RIP, Patrick Leigh Fermor

Last Sentence

Fantasy

of the dance, day

breaks and waves

be light, this earth

that covers you,

father.

(from Sentences, 1976)

NB: A great man, a great writer, a great philhellene—

A great loss.

Nowhere to Go

still poems

impasse sings

Poems

Distracted by the unexpected

Arrival of cooing, nest building

Mourning doves in our twinned

Cypresses, I set down

An anthology of Poems Inspired

By the Life and Work

Of William Carlos Williams and try

Excitedly to capture

The moment that is about

To fly away until I hear

A soft whooshing sound

And turn to see that

One has landed and is now

Looking for twigs

A scant few feet away.

NB: A companion piece to this poem can be viewed here and the photograph which preceded the poems here.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Poetic Ciphers

Arrogant to the letter, always

Telling us all his poems,

Even the easiest ones

Are made up simply of words, asking

Why do we not understand them, I can

Deal with that but when

Is this cipher ever going to tell us what

His poems are not then? 


Moderator's comments: No Cinquor--he's not.

Revulsion of the Open Eyesore

near wounded river

where once

I remember

women gathered

to wash

mounds of clothes,

so many mounds

of festering trash

one wants not

to forget to wash

one’s hands of it.