Wondernight
for Zofia Radwańska
1
I was a child
when a picture book
brought me this/
a study
dark among its panels
the household
asleep/ a pendulum
somewhere
softly clicks/ midnight
Suddenly
bookshelves stir/ the books
are coming to life
they wake/ start
to converse/ glide or file
to the floor
begin a vigorous
debate/ each volume utterly
unlike the next
It is a wondernight
of books
the room vibrates/ colours
& covers throb
pages windmill/ a dance
of books
that should have stayed
the shelf
where day belongs
2
Try to recatch
the colour of that tale
I fell for/
find
I can almost
close my memory
around it
almost/ stubborn is the
old steep
impossibility
to be a little boy
again
3
Dwindling
the night gives notice
to return/
the books
must reinstate a front
for the sun
a facade/ for morning
to discover
perfect order/ shelves
repossessed
the spines & sequences
restored
4
And I wish
that I could hold this
Polish fable once
more in my hand/ protectively/
lest by the colour
it no longer
lent/ the flaws
in the text
& the art
I picked at/
these books should finally
close their dream
& I/ unreconciled/ resume
my book
to book search for myself
I
missed out on Alex Skovron's launch of Towards
The Equator; New & Selected Poems (Puncher
& Wattman 2014) but I did catch him reading at The Dan recently,
and that was a treat. He brings such force and colour to the work
when he reads. (As if it doesn't contain enough already!) The poem I
chose comes from his 1988 book The
Rearrangement, and
the title poem is a stunner. But too long, I thought, for a blog
post. Scroll and scroll and scroll. I can only suggest you invest in
a copy and have a good browse through the greatest hits of one of our
best poets. Alex really knows how to poet! (I also enjoyed very much,
on my first time through this book, the selections from his 1999 book
Infinite
City. Oh
and The
Man and the Map 2003.)
This is a great poem. There is a silence which surrounds the words. It's quite stunning. Thanks for introducing me to a new poet.
ReplyDelete