A Lens to the Sun
drawing
by Sarah Longlands
Index of titles and beginning of poems
A lens
to the sun
A provenance / takes a lens / to the sun./
The macula / follows the wind / and the turn / of the maze /
to its end.
‘As air you live on no-man’s-heath’ As air you live / on no-man’s-heath
/ a medium / of human form. // Transparently / you stand the
sight / towards the thing / too far to see;
Through spheres burn suns Through
spheres burn suns / courses of unclouded gaze, / as plurally
ourselves might burn, / living etched on days—
The sky’s uneasy in the fading light The
sky’s uneasy in the fading light; / beneath, I feel unease
accordingly / and, mute, can hardly bring to mind a lead / on
what is wrong. It’s easy to misread / a world’s emotions
as one’s own, to be / so plumbed and understood.
The beautiful polemic never was The
beautiful polemic never was / save in its breaks of rigour /
where vast suns downshine
A low hill with a spindly crown of trees A
low hill with a spindly crown of trees / grown up round the ruin
of a house. Tall, / a chimney and two corners stand; for these
/ are strong points still.
‘When
he had proved to them that knowledge is innate’ When
he had proved to them that knowledge is innate / his part within
the dialogue was done.
Frank stare Frank stare / under
lank hair; / eyes take in more / than they give; / The city
that flows / beneath senses.
Awake,
instanter
Awake, instanter, dead of night, / silence,
eyes wide in the dark. / What word shook me? Slight / upon the
air the echo of its flight, / muffled now. Stark,
Understatement Understatement
in a day / that hastens to be lost, / neutrality in one grey
/ unbreached sky. At most // a threading skyline rift / towards
the end
Day’s spring Eternal day, eternal
night, / homeless ones, and tutelars / of travellers. ‘Which
way / do you go?’ ‘I follow light. / Above me always
are the stars; / ahead, the first and final day.’
Neutral
colour, ungendered touch Neutral colour
/ ungendered touch / unpolar sound / but colour comes / beyond
the touch / the skin awake / and hearing / is vigilant.
Passing mood Passing mood, /
shadowed noon-day pine-wood / seemed familiar / once. Time, filtering,
as light: // depths in ways’ / declensions
Afternoon
in early spring
Cool ability of day, / deep-thinking, not
immured / as unknown big events shall be / by backward-sighted
history—
The
doorways of night
The doorways of night / displace the referred;
/ the symbol stands deadly / and no-one will know it / until
it’s occurred.
Worlds
assure, lay out the maze Worlds assure, / lay out the maze / of one
straight road; / brief suns skim / across eternal days.
Nothing
new is said Here, at the window / daylight fades / where
once it grew. // Grows, where once / it fell away. Abstract /
as an opinion, light // stands above a skyline / in a ruffling
wind
The Old Wall A running translation
/ of an ancient text / —that’s a train of thought /
and stands no paraphrase.
Each day goes where we shall go Each
day goes where we shall go, / we conjecture, do not know; / a
different dispensation, vast / as thought.
This silence, this darkness It is
not the first silence, / this silence: / here, all that has sounded
/ resounds; / wind and voice, / wave and stonefall, / voice and
prayer. // But darkness— / on the instant / all darknesses
/ are gated to the first.
A fragment of the past draws disinterestedly close A fragment of the past / draws disinterestedly
close— / your hand might rest upon it / as does your mental
eye.
City aspirations An adumbration
of a road where there is none, / say, through complexities where
new-built cities rise
Aporia Two fragments move; / you envision
the whole— / matter and movement.
The arranging The arranging /
falls upon the membrane of the mind.
Lake Isle In isolation, an
hour floats, still; / a connection with a past / seems too strained
to be the truth: // and the thought becomes obscure.
Why are matters as they lie? Why
are matters as they lie? Never far / beneath the waking mind;
but to enquire / is rarely apt; the truest loadings mar / the
balance they are forced to bear
Mental hospital Austere light—
/ plain of wall. / Senses alight, / stay, slenderly, / quietly
align.
‘Someone loved this line of houses once’ Someone loved this line of houses once, /
this brick-built terrace on the moor, / up against the sky. I
did myself, looked / out to see the skyline chimney-stacks’
// thin wind-blown smoke above the road / approaching home.
Strange to himself Strange to himself,
he stands / at the end of the street he’s known / since
childhood; now he’s grown / obscure and shy, demands //
a distance, is aloof.
Open circuit Sounding
waters, / falling without end / at the edge of hearing; / grains
beyond count / resonant upon the skin / of night’s tympanum;
The
Sun
Imagination / bareback, / riding out the
plain: / the single sun / riding out the sky / to pluralities
of day.
The undergoing Forms should go
to the simple / at the lastlight; after the undergoing / the
modes of person are undone, / and pasts as though they had no
form.
Flowing feeling Flowing feeling
/ in the shaping, volute / in quiet-moving hands, / free-rising
form, / penetrance and skyline / of the opening of day.
Light widens Light widens. /
Word-hinged worlds / turn: face days’ / clear eyes. / Stand
above / the threshold.
Nine of these
poems are presented here:
click on the underlined titles