Thanks, Tim. No I didn't see it. I rarely see TV nowadays. I could
understand why you made that association.
And I reread the whole thing with that in mind and can see it clearly.
(Also a revision -- 2 'see' s close together - how did I miss that? one of
which will now be a 'note', I believe; haven't done it yet.
You are right or I'd like to think you are. When I first wrote what has
become this poem it was years ago and before I had heard of ebola. I was
writing many descriptions of imaginary animated cartoons; and male violence
figured largely in it (negatively, I add, rather urgently) That became
"written graphical" and that has become what I am posting here. I hope to
see them in mags and maybe a collection some time
So that's where the physical suffering comes in, in mechanical terms, but
it is only a lit crit fun fact now.
Given that we have to share the planet with ebola, I am delighted for you
to make such a connection. But there are the women dead in India from
incompetent sterilisation, victims of genital mutilation... it's a long
long list
L
On 12 November 2014 11:37, Tim Allen <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Oh Lawrence that is good. I immediately thought of that awful footage from
> last night's Channel 4 news on ebola. Did you?
>
> Cheers
>
> Tim
>
> On 12 Nov 2014, at 11:23, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>
> > A little woman lies hunched upon a floor.
> >
> > Her bones ache, she says. I'm rotting, she says.
> >
> > She rocks. She rots, inside. Her body's damp
> >
> > as yester year's fallen bough; it's hollow
> >
> > and weak, but not with the softness of youth
> >
> > and health. Her rocking accelerates
> >
> > till the image is blurred; and the figure
> >
> > rising to full height, groaning, some, in arcs
> >
> > yet widening in which she swings pendulously
> >
> >
> >
> > eventually an half-circle is reached.
> >
> > Axles and con-rods bud; and, over that,
> >
> > the sound of half-vocalised moaning. Our eyes
> >
> > move back on a broad angle; and we can see
> >
> > that she is part of a car being driven
> >
> > across pleasant countryside by a man
> >
> > with his foot down on the accelerator.
> >
> > He has a smile. He turns on loud radio.
> >
> >
> >
> > The woman's noise continues and increases;
> >
> > and, above the sound of a broadcast, the man
> >
> > hears a fault of peculiar symptoms.
> >
> > He stops the car and listens; the anguish
> >
> > near silenced, but ,immediately, not quite.
> >
> > He opens the door and the pain sound stops. He goes
> >
> > to the car front. The sun shines. He walks backwards,
> >
> > away from the car.
> >
> > Focus upon the man,
> >
> > on to the torso, his chest and his head's
> >
> > lower half. He has a respiratory complaint.
> >
> > He wheezes. His eyes glint. The sun reflects
> >
> > from desolate blue sea, each eye a small globe,
> >
> > one of which we are approaching. We cross
> >
> > the coast of Africa and head inland.
> >
> > The course of a large river staggers across.
> >
> > We climb and the river becomes a vein in a wrist.
> >
> > We rise further and the whole of Africa fills
> >
> > half our picture. Beyond the horizon,
> >
> > the wall of a nose rises to occlude the sun.
> >
> >
> >
> > Soon we've spanned a world, zigzagging, rising,
> >
> > falling to make detail or take broad views.
> >
> > Crossing the Irish Sea, we lose both height
> >
> > and speed. We descend into moist clouds, with Wales
> >
> > hardly visible, and out over scrappy
> >
> > woods in central England.
> >
> > People look up,
> >
> > but we don't see; till, on an unlit road,
> >
> > we see the flash of a small torch as a man
> >
> > walks to his car, gets in, and slams its door
> >
> > then starts the engine.
> >
> > And our feet touch the decaying earth surface
> >
> > of uncut grass and the dank fallen leaves.
> >
> >
> >
> > She is turned and turned on a complex winch.
> >
> > The noise of human distress is rising up.
> >
> > She's spun quickly in his steaming kitchen.
> >
> > She's swerved to avoid legs of police horses
> >
> > and a truncheon descending. She rushes to grab
> >
> > food from the back of a lorry; flailing her arms,
> >
> > she spins, the propeller of an overhead fan,
> >
> > wailing with hurt in a queue in jostles in a crash
> >
> > in an argument. She stumbles on steep hills;
> >
> > trees fall and crush the beneath bushes. Her too.
>
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