The Beast in the Space

James McBey

The Beast in the Space

Shut up. Shut up. There’s nobody here.
If you think you hear somebody knocking
On the other side of the words, pay
No attention. It will be only
The great creature that thumps its tail
On silence on the other side.
If you do not even hear that
I’ll give the beast a quick skelp

And through Art you’ll hear it yelp.
The beast that lives on silence takes
Its bite out of either side.
It pads and sniffs between us. Now
It comes and laps my meaning up.
Call it over. Call it across
This curious necessary space.
Get off, you terrible inhabiter
Of silence. I’ll not have it. Get
Away to whoever it is will have you.
He’s gone and if he’s gone to you
That’s fair enough. For on this side
Of the words it’s late. The heavy moth
Bangs on the pane. The whole house
Is sleeping and I remember
I am not here, only the space
I sent the terrible beast across.
Watch. He bites. Listen gently
To any song he snorts or growls
And give him food. He means neither
Well or ill towards you. Above
All, shut up. Give him your love.

W.S. Graham 

 

Sitting down to write, and sometimes even before that, I feel this Beast, this Resistance.

There is always a Something that fights me trying to speak truly.

"The beast that lives on silence."  What clear description!

There is Something that wants to shush me. A beast of prey, as Graham writes.

Do I hunt him? Do I hide? How do I get by his lair?

 

Me, I dash in blind. I run at the writing. As fast as I can, I get it down, and run back to safety.

 

Maybe I'll learn a better way, when I'm stronger.

 

I'm building up my strength.

 

 

 

This Poem

Unknown

This Poem

This poem is dangerous: it should not be left

Within the reach of children, or even of adults

Who might swallow it whole, with possibly

Undesirable side-effects. If you come across

An unattended, unidentified poem

In a public place, do not attempt to tackle it

Yourself. Send it (preferably, in a sealed container)

To the nearest centre of learning, where it will be rendered

Harmless, by experts. Even the simplest poem

May destroy your immunity to human emotions.

All poems must carry a Government warning. Words

Can seriously affect your heart.

Elma Mitchell


Just for fun.

 

 

Theorum

Jeffrey T. Larson

Theorum

Prose can be hard as you like, let it make you restless.

But poetry is a vibration heard when life is dumb:

shadows move on the hills: pictured wind and clouds,

the going of smoke or life: bright, dim, bright.

a quiet-flowing current, deep clouded forests,

slow-mouldering houses, lanes radiating warmth,

a doorsill worn to a crisp, shadow-silence,

a child's timid step into a room's gloom,

a letter from a far country thrust under the door,

so large, so white it fills all the house

or a day so steely and bright you can hear

how the sun nails fast the blue void door.

Eeva-Liisa Manner

Manner is a Finnish poet, and I wonder what is lost in translation. What comes through is that connection between poetry and silence. It seems contradictory that poetry, expressed in words, could be about wordlessness. Maybe a better way to say it would be that poetry expresses something beyond words, like a quiet awareness, or an inner knowing. Manner uses the word "heard", is she implying that poetry is something already there? It makes sense. I mean, it doesn't come from nothing. Perhaps the poet's role is not one of creation so much as hearing/seeing/feeling and then directing that "quiet-flowing current". If that's true, then there are two ways (at least) of experiencing poetry, one in the initial hearing/seeing/feeling, and the other in the translation of that experience into words. Yes, translation. Exactly. I've thought this a while, that poets are translators. But also that all of us experience poems. Those moments when we stop, when we notice the clouds moving, the shadows stretching, the world turning - we are embraced within a breathing, pulsing, moving poem. "A vibration heard when life is dumb." We move within a poem, and are part of it, agents within our "form". There are words for it, yes, but the poem itself is bigger than the words. Life itself is the poem.

Poem White Page White Page Poem

Pierre Bonnard

 

 

Poem White Page White Page Poem

Poem white page white page poem

something is streaming out of a body in waves

something is beginning from the fingertips

they are starting to declare for my whole life

all the despair and the making music

something like wave after wave

that breaks on a beach

something like bringing the entire life

to this moment

the small waves bringing themselves to white paper

something like light stands up and is alive

Muriel Rukeyser

“Something like light stands up and is alive”. That hits me in the chest. “Something like wave after wave/ that breaks on a beach” – do you feel that?! This is something inexplicable, and yet, she has said it. She has shown us something we didn’t know we knew. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me think poetry is one of the highest arts. The art we all find within ourselves, and can carry anywhere – into any circumstance. We don’t have to lug a frame into a landscape, or carry a sculpture into a battle, no, but we carry poems in our minds. Whole worlds open, anywhere, anytime. And this is the work of the poet. Rukeyser makes it sound like magic, but it is hard, hard work. “Streaming out of the body in waves”? Not bloody likely! If only. Oh, if only.

 

Spell

Frederick C. Frieseke

Spell

If, at your desk, you push aside your work,

Take down a book, turn to this verse,

and read that I kneel here, pressing

my ear where on your chest the muscles

arch as great books part, in seagull curves,

bridging the seasounds of your heart,

and that your hands run through my hair,

draw the wayward mass to strands

as flat as scarlet silk-thread bookmarks,

and stroke my cheeks as if smoothing

back the tissue leaves from chilly,

plated pages, and pull me near

to read my eyes alone, then you shall see,

silvered and monochrome, yourself,

sitting at your desk, taking down a book,

turning to this verse, and then, my love,

you shall not know which one of us is reading,

now, which is writing, and which written.

Kate Clanchy

"Read my eyes alone, then you shall see...yourself". And there you are - in the poem.  Wait, did she just write you? Are you a person in a poem? Have you been created? Are you part of an enchantment? Did she just put a spell on you?!