Results for: “Carcanet Press Ltd.”

Prose

A sonnet

It halts, it limps along, it cannot soar.

Try as it will, prose cannot reach the stars.

It knows about ambition, power and war

And lists the names of aeroplanes and cars.

It has much strength, it has an army and

Its military is well-trained and kept

At the ready. It can understand

The needs of reason. It has seldom slept.

But still all prose is limited and will

Keep to certain grounds and certain parks.

It does not know those secret stayings-still

On the large promises of light and dark

Poetry rises up and it can fill

All upper air and never leaves its marks.

Picture Galleries

A sonnet

In the picture-galleries of the mind

I can visit almost every day.

Paintings by Great Masters, yes, can find

Their style, their timelessness, their magic play.

And I can play with my own sense of time

And movement, juggle with the way I’ve gone

To the Sistine Chapel. I would climb

And marvel at what Raphael’s Rooms have done

For the human spirit. Memory

Is the larger mover here. I pay it great

Honour and I’m grateful I can say

Not Mine

Take my hands, full moon, take my

Aspirations. Take my hope,

You stars that spread the sky

And I can feel my scope

For joy increasing but it is not ‘I’

Any longer. I am lost in leaves

Falling and staying. In the harvest I

Gathered the corn with power

Of memory and imaginings. I beg,

I cannot stop it, that the last full hour

Of Summer stay with me till Spring next year.

Over and Over

Over and over they suffer, the gentle creatures,

The frightened deer, the mice in the corn to be gathered,

Over and over we cry, alone or together.

And we weep for a lot we scarcely understand,

Wondering why we are here and what we mean

And why there are huge stars and volcanic eruptions,

Earthquakes, desperate disasters of many kinds.

What is the answer? Is there

One? There are many. Most of us forget

The times when the going sun was a blaze of gold

And the blue hung behind it and we were the whole of awe,

We forget the moments of love and cast out time

And the children who come to us trusting the answers we give

To their difficult and important questions. And there

Was coming in, dragging the sea over shingle,

Riding over every rock-pool, recording

Its echo music. I think I almost had

The right word then but it slipped from my mind

Though music was all about in its own order.

I listened entranced, I stared at the ruled horizon

Knowing the notes were falling out of hearing

And that I would never find orchestral words

Or catch the sea though I was near it in childhood

Standing on breakwaters, paddling in the rock-pools,

My mind at one with the tangy exuberant air

And the heady, salt-laden breakers climbing around me.

Among the Stars

I walked into our garden one Spring night,

Warmth moved among the trees,

The stars were plentiful and in their light

I felt an exaltation such as is

Offered at times but never earned. I was

Caught by a wonder which

I’d never heard of. Now it is a grace,

That night the very Heavens seemed to reach

Down to my stance. My spirit and my flesh

Were one existence then.

How often since has such joy been my wish

As then was granted to a child of ten.

It is not True?