good suggestion, Doug, and thanks to you and Bill for responses…
sure, sparrows unlikely to get entangled
Max
On May 18, 2016, at 10:13, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Yeah, there’s a lot there, Max.
>
> bpNichol has an Intro to a collection of sort fiction in which the book talks to the reader…
>
> It’s an intimacy not too often looked at squarely.
>
> I think that final quatrain is earned …
>
> I had one small suggestion: that 'near where it’s emerged from’ be cut to ‘near where it emerged’ — with also, to me, fits the rhythm of the section better…
>
> Doug
>> On May 18, 2016, at 4:23 AM, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Still digesting it, Max :-)
>>
>>
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>> On 18 May 2016 at 17:06, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> What an interesting poem, Max, fully justifying its four-part structure.
>>> The involving/cajoling of readers into the dream sections works really well
>>> I think.
>>>
>>> I accept your imagery of the struggling sparrow but do wonder whether these
>>> sprightly, deft-clawed birds do ever become so entangled.
>>>
>>> I can hear C W-C's voice in that quick rejoinder.
>>>
>>> Dickins it still is to me, too, having worked there as a teenager after
>>> school.
>>>
>>> Others will know more to say on the Babel section no doubt.
>>>
>>> Bill
>>>
>>> On Wednesday, 18 May 2016, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear Readers, I Dreamed
>>>>
>>>> 1. In a Manner of Speaking
>>>>
>>>> Dear readers, how are you all
>>>> enjoying my new poem -
>>>> OK so far? - opens well?
>>>>
>>>> I say all - as if you’re plural,
>>>> if not multiple,
>>>> however alone you are
>>>>
>>>> as you read. Alone -
>>>> but not lonely?
>>>> We keep each other
>>>>
>>>> kindly company.
>>>> Truly, I have trust
>>>> in what we can achieve
>>>>
>>>> together, a sort of
>>>> double-jointed, double-
>>>> handed enterprise:
>>>>
>>>> like a sparrow tangled
>>>> in a spring-green hedge
>>>> a phrase tries to emerge.
>>>>
>>>> What arrives is like
>>>> a simile, trailing twigs
>>>> and green debris.
>>>>
>>>> The hedge continues
>>>> briefly trembling,
>>>> subsides to stillness.
>>>>
>>>> The sparrow continues
>>>> on its morning tasks
>>>> near where it’s emerged from.
>>>>
>>>> Is it nesting time? -
>>>> well concealed. Is some
>>>> nest deep inside it home
>>>>
>>>> for a sparrow family?
>>>> Are you still with me?
>>>> I like to think so,
>>>>
>>>> and me with you - surely
>>>> you are, in a figurative
>>>> manner of speaking?
>>>>
>>>> 2. In My Doggerel Dream
>>>>
>>>> I heard word that Chris
>>>> Wallace-Crabbe, Melbourne’s
>>>> venerable poet and general
>>>> all-rounder, had taken up -
>>>>
>>>> metalwork! Soon after,
>>>> Chris turned up with, in tow,
>>>> his first major project,
>>>> the size of a small car,
>>>>
>>>> highly-figured brass plates
>>>> on all sides. I said to him:
>>>> ‘I hear you’ve interested
>>>> the Post Office in this,
>>>>
>>>> Chris. I can’t see the slot.’
>>>> ‘Discreetly placed, Max.
>>>> Yes, they’ve asked for
>>>> a score, or more, one
>>>>
>>>> at least for every big
>>>> town across Australia.’
>>>> As if they’d get folk
>>>> posting mail again.
>>>>
>>>> Now I could see the brass
>>>> figurations were snails.
>>>> What logic was this?
>>>> Dream logic, I guess.
>>>>
>>>> My car was jammed full
>>>> with frozen goods from Coles
>>>> in North Balwyn
>>>> which my wife’s parents
>>>>
>>>> still call Dickins.
>>>> I pressed on Chris
>>>> some fresh-baked sponge cake
>>>> which he tried to resist
>>>>
>>>> with a pained grimace.
>>>> He took one slice
>>>> in a plastic dish,
>>>> returning me the rest.
>>>>
>>>> ‘We creatives must eat,’
>>>> each acknowledged each.
>>>>
>>>> 3. Me and Isaac Babel
>>>>
>>>> Isaac Babel is available for you
>>>> to interview, the jingling words reached me -
>>>>
>>>> provided I provide a true
>>>> (non-spy) interpreter. Strange - I knew,
>>>>
>>>> as he did not, his waiting fate -
>>>> that firing squad ordered by Beria.
>>>>
>>>> This called for great discretion from me.
>>>> My first, anxious visit to the Soviet Union -
>>>>
>>>> reading and rereading 'Red Cavalry'.
>>>> How shocking they still were, those stories:
>>>>
>>>> lawlessness, hopes smashed, more cruelty
>>>> than compassion. What strength! - to have seen
>>>>
>>>> so much, and written down what those in power
>>>> dreaded being known, or didn’t they care?
>>>>
>>>> We met in Odessa. He insisted
>>>> his crim Jews, now gone, were true fiction.
>>>>
>>>> Exile would be safer, Mr Babel. He nodded.
>>>> My family want me in the West with them.
>>>>
>>>> My work is here. Filming Gorky’s books, you know.
>>>> Now I write the truth for later readers, when
>>>>
>>>> things improve, then Russia can be honest again.
>>>> I left him sad. Why waste his time with me? -
>>>>
>>>> foreign, behaving secretively.
>>>> Years passed. Generations. Some reading.
>>>>
>>>> 4. If I Say
>>>>
>>>> as in my dream I was about to
>>>> (meeting you nowhere in particular,
>>>> uncertain of past and future)
>>>>
>>>> how lucky I have been to know you,
>>>> you will hear in what I say
>>>> some foreshadowed farewell
>>>>
>>>> grateful but ominous
>>>> acknowledging how some time
>>>> sooner maybe than felt before
>>>>
>>>> that ‘have been’ may change
>>>> to ‘was’. Soon maybe second
>>>> person ‘you’ will change to third.
>>>>
>>>> How lucky I was to know her.
>>>> It assumes of course the ‘I’
>>>> in this survives the ‘you’.
>>>>
>>>> Yet the farewell might just be
>>>> one that gets said last thing
>>>> before a going away, some
>>>>
>>>> ordinary separation kindly
>>>> Time may permit to end.
>>>> See you soon, I trust.
>>>>
>>>> When shall we two meet again?
>>>> May we both survive this
>>>> so uncertain separation.
>>>>
>>>> In this life, this we prefer,
>>>> such return, such reunion.
>>>> Don’t distract with notion
>>>>
>>>> of afterlife, after death...
>>>> is death. Yes, you’re hinting
>>>> what may one of us suffer
>>>>
>>>> outliving the other.
>>>> If I should say (which I won’t)
>>>> ‘let it not be you’ - how cruel
>>>>
>>>> the unintended under-thought,
>>>> to wish either dark
>>>> alternative on another.
>>>>
>>>> So, better not to broach any
>>>> of this whether under bright light
>>>> face to face or dreaming darkly.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Andrew
>> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
>> Books available through Walleah Press
>> http://walleahpress.com.au
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
> https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations 2 (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>
> Oh, goddamnit, we forgot the silent prayer.
>
> Dwight D, Eisenhower
> [at a cabinet meeting]
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