Against the Silences to Come
fr david mitchell
She is holding the faded blue chapbook in her
hand
looking at herself
looking at herself
she has carried it across the sea
&
back again
across the sea
& back again
& she didn't know why
until now.
The return of the ampersand.
Poets used ampersands back then
he did
& so did Ron Loewinsohn
who wrote AGAINST
THE SILENCES TO COME
Copyright © 1965 –
Four Seasons Foundation
Distributed by City
Lights Books
FOR JOAN
*
There is news of him.
There is
news to hand.
News has come in.
There is news of the poet who gave her
AGAINST THE
SILENCES TO COME
in the kitchen of his flat in
-
as the taxi driver quipped -
Sentimental Road.
Where he gave birth to a typewriter
while the refrigerator was 'making
cold'.
His surname is written
on the
buffer page
& the ancient price
& below
her name.
*
He is moored in a nursing home in Sydney
incapable of speech
silent
his hand speaks for
him
on the page
she finds
she is not sorry for him
has no pity
she
finds
in fact
she has
been furious with him
from since then until now
since he picked her
up & dropped her
all in one night.
*
He is sitting in the Babel Cafe
waiting for his wife & daughter
to dock tomorrow
- 'on the
waterfront' -
he has bought a
painting
for his daughter's
room
it's mostly pink.
Now
she
supposes
that he was
drunk.
That habitual drunkeness
that comes across like charm
up to a certain
point.
Tomorrow doesn't count.
From
tomorrow he would not ...
but tonight
once more for luck.
She supposes that she supposed
that she was safe because
- 'I write poetry
too.'
*
& yet the gift.
I find on the last page
of his famous book
'silences
to
come?'
I find a grief
a small grief
a
small grief like a sharp stone in my smart shoe
fr him.
This is like one of those patchwork quilts with bits of pattern all over. And you look here and there and recognise all manner of familiar and unfamiliar things and you just keep on looking...:-)
ReplyDeleteI found this very moving - and honest - more anger than pity and yet, that small grief at the end.
ReplyDeleteOh yes I just love coming to this this Saturday morning. Wow, love the way it meanders over the page, the way the eye and heart must wander with it, from love to pity to that pink child's room to all that she supposes and that grief grief grief at the end. I like the ampersand moments too.
ReplyDelete