(with apologies to Henry Reed)
© Chris Port, 2009
I love to listen… Problem is…
The silences…
Their dead skin hangs in the air…
Glistening…
Pollen teases a nasal hair-
trigger but there is no sneeze…
Instead of release, something bigger…
I’m aware…
On the edge of no breeze…
there’s a thin dry rasp…
A mad bee sawing
at sun, wood and glass…
A garden in the glare
but it’s view is pitiless…
The open bay window
beyond its wits…
I kill it.
A drone (my own) parched monotone
searches the wallflowers…
I dream of moist honey…
The filling of a pail… the lighting of a fire…
shrivels into blisters on the windowsill…
Oh you have been used… money emptied by the bucket
over damped twig minds that refuse to spark…
Fuck it.
How I long for that first soft bruise of dark
to punch their sunlit faces…
LESSONS OF THE WAR
ReplyDeleteby Henry Reed (August, 1942)
To Alan Michell
Vixi duellis nuper idoneus
Et militavi non sine gloria
(A Latin pun on Horace, the Roman lyric poet, substituting 'duellis' [duels] for the original 'puellis' [girls]. A rough translation of the original would read: "For ladies' love I late was fit, / And good success my warfare blest". Reed is making a bleak joke about the substitution of war for love).
NAMING OF PARTS
To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.