Agree with Sheila, & Stephen. And especially like the mirroring, & then those final four lines, their assurance but no waddling....
Doug
On 2011-11-17, at 10:42 AM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
> Thank you so much, Sheila
>
> L
>
> On Wed, November 16, 2011 18:40, Sheila Murphy wrote:
>> This is sterling, Lawrence. Extremely compelling on multiple levels, not
>> the least of which is the way that you draw forth one sense by way of
>> another. Visual and tactile join beautifully, for example. I feel the
>> movement take pinpoint and waved effort. Very fine, indeed.
>>
>> Sheila
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 6:35 AM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> White islands glide over battered granite hills;
>>> and, near sky, top floors, empty, unfinished, without balustrades,
>>> architecturally complex. Show-through and mirrorings of light splashed
>>> on to the soft blue of the atmosphere, setting off dark blues of harbour
>>> and bay.
>>>
>>> Water’s high. It’s after five, boats returning,
>>> all predominantly white; and white seagulls, apparently wandering,
>>> butterflies. Black back
>>> on the roof of Salubrious House… the pine glossy in our garden. Two
>>> herring gulls floating on the water of the bay. Three gulls now. A single
>>> boat, two people in it, south-east of Smeaton’s lighthouse, going north,
>>> only now becoming visible, but fully seen in the room’s mirror. A single
>>> boat goes south, perhaps to round the pier into harbour, in both window
>>> and glass; in the mirror; and my memory. More gulls butterflying.
>>> Wind makes
>>> the palm shudder. Boats drift at their tethers. Tourists walk past in the
>>> picture’s lower half – I know they’re there -- looking with envious
>>> anger at the houses. A half a million pounds’. More than the loss of all
>>> one’s limbs and eyes. More than a death.
>>> A boat is gleaned into
>>> the mirror’s picture, oared, northerly towards a marker buoy; a small
>>> boat, but this one’s under power, overhauls it -- it seems some
>>> pleasantries exchange – and then departs into the bay’s core and the
>>> further ocean, though, at that size, it’ll stay close by land. A larger
>>> boat, masted, wooden cabin, comes in from the direction of Godrevy. A
>>> tiny outboard seems to pull aside; and the fat boat is only in the
>>> mirror, a speedboat following it, but also only in the mirror. As water
>>> enters the first of Smeaton’s arches, almost filled by sea-pushed sand,
>>> many tourist boats come out, kayaks and pedalos and larger craft, in an
>>> unheard buzz, the stinging insects of evening, a lugger, out from the
>>> harbour and round the pier then north, smoothly, rapidly, its hue the
>>> wide wings, with satiate assurance, of a gull waddling dully on a house
>>> roof.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----
>>> UNFRAMED GRAPHICS by Lawrence Upton
>>> 42 pages; A5 paperback; colour cover
>>> Writers Forum 978 1 84254 277 4
>>> wfuk.org.uk/blog ----
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> -----
> UNFRAMED GRAPHICS by Lawrence Upton
> 42 pages; A5 paperback; colour cover
> Writers Forum 978 1 84254 277 4
> wfuk.org.uk/blog
> ----
>
Douglas Barbour
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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
and as you read
the sea is turning its dark pages
turning
its dark pages.
Denise Levertov
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