Revelation
at Pontins EASTER SUNDAY 2002
I
thought I was hurt in my pride only,
Forgetting
that,
When you
plunge your hand in freezing water,
You feel
A bangle
of ice round your wrist
Before
the whole hand goes numb
Norman
Maccaig ‘Sounds of the Day’
The
past? It’s a frozen, foreign land.
A labyrinth
of tourmaline-a dream
of black
horses flowing out to sea.
Breaking
the chains of memory
that tie
us to the static of the land
The
past? It is a strange and twisted
tongue.
I cannot
bend these chords to utter it!
Cannot find
a rhythm in the rime.
While fools
found gold in crystal streams,
I rooted, ankle deep in mud, braying:
Who are you?
Why are you
here?
The
past? That coldly calculated joke.
Those
idiots fell about the place side-splitted,
While I
looked for help,
for
meaning,
for a sign.
Not that I
didn’t understand.
But that I
would never understand.
Because...
I seemed to
be a stranger there.
Something
foreign.
I didn’t
know the refugee was me!
The
past? It is shapeless, blind, a mute
place.
No road
maps or strangers passing with news.
The very
idea seems cruel! This loss.
And is it
not cruel, this vile thing
set loose
around the houses? This abuse
of
heart-skewering fear.
The
nightsounds were lonely in the vale.
The clouds
mere smoke-rings of obliterated joy.
Oh these
losings of familiar things!
These
losings of familiar things.
These tales
of the three rings.
And the
first...shall be: Who knows?
I did not
realise the refugee was me.
?????......so?
ReplyDeleteTo above-One word- TWAT!!!
ReplyDeleteNote to self-Have I actually written a crapulous bleeding heart rubric of a poem that is debasingly cringe-making? Should I take it down. Yes by God! But no...leave it up like a red flag of your complicity with the dark Ego Shadow Self.
You call me a Twat? I think so but may be I have miss understood. I am not offended anyway, one man's twat is another man's hero. I believe you are genuine, in that you believe in the views you express. I am interested though, in how you are a former seminarian, but how you hold such leftist views. You have obviously formed your own opinions, absolutely your right, as an adult man. Are your parents still alive? Do you bear a grudge against them because they packed you off to a 'small Hampshire village?'. I went to that small Hampshire village too, and I have to admit that, though I had some great times there, if I could turn back the clock I wouldn't go there. I have an 18 year old son who has just gone to Salford Uni, there is no way I would have let him go to seminary at 11 years of age. But hindsight and the shifting sands?. I'm going to leave it there for now, but I want to say other things. Later I will, but I have to leave it there for now. paul, widnes.
ReplyDeleteHi Paul,
ReplyDeleteYour graceful and witty reply indicates that the 'Twat' is clearly my good self. I wholeheartedly apologise for my dorkish language. I'll reply to your other questions in my next posting of all these comments under the heading 'The Readership are Revolting!' That's meant to be gently comic which I now know you will understand. Many thanks, Tony