local in his throne the nameless He (World)
suspended here indefinite, indefinitely
spans an immense universe-the night sky
and the night we do not see
the book a prostrate ANGEL and extended DEITY
the lashes of closed eyes engraven
midway in eternity
our waking dreams are fatal-born
on a collapsing wave perpetually
W.W.
For such is the Benignite of God towards man, that he has implanted in his finite Nature an infinite
capacite, to take in and enjoy the first infinite Being.
-Theophilus Gale
Men do mightily wrong themselves when they refuse to be present in all ages
-Thomas Traherne
The duration of "forever" is in its entirety part of the "now"
Life is operation and is lived in eternity
Time plays over the surface of eternity
A book, once written exists in eternity
And understands its relation to all that was and is
I understand ETERNITY to be existence itself
-Spinoza, Ethics
The world is never better
It is not the world's responsibility to thus improve
It is ours to notice
Depression is a chronic disobedience of self
Have you seen the blow, ablowin?
Where be you awenting?
I bin, thee bist, he am, we bin, you bin, they bin
In Romayne's Garden, June 5th 2003
When in the evening Beetles
Hang the green sky in between
Great plum great cherry trees
Grown slowly upwards yards in to the (green) mantle
Screen-our misty gauze is momentary
lifted as a cherry amber buzzing
ar electric animal.
The comedy opens
simple violence-incontinence-malice
Add these to unbelief or misbelief
Add again the circle outside the river of Archeron (The Thames)
The Year of the Vision is 1300
The sun is rising on Friday morning
The moon sets (noon Jerusalem time)
Again in the middle of everything
Ah!
(defecating in a cell of defecation)
The birds hard at it-Under the cherry boughs
in my shade-(anybody else's true)
for all I care
How long have I been this silent (have I been)
The tick of the wren-the warbling Robin underfoot
Words I repeat. Words I have heard another sing more gracefully.
Why do you carry on their burdens/songs/their deeds
A robin at his seed
The great city outside the Walls
roars on a pace-and I have come to fall in quietude
my home between heres
seated hopefully-but we have given everything (away)
The Robin feeds
made in our own image (How can we imagine otherwise?)
A Light messenger
Light may replace us-assail us/Light may replace the self
Lifting the dark(ness) that we cannot
none of the Earth was ever so blessed
a flash of silver ( )
(The) blackbirds (noisy) noise
Can you hear his misery?
I feel a coward's fear.
Upon the river which is of the sea
Through me into the city
(Along the river path,
the wretched and the wealthy pass)
The World has glory over them
An ancient shouting by the banks
On the otherside is autumn with
all its spoils upon the ground
a light drizzle in the foliage
visible as my terror yields
to sadness for my child and for myself
holding him
blind swallows skirt the houses
a thousand colours nearly visible
and you might call to them
as they whirr in company
a black air-or a magnificent green
The red-eyed fly upon behemoth beans
if we knew who to ask
The town where I was born
Sits with its river and canal
underneath is everything
a body falls continually
a book who kissed my mouth
the spirit speaking through the body
a canal
and heavy Rain
descending far enough to see
he in the middle
who is looking down upon his breast
locking and unlocking so (softly) the broken splint
words bore to the (glorious office) heart
the spirit quits the body
briefly whenever
like a grain of spelt
up to a sapling-tree
he therefore resumed
then the wind turned into words
which thus disjoined my leaves from me
Officers (off he soars?) cavort
All heaven (all having?) a torn garment
Hysterical (his terror calls?) running and falls (anvils?)
A honey bird pinned in the wheat
Dean Prior-Devon (Downpour)
Carswash onto Plymouth
Where we stop (into) a dark and quiet church
Dedicatory air the young girls
All around here smile
A wooden closet fastend shut
Behind the pulpit by the aisle
(If I had rhymes I heard no voice)
(All my hidden ocean boils)
Eventually after a long eulogizing sentence
The poet's name
Among sane men who had disproved most things
And proved the rest
He was possessed
By a fervour and fury of belief
Without a clue for the hand
Or a feature for the eye
What he meant, what he wanted
Tea-pot pieties and tape-yard infidelities
It is not his art we envy but his belief
It is not his vision we desire but his certainty
The remnants of an invaluable quality of actual life
But if I feel the least distraction/the least weakness/if I interpret too much/if I intervene/why then
everything is gone/mere personality-Cézanne
It is a time of plague
And great injustice
I singe my beard
And panic out my hairs
I wear the shirt I had been given
As it fits
The whole enfolded city
Fires all over Europe
Naturally enough the satiated species consumes itself
A hasty disguise rigged to no end
The labour and strife of the soul is as vivid and earnest as any bodily travail
Loving makes change unbearable. When the old building passes into disuse and
is eventually pulled down-to make way for new houses-we are burdened with (the responsibility of)
its memory. We must know that our memories have become their own world-not holding closely to
this one.
In this section of underwall which remains damp even in high summer under the elm canopy with
always the deep rich odour of cake moist earth.
What does it matter that someone considers himself worthy? I shall be what energy allows.
What my dreams of these avenues-of the deep pond means, as themselves-part of my vision lifts and
there rest upon the just ingredients.
All morning with sketch book in hand-leave rivers to the rivers themselves. Return to the avenues.
Some poets almost by sense of smell-there are books I adore that I cannot read. I might understand
them, but don't-it's a peripheral reading. Silent companion.
The erotic expectation. A brooding figure. It is the self watching over me. I brush past
this figure trailing a hand but the self cannot be charmed or seduced. There in the mirror, Behind
the voyeur is a steely gaze. We know.
My creation/frustration why my chest heaves in anguish is to be done with all this ordering
and solving. The monotonous shifting of objects on the shelf. Even this one view, this ordinary
Victorian terrace window, out to an overgrown garden, even this is beyond my every effort magnified
a hundred life times. The agapanthus is otherworldly, the quince is faintly ridiculous, the buddleia
a gaudy mess, and I am a stew of vanity and foolishness-my miracle is all that which I cannot affect.
My greatest part is that of which I can take no credit.
I am tender about the friends I dreamt of last night-remembering our night time
collaboration my heart moves as I walk along I am in love the street goes on marching through my
vision down to the Thames where we all drown in unison. That is it about the Thames it overwhelms
our stories. Even the tales of the drowned are kept secret, the bridge continues underwater but it
is the reflection we see.
Later I will meet my wife and child in town. How can this be? How can this have happened?
One is always amazed when something is selling for what it is actually worth-R. L., Tuesday
August 12th, 2003
(Bury the house opposite)
When a mediocre building is knocked down, we are gripped by a fear.
Found in the basement. Many are cleverer than me-so I can only do this, be myself, that's the
best thing I can do-try to relax a little found in the basement hunched a few days later, having
not left the flat it becamemore difficult to face the possibilities-falling off one's pavement walk
into the territory of others-their own terror become hatred meted out in a stride you are supposed
to repell. nettles and newspapers. No one in the allotments hears over the broadcast of cricket and
the railway tracks hunched into a praying squat-ready to implode. Poppies and swan manage
deportment amongst the trash. Poppies on the wasteland-swans in the canal. morphine seduction.
greek passion. Milk and teabags. There is no place for God without a daily branding of fear.
Tumultuous versions
Quite put out
Really popular version
Of this quit spirit
You'd not even recognize
The face of God or Love
If she peeked through the hedge
Offering herself
Anima climax
Mismanaged outfit
No legs in these trousers
Get home stay there
If I have anything to say I must surely be saying it.
Can you find anything but here?
The light is not ours. Our selfhood we experience it-but it is not ours.
that is on the trembling tree
still reminds me of one morning
the night in rain til the next day
yet let me God live long enough
that I may have my hands of her
or a brief word that spreads itself
As in a season fresh and new
We don't see the messenger
Nor whether he is questioned for
Thus with a letter
Our love goes thus
Reflections of a poor eye
The viaduct, the Aqueduct called Telford's Aqueduct at Chide
The stream supports a shadow where reflections lie
Spread near the foliage of indigenous varieties
Where are the walkers, where our fellow sufferers
The sun, which we can know of in extent
Seeks out in its enormity one side
Its ulterior effect is this colossal
Where we reap a noon and sow a shade
But I am prone to shadows, anxious matter in its dance
Consoles and Lunges after emptiness, and properties defile the fields
excellent midnight, the shade of surplus agency, which drains
Heaven, makes a promise of the virtual or real.
The sheep-child in buoyant carriage
On the waves? The image is so bronzed
With pastoral memory, the child, the blankets
And the mist of water over her.
Elegy for the worm
Vermiculate who ate
itself-(no) beginning
middle end-and saddled
with the passing earth
rained out devoured
Our soul's content
