I've been working on the
return songs sequence over the last term or so. They've emerged from a greater attention to breathspace, as in Cummings, Oppen or Mario Petrucci's
i tulips, and a draw to psalmic imagery and diction. Toby Martinez De Las Rivas, I discovered about a year ago, does prophetic and revelatory utterance terrifyingly well; so while these inhabit at times a similar atmosphere (he uses names often, beautifully), the drive is quieter. I'm still working out how the page's whitenoise can be incorporated without the scattering seeming arbitrary – for me it's sometimes about breath, sometimes rhythmic punctuation, and also simply the way the poem looks.
The return songs are likely to be incorporated into a larger project due (is the plan) as a pamphlet in spring 2012, but here's a draft of 4 as they currently stand. No. 1 appeared in Varsity September 2011, 2 currently included in Felix Bazalgette's Amusements magazine.
1
That this too is
distance
london hymns
her buoyant
with moth-
luck to earth
via cordite
rungs
That emmaus is
like this
yarned rest
wheel of
sparrow & hair
& drum
but john
precious in joy
i see now
every
sung
2
paths circa robin
huddled us together
with thoughts of east
i open morning out
sky tinder
crane flies un pieced
un us
(& was i utter to
a beechen call
i ask
is it record of
a harmony
spans us
stelled at a remove)
3
at brink i
turn bewick
to palm
as
way
She
said in tundra
( white the
clearring
of her
face
)
for
year is
maned is
less o
paque
so
long so
sung that
daw
at break
4
his
chemic
underwing.
november
busk,
its
bluish
roads
undersing.
devon
red,
this
lipped
field-
underling.
coal.
breath.
his
underwing
