Tentatives
for Roy Fisher at 80
Between buildings brushed
By bitter wind
Bodies chatter
Chilled equivocation
Sliced by splintered screen
Of sinking reflections
As some else
Thing resonates
A minor chord
Among flurries tinkling
Lost in
Tingles of thing
Hoist from the purest
Lyric a catch
To pull up the stepped lines
Silvered in living daylights
A neck ridged with bone barely
Turning on a pillow breathing fast
Obstinate anchorage
Slowly
Slowly
Turning
Wind cuts sunlight
Leaf-glitter tells you it’s there
Pushes so hard it could bend
Light if you chose to believe
which you do it makes it
cowl like a bush in a gust
curling
Into its own grey withdrawal
Terrified of its black heart
Sun’s low disk
Sinks
Throws long shadows lawns of
Dark stretching back from flaming
Brickwork the faces of buildings
Distant towers
Glint buckled fire for a
Second then gutter
Lost reclaimed
By the order of place some
Where at the periphery stretches
A god created by gospels
That thread between things
Like gossamer like culture
Note: I am at the moment writing a new poem for Roy, not quite in memoriam, because I wrote it on the train to work in a state where I didn't know whether to believe the single tweet I'd read about his death,, which seemed to appear and then disappear before I left. But the appearance of one of the Roy Fisher doubles who populate Britain (cousins all of the 'actor' who plays the narrator in The Ship's Orchestra) on the bus seemed to be a representative of the neither living nor dead. That's what the poem is about, a veritable Roy Fisher theme in a Roy Fisher wrapping, I hope. I hope it also sees the light of day. By the time I got to work, tweets from authoritative sources acknowedged his passing. And then, later in the day, word of David Kennedy's death. Then later: the London attack. For today, the poem is on the drawing board, as is another Wyatt/Petrarch poem, written this morning, one which glancingly mentions the terrible (but foiled) attack on Westminster Bridge. 14.19
More on Roy Fisher here:
Note: I am at the moment writing a new poem for Roy, not quite in memoriam, because I wrote it on the train to work in a state where I didn't know whether to believe the single tweet I'd read about his death,, which seemed to appear and then disappear before I left. But the appearance of one of the Roy Fisher doubles who populate Britain (cousins all of the 'actor' who plays the narrator in The Ship's Orchestra) on the bus seemed to be a representative of the neither living nor dead. That's what the poem is about, a veritable Roy Fisher theme in a Roy Fisher wrapping, I hope. I hope it also sees the light of day. By the time I got to work, tweets from authoritative sources acknowedged his passing. And then, later in the day, word of David Kennedy's death. Then later: the London attack. For today, the poem is on the drawing board, as is another Wyatt/Petrarch poem, written this morning, one which glancingly mentions the terrible (but foiled) attack on Westminster Bridge. 14.19
More on Roy Fisher here:
