Horseman in Rain

Unknown

Horseman in Rain

Primordial waters: clover and oat striving, water-walls,
a meshing of cords in the net of the night,
in the barbarous weave of the damp, dropping water,
a rending of water-drops, lamenting successions,
diagonal rage, cutting heaven.
Steeped in aromas, smashing the water, interposing
the roan of their gloss, like a foliage, between boulder water.
The horses gallop in water,
their vapor attending, in a lunatic milk,
a stampede of doves that hardens, like water.
Not day, but a cistern
of obdurate weather, green agitations,
where hooves join a landscape of haste
with the lapse of the rain and the bestial aroma of horses.
Blankets and pommels, clustering cloak-furs,
seedfalls of darkness
ablaze on the haunches of brimstone
that beat the considering jungle.


                         Beyond and beyond and beyond
And beyond and beyond and beyond and beyoooooond:
the horsemen demolish the rain, the horsemen
pass under the bittering hazelnut, the rain
weaves unperishing wheat in a shimmer of lustres.
Here is water's effulgence, confusion of lightning,
to spill on the leaf, here, from the noise of the gallop,
the water goes wounded to earth, without flight. 
The bridle reins dampen; branch-covered archways,
footfalls of footfalls, an herbage of darkness
in splintering starshapes, moonlike, icelike, a cyclone of horses
riddled with points like an icicle prism -
and born out of furor, the innocent fingers brim over,
the apple encompassing terror
and the terrible banners of empire, are smitten.
Pablo Neruda (translated by Ben Belitt)

What just happened?!!

What was that?

A kind of list? Of how water can fall or be smashed or be spilled, how it weaves and shimmers and spits - or this, "here is water's effulgence" (effulgence, what a great word - "a brilliant radiance, a shining forth")? I haven't come across many lists with the action and movement in this one. The horses galloping, stampeding, hooves flying - the smell and the sound of them - wonderful! This is the magic of Neruda.



 

After Rain

Geri Waddington

After Rain

The snails have made a garden of green lace:
broderie anglaise from the cabbages,
chantilly from the choux-fleurs, tiny veils-
I see already that I lift the blind
upon a woman's wardrobe of the mind.

Such female whimsy floats about me like
a kind of tulle, a flimsy mesh,
while feet in gumboots pace the rectangles-
garden abstracted, geometry awash-
an unknown theorem argued in green ink,
dropped in the bath.
Euclid in glorious chlorophyll, half drunk.

I none too sober slipping in the mud
where rigged with guys of rain
the clothes-reel gauche
as the rangy skeleton of some
gaunt delicate spidery mute
is pitched as if
listening;
while hung from one thin rib
a silver web-
its infant, skeletal, diminutive,
now sagged with sequins, pulled ellipsoid,
glistening.

I suffer shame in all these images.
The garden is primeval, Giovanni
in soggy denim squelches by my hub,
over his ruin
shakes a doleful head.
But he so beautiful and diademed,
his long Italian hands so wrung with rain
I find his ache exists beyond my rim
and almost weep to see a broken man
made subject to my whim.

O choir him, birds, and let him come to rest
within this beauty as one rests in love,
till pears upon the bough
encrusted with
small snails as pale as pearls
hang golden in
a heart that know tears are a part of love.

And choir me too to keep my heart a size
larger than seeing, unseduced by each
bright glimpse of beauty striking like a bell,
so that the whole may toll,
its meaning shine
clear of the myriad images that still-
do what I will-encumber its pure line.

P.K. Page

Look how she does it. Broderie anglaise, chantilly, tulle, chlorophyl, sequins, ellisoid, theorum, encrusted, diademmed, pearls. From these she makes lace out of cabbages, geometry out of garden steps, silver webs out of clothes-lines, a king out of a gardener, jewels out of raindrops. The images she casts on our mind's eye are extraordinary. I see old mythological gardens  - "pears upon the bough/ encrusted with/ small snails as pale as pearls/ hang golden" - is this the Garden of the Hesperides where Hercules travels to find the golden fruit? Is this an enchanted garden? Or a pest-ridden, soggy cabbage patch worked by gum-booted and discouraged gardener? And then that "O choir him, birds," - and "Keep my heart a size larger than seeing." reminds me of Dylan Thomas - and really, isn't that the key line?

"Keep my heart a size larger than seeing."

A Northern Morning

Anna Larmoliuk

A Northern Morning

It rained from dawn. The fire died in the night.
I poured hot water on some foreign leaves;
I brought the fire to life. Comfort
spread from the kitchen like a taste of chocolate
through the head-waters of a body,
accompanied by that little-water-music.
The knotted veins of the old house tremble and carry
a louder burden: the audience joining in.

People are peaceful in a world so lavish
with the ingredients of life:
the world of breakfast easy as Tahiti.
But we must leave. Head down in my new coat
I dodge to the High Street conscious of my fellows
damp and sad in their vegetable fibres.
But by the bus-stop I look up: the spring trees
exult in the downpour, radiant, clean for hours:
This is the life! This is the only life!

Alistair Elliot



“I brought the fire to life. Comfort spread from the kitchen.” This brings up old memories. How I would hear my mother lighting kindling in the kitchen stove. Waiting under the covers as the rooms slowly warmed. The sound of pots and pans rattling as she set about making breakfast. The kettle singing on the stovetop. Yes, comfort spread from the kitchen. From my mother’s presence and movements. This poem brings it all back. “A world so lavish with the ingredients of life.” I like that word “ingredients”, as if life were a meal. As if the world were composed like a recipe. And then the trees! Exulting in the spring rain – radiant. The way Elliot brings these words and images together, their placement and flavour - stirs up joy.