go home.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Unknowing is better away from the stairs.
> >>
> >> Don’t look down
> >>
> >> you might get there
> >
> > Douglas Barbour
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
> > Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation
> 2 (UofAPress).
> > Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
> >
> > Done in by creation itself.
> >
> > I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
> > The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
> > We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?
> >
> > Robert Kroetsch.
>
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