Two Poems

Tilla Brading

(Coleridge Bulletin, New Series 19, Spring 2002, pp.71-76)

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from Autumnal Jour

(first published by Maquette Press 1998)

 

 

THE VALUE OF SILENCE

 

The Bible

in Tablets of Stone.

Prior to 1611 the text

was relatively fluid,

and it was possible

to take liberties with the text.

Tablets of Stone,

leaves of paper

 

The Ten Commandments

carved in 1927

above Buckland-in-the-Moor.

 

Andrew Lanyon says

there should be One Poem –

written on concrete.

 

Tablets of stone.

 

September October November

septem octo novem decem

seven eight nine ten

sept: ninth month    oct: tenth

nov: eleventh

sssslippage of season

Julius Augustus

 

fffflippant    sssslippage

silage on November1st

the mown grass vermillion

 

Leaffall applefall appleturnover

Apple fall    Logic

Newton sat under an apple tree

in Autumn    Illogic

some bugger was chucking apples

up in the air

 

Radio question:

In which season was this song set?

All the brown leaves of...?

A droughting summer

 

Logic    cutting printing collating pasting…

1895. Promenade concerts founded by Sir Henry

Wood.

 

Woodburn leaffall

Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being…

H.G. WELLS: the time machine

Tackatackatackatackthe time machine

The time machine the time machine

Machinemachinemachine

 

1896. A. E. Houseman: A Shropshire Lad

(a bit of a lad)

Thomas Hardy: Jude the Obscure

October 3rd. William Morris, artist, designer

and craftsman, dies.

November 16th. Sir Oswald Mosley,

leader of the Fascist Movement in Britain, is born.

tackatackatackatack   attack   attack

 

Red poppy

Red pointillism of holly

rose, cotoneaster

TREE OF LIFE MOTIF

Black stipple of ivy, sloe,

nub of sycamore

a kind of fig tree

deciduous

covering the dark eye

 

THE AMERICAN TREE

 

clinging goosegrass and burdock

sheep nibbling stubble

pheasant chicks zombieing

flock to nourish a vertical flap

from the silly beaters

 

pot-shot shot for the pot

posh shop shop for the posh

easy as pie, food fit for a princess

The Princess's power is equal

to a third of a million kettles

 

the lion on the syrup has shrunk

to the size of a pea

 

Pull up pea haulms

Rake leaves

 

The leaves crackle

Branches flame ochre and umber

Green flames, a blackened shroud.

All these are flames.

 

All these are leaves

The leaves crackle

Oa-k and ash

Oak is ash. Dust to…

Ashes smoke.

 

The first frost

The vale stretched out in muslin

The field smokes

The leaves crackle

 

Now is the time

we must check flowers

on your grave for bombs.

Proud man now seems

 the enemy of all

I am older than the State of Israel

 

I hear the young poet

we met in the summer

is dead

after THE ELEMENTS

nothing

 

6th Sophie born 12.00 pm

 

The field smokes

The field steams

The fields steam

The fields' steam

The field steams

The field smokes

 

Seasons are missed

 

Mist    of seasons

 

Mist

 

Seasons of.

 

 

 

 

                   SARA

 

illegible to other eyes

a muted story

distinctly minor

 

so much left

unrecorded

 

part of the heard melodies

of Great Men

 

shadow    of a brilliant father

putting in order

his literary house;

keeping her husband's house

(in order)

 

silent heroine whose muffled story

haunts

 

marginalised by sex

(exemplifies her meaning

in the little tale

included in parenthesis)

 

unfinished Masterpiece

miscellaneous

remains

slipped

 

from the formalist

heirachy of Art

 

the interesting fragment ends.

 

dots intervene

in inability to make (to do)

 what might have been

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