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.

 

 

 

Words

Carl Spitzweg

Words

Words are my instruments but not my servants;  

by the white pillar of a prince I lie in wait 

for them. In what the hour or the minute invents, 

in a web formally meshed or inchoate, 

these fritillaries are come upon, trapped:  

hot-coloured, or the cold scarabs a thousand years 

old, found in cerements and unwrapped.  

The catch and the ways of catching are diverse.  

For instance this stooping man, the bones of whose face are like

the hollow birds' bones, is a trap for words.  

And the pockmarked house bleached by the glare 

whose insides war has dried out like gourds  

attracts words. There are those who capture them  

in hundreds, keep them prisoners in black  

bottles, release them at exercise and clap them back.  

But I keep words only a breath of time 

turning in the lightest of cages - uncover  

and let them go: sometimes they escape for ever.

Keith Douglas

“The catch and the ways of catching are diverse.” Golly. It’s taking everything in me not to gush over this poem.

 It’s freakin’ fantastic.

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?!