Day 22

 I'm ambivalent about Dickinson and took ages to choose a poem and when I did I didn't like my effort. 


So, I did a golden shovel instead, which took absolutely ages..


Here's the original:


 Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

 Success in Circuit lies

 Too bright for our infirm Delight

 The Truth's superb surprise

 As Lightning to the Children eased

 With explanation kind

 The Truth must dazzle gradually

 Or every man be blind —


 The player of chess, the speaker of Latin

(The last word of each line spells out the poem)

 

 It is too hard to tell

 you everything, dear reader, all

 references drift, all the

 things that mean something. A truth is truth

 itself, and yet a lie, but

 still, the joy is in the tell

 

 Like when the poker player puts it

 down, the winning card, a half slant

 on the table -  See, the success

 of sleight is sleight itself, a way in,

 a technique to short the circuit,

 papering the blanks with paper lies.

 

 He doesn't want to gamble,  luck's too

 lucky,  Nevada light too bright,

 even in this imaginary place for

 dreamers. This is an ancient rite, our

 slow, tired game, played by the old, infirm

 

 but rich and richer- those who delight

 in profit loss, when the

 game is only bingo. Deal in the truths

 when the gods play cards, are quite superb

 and cruel, betting on one big, better surprise.

 

 The rules intangible as

 dreams, the rules are clear as lightning,

 explained to lawyers, explained to

 sleepers even. There is no point to the

 games we played as children,

   winning small and losing eased

 

 by poetry. I feel that I'm confusing you with

 logic. You are the question and the explanation-

 ken become kin may become kind -

 this is how language works,  the

 way that language is the game, a truth

 of sorts that must 

 be tested again again , will dazzle

 like a sad song, dulling gradually

 

 This wasn't what he meant to say at all, or

 isn't what he thinks his every 

   gambit is about.  He is a man

   or not a man , taking his  turn. It will be

   cards unseen, we will be blind.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nanopowrimo 23

 Day 1 Moonshot They've found another ocean on the moon They've found another ocean in the earth Cowboys everywhere are shooting for space, Laika's in orbit, circling us now, Werner Von Braun sings Werner Von Braun. Did your Father make a rocket from the remnants of the Sixties, fuelled by white spirit and diesel? Did your Mother make rainbows from domestic trajectories Did you crouch like a child in the capsule? Was America's shadow cast in the desert? Was the flag still waving in the wind that wasn't, in the yard of the last living astronaut? Static Someone sleeps on teams , someone alive before. Someone in the left corner or else it's the right or the left or whatever- someone is trying now to get his attention, someone is waving their hand, so it appears like a ghost in random frames. The hand blurs He is Still Still Time goes Time passes The fly appears, crawls across his face, crawls across the mute screen- no one mentions it, no one comments, no one chats...
Read more

NaPowrimo Day 17

  Day 17- Dog The first dog she knew was a wolf- he guarded the baby's cradle, head on forepaws, tick tock pendulum tail- what a big commitment, many thousand years. At three, a spaniel placed its soft little rubber teeth over her hand, and pressed the points in until the skin indented. They asked the parents what will you do to train the puppy, human or dog? Later, the dog brother, who stands as tall as her hip. He moves through the tall grass in rough black and white, he rests his head on her knee. She cleans the blood and feathers from his mouth. No one knows his true name but She 1
Read more

Day 8

 Day 8 Twenty little projects ...not easy  Hill farm blues The land is a sleeping woman. At Chernobyl, the nuclear accident  includes a release of a hundred thousand  bluegreen butterflies He sees a heavy field by the power station And when he touches her rattling fence He knows- great She who sleeps from Carlisle to Whitehaven, I love you. He tastes the reactor release  a flock of mercury birds or hears a suite of quantum computers,  all approximating sentience. He is too nesh to fight the robots, his father said what doesn't kill you  makes you stronger to the broke arm boy. This land-woman wakes. Yan tan tethera - follow the lovely beck  of imagination, a diver tied to a feather stone. Like the fake lake, deeper, She eats a village for breakfast. Kit the rhymer is finding it hard to see, one day this land and poem will either burn or flood. A clever John Deere tractor  announces  the arrivals of Marxist Leninist angels to Her side. Co...
Read more