While in spectral communication with some illustrious friends the other night, I felt

bound to inform them that we’d all moved on so far in 2014 this year of anyone’s

lord that their views on this and that (also, the other thing) are no longer relevant.

I’m happy to report that they took the news remarkably well, for passé antediluvians,

each in characteristic fashion.
The following is at transcript of our conversation.
Miroslav Holub

There’s no explosion like a line

with a joke at the end of it.

It’s fun also to dance on temple walls

and feel them tremble, a little.

Or grind fags out

in the forecourts of government offices

as close as you can get

to the NO LITTERING sign.

Paranoia was the go in my day too.

That’s only sensible. Beyond a by-your-leave

or maybe not, it’s always true:

though they lead you gently by the hand,

they are out to get you.



W. B. Yeats

Ascend – we know you must – the winding stair

to the upper room prepared for your arrival.

The view is wonderful.

Horizons have been specially designed

to carry sight beyond

your sleepiest imaginings.

…

You ask more?

Sometimes a wild swan

swoops over the lake,

or a jackdaw,

caught unaccountably in your room,

flies at you as from a dream

by Bergman. Or a pre-Raphaelite patter

of rain arrives on cue

to dimple the water.

Such stuff belongs on post-cards, now.

No-one wants to carve their name

in the desk you leant on

looking out your

Tennysonian embrasure.

You’ve heard of ‘closure’?

We’ve had a century of it

sandwiched between wars.
You wouldn’t know us.

Our idea of comprehension

would seem a fitful, random

throwing things together

to your eye; our pleasure

a strange, feverish, distractedness

from charm.  
We’re more fascinated by ourselves

than you could possibly imagine.

Why not? What we can manage

by a thought Is marvellous. We indicate,

and forests fall.

Our least decorous perceptions,

for all their trade in shadows, self deception,

outright, down home lies,

are more attractive to us than your grand sonorities.



John Berryman

We get it. You’re far out at sea,

can’t swim, and your father

who took you there,

is threatening to leave you.

Several things are possible.

You can dream yourself ashore,

or let go and let the ocean have you.
Famous tantrums follow in either case;

but this, you know, is only buying time.

You still can’t swim,

and water’s implacable as stone.
That come on in, life’s fine! spiel

didn’t fool you for a moment.

You always knew the stuff kills

if you take too little

of it in martinis.
It’s implicit everywhere,

lying low, or towering above a day’s occasions,

full on, hidden, multiform;

potent to freeze to nothing every sense

you ever cared for. And always happy

to renew acquaintance.



Wallace Stevens

Don’t start, please. You’ll never make it. Quit now.

Reel out language to world’s end as you will,

you won’t catch the whale.

A so-so sunset throws off idle aperçus

too quick even for your lens speed, friend.

Clod in a field’s corner, fantastic failure

as you knew you would be, from the first.

It’s sad, but true,

in our beginning is our end,

and there’s nothing to do but continue.



William Wordsworth

Billy, you’re a case, you know?

We do, now, and speak of you with a fond smile although

even your best words overflow

the sturdiest crucible.

Oh, but how we wish — it’s not easy to admit —

we could make something near as good

as the mouth you showed

death’s light shining language

and do it with one part your clumsy skill

and as little rage.

And to have flowers falling

on you from high buildings everywhere you go!

That must have been nice, also.



William Blake

You couldn’t have sold William Blake an IPhone.

Dippy William never had the slightest doubt

the tree outside his window’s better

than its image on a screen.
Bill had been

places we’ve only heard about,

from people like him, mostly.
I bet you can’t even copperplate,

can you? Nor can I.

And still we think,

because some television spruiker says so,

our apps will take us god-wards, as we die.



Heinrich von Kleist

The Poetry Scene (present company excepted)

They read

as though scaling the backs

of the porcupines ahead of them,

who are bristling.

A bird in their hand dies, immediate.

When they think of their mothers,

cash registers go ping!

in adjacent emporiums.
When they play golf,

they drive towards the clubhouse

in the hope of braining a competitor,

then form groups to discuss

the mysteries of trajectory.
When they open their mouths to discuss themselves,

dogs groan. Their dogs,

that love them dearly.