Before Christmas 2022, I went through old folders and
files (though not notebooks, all of these ‘remains’ had been typed up,
pre-digitally) and I discovered three poems I’d not ‘collected’, i.e.,
published (or re-published from magazines) in book or pamphlet form, from the
1980s. This discovery of poems which (now) look quite interesting and which were
left behind is not a new thing for me (and it is probably not for others, too).
In fact, I mention two already on this blog.
Secondly, I recovered ‘Round Midnight’ (from c.1983), which could have appeared in Returns in 1985, but didn’t, probably because I thought it derivative of Roy Fisher. I had posted it on this blog here Pages: Stan Tracey i.m. (and History or Sleep) (robertsheppard.blogspot.com), as a tribute to its subject, Stan Tracey, who had just died, and recovered it as the opening poem of my selected poems History or Sleep, which was a surprise to me! See here: Shearsman Books buy Robert Sheppard - History or Sleep - Selected Poems. This is a recovered poem.
The first of my three ‘new/old’ poems dates from about the same time; there is the same touch of Roy Fisher about it, which – looking back – is no bad influence for a writer in his twenties at the time. I think it was published in Oasis though I’m not sure and I’m not sure my dodgy records would list it under one of the quite inadequate titles it seemed to have acquired. I think here I’m going to simply call it by the first title I found. (The other title was ‘Bedroom Poster’, which is a giveaway of its ekphrastic circumstance.)
Designs
after Millet
A dream of a life, a stubbly pastoral,
curving to the seasons’ pull:
three gleaners separated
from a crowd of stooping harvesters,
framed
by bedroom wallpaper that shimmers on the eye.
They follow safely at a distance
as if they’d been imagined there
or picked from the envious women
for their anonymous looks
and thus stand frigid,
pointing, scraping, bending for a few mean straws
against the hazed bustle
by the golden haystacks, the single man on the horse.
The stillness of sleep is the picture’s own thought
of autumn and birds dispersing, as it sinks,
but rises drily, each morning:
a surface scattered with dream-shards.
We rise to the world beyond this glazed scene
trapped in amber, cracked, and webbed onto paper:
a factory flag that tries to stamp its sameness upon
the morning sky above the blind buildings –
but only ever fails,
with a fresh wind tugging at its sleeve.
c. 1982/3
Locating Robert Sheppard: email: robertsheppard39@gmail.com website: www.robertsheppard.weebly.com Follow on
Twitter: Robert Sheppard (@microbius) / Twitter latest blogpost: www.robertsheppard.blogspot.com
