Saturday 14 July 2012

Bus notes 10


As we pass Common Lane
and Pound Green,
he pulls the boy along the aisle
by the forearm
without any feeling showing
and almost throws him onto the seats.
        Along Drew Lane
        the works are coming down
and in a language I won’t ever know,
they make a tenderness happen.
The father touches the hem of the kid's hood
and he becomes a marker for joy.
        This morning, I heard that in one day
        we’re having a month of rain,
        but it’s OK; looking around,
        all of us are kitted out for it.

6 comments:

  1. Another carefully crafted observation. I like the conversational tone of your work. Drew Lane making it concrete. Thanks for helping me thru this rain.

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  2. Thanks, Jonathan.

    It's bloody wearing, isn't it? We had an hour of a good blue sky today.

    The Friday that this poem first showed itself was the worst of the wet. I was very glad of the moment represented here.

    With this series in particular, I've been some way conscious of keeping the language plain and direct, and whatever strange verbal turns there are show up better for that, I hope.

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  3. Yes, I'm with you.

    Bloody wearing it is. I can't help thinking that it's connected to the bigger picture, the economy and so on - but that's illogical, captain.

    Plain and direct and strange verbal turns... perfect.

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  4. Jonathan is as always too right, and I'd throw Common Lane and Pound Green into the concrete mix here, too.

    But what lifts me here is the ecstatic turn upward from the elegiac


    the works are coming down


    in which the door is opened to feeling


    and in a language I won’t ever know,
    they make a tenderness happen.


    And from there onward the sky's the limit, and the rain feels like blessing.


    The father touches the hem of the kid's hood
    and he becomes a marker for joy.
    This morning, I heard that in one day
    we’re having a month of rain,
    but it’s OK...

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  5. By the by, in case it's any consolation to anyone, it is raining at this moment here, too. Just to make a bit more of a community of this.

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  6. Sharing the weather is a very British ground to a community, isn't it? Marvellous stuff.

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