A PAMPHLET FROM PLYMOUTH
began it all. A port means ships come in
and go away so poems and ideas
keep travelling and you know literature
and languages belong together, tell
the sailing fates it’s always best to risk
misunderstanding, waterspouts and bland
oblivion.
North of that town the moor
protects an emptiness that isn’t bare.
Across the Tamar Celtic Britain starts
again. You feel these options underlie
a value raised by switching other tongues
to muster English since you’ve memorised
verse to a blue guitar and stirred from spring
to autumn in Year One omitting not
a word of lustre on the way from page
to page.
When Dayton closed and magazines
grew thicker toward the east readers have found
poems collected generously there
at last, brought out with fervent care.
No flights
from Makey-sicky-city north to hear
good jazz, nor west to the far east Macau,
strange destinations much like poetry.
What’s written somewhere secretly (and loved)
goes now to a real publisher who tilts
what seems impossible to sunrise which
can never shift a presence in the sky
again.
Your conversation always glints
with laughter. In a café, Tony, as
you peer above your lenses quizzically
your company’s so rich and fertile. All
you’ve brought to light along the years spells out
in print what many dozens owe you now
who on this birthday send their thanks with what’s
as sure as a sincerity of joy.
began it all. A port means ships come in
and go away so poems and ideas
keep travelling and you know literature
and languages belong together, tell
the sailing fates it’s always best to risk
misunderstanding, waterspouts and bland
oblivion.
North of that town the moor
protects an emptiness that isn’t bare.
Across the Tamar Celtic Britain starts
again. You feel these options underlie
a value raised by switching other tongues
to muster English since you’ve memorised
verse to a blue guitar and stirred from spring
to autumn in Year One omitting not
a word of lustre on the way from page
to page.
When Dayton closed and magazines
grew thicker toward the east readers have found
poems collected generously there
at last, brought out with fervent care.
No flights
from Makey-sicky-city north to hear
good jazz, nor west to the far east Macau,
strange destinations much like poetry.
What’s written somewhere secretly (and loved)
goes now to a real publisher who tilts
what seems impossible to sunrise which
can never shift a presence in the sky
again.
Your conversation always glints
with laughter. In a café, Tony, as
you peer above your lenses quizzically
your company’s so rich and fertile. All
you’ve brought to light along the years spells out
in print what many dozens owe you now
who on this birthday send their thanks with what’s
as sure as a sincerity of joy.