A Gentle Reader

A gentle reader, a silent room bar the ticking wall-clock and humming fridge. The world fallen away beneath a book: a timorous (now dead) poet enlarging heroisms; a venerable elder teaching lessons, lending His Word to thought and pausing the clock of centuries.

See The Hawk in the Rain, Ted Hughes' first collection of poetry. 

Written December 2022.

Stein-inspired

In the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. In the morning there is meaning. In the meaning anything is anything, in the meaning there is everything, in the meaning there is nothing. In every space an absence of less, in every space a hint of more. In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is sleeping soundly, in feeling anything is rising from its bed, in feeling there is dulled and heightened sensations, in feeling there is tension, in feeling there is knowledge, stiffening or loosening neck, back, and shoulders. In meaning and in feeling a clean dream is danced.

Picture Credit: Equestrian Fantasy with Pink Lady, 1913, Alice Bailly (source: WikiArt).

See Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein.

Written December 2022.

The Dance Begins

A lyrical dance, a fluid turn. A careless reader caught in flowing prose. Eyes racing on, mind giddy with words. Thoughts tripping over themselves, quite unable to appreciate all detail, its fine layers. Fitzgerald's misfortune, for turning back, re-reading repeats the effect. The dance begins, and details deserving notice are again glossed over.

An elegant step, a flawless note. A song sung by a reasonable tenor voice. A stranger, a pilgrim always ready to move on, to take to the road in birch-bark shoes. A follower of Tolstoy, reading his works and living his ideals in tribute to his memory. A writer of poetry in a peasant blouse. Selwyn Crane, a player of Fitzgerald's: accountancy at Reidka's (dear little Reids) his work, Tolstoy his passion.

Moscow. Old England. 1913. Popular agitation. Mirrored in 2022. Railwaymen out again, nurses and paramedics, and postmen and postwomen too, and teachers voting on industrial action. All out, out, out protesting their real grievances: pay and working conditions. Widescale trouble and strife, troops on standby. A tango or pasa doble between employers and employed.

Picture Credit: The Dance, 1912, Konstantin Korovin (source: WikiArt).

See The Beginning Of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald. 

Written December 2022.