I should have added the following facts and not-facts: the 'spire' is my
invention, so too is vigil at 'three' (it's half an hour later) while Daisy
and her sisters are an integral part of the abbey - the cow sheds are about
50-100 yards from the church, so they are not 'scenery'.
best
dave
On 1 November 2011 08:21, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>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/
>
--
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/
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