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| ISBN-13: | 9781847776785 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Carcanet Press, Limited |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 112 |
| File size: | 277 KB |
About the Author
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The Reasoner
By Jeffrey Wainwright
Carcanet Press Ltd
Copyright © 2012 Jeffrey WainwrightAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84777-678-5
CHAPTER 1
1
Starting early with my dog, boundlessly,
or on a solitary walk by a riverside,
or in a stew or a studio, or in a stew in a studio
a proper brown one,
you will find me.
But am I the same in your eyes as in mine,
or in that third eye, the barber's captious glass?
My dome is as innocent, as artless, as a wig-stand;
the elastic that fastens my spectacles has crimped one ear;
I am spry still but stooped from the books I bear,
a few good bindings but glue-split paperbacks mostly,
bundled, strapped and wedged into packs, fardels,
so that philosophers laugh as I waddle by.
Also about me: pyramids, cubes and squares,
a wood-gauge and a rule, as Don Quixote says:
'in my profession
you must know everything'.
I am one who would know,
and thus be happy.
2
A single filament of a spider's web
only appears because of how
for these ten minutes the light plays it,
like the back and forth of a slide guitar
as it is caught in the vagaries
of the tiny wind.
Nothing else anywhere, ever, has these,
offers these same movements to an eye.
Hard to grasp how this thread and light as seen
is 'intellectually inferred'.
But looking at one thing am I missing another?
3
Beliefs are necessary, I do believe.
There is enough white water and storm scum
to show that life is not a book group
or a week in a hammock.
Not that abeyance is a crime:
it may be praiseworthy, principled even,
enabling us to hang out with whatever
and whoever we please for the while;
in some desperate circs. it might even keep us alive.
But ... but ... 'but' will butter no parsnips
in the end, and should doubt doubt doubt,
as it surely will, there is only 'and so on
and so on and so on' until, as sages keep saying,
'all I know is that I know nothing' –
I really do believe that – oh my, do I?
Oh yes indeed I do.
4
4–8 in memory of René Gallet
Is our language complete? Not on your life!
Not like H2SO4. Not like the law of sines
with its allowance for the ambiguous case.
But there is the hope
the one who hopes
for simple agreements,
perfect understanding
for nothing not ever irregular
In Stoke-on-Trent post-war we were keen on Esperanto.
Here, where breathing could be difficult,
was an inspiration to get out the door,
to world peace, nation same-speaking peace unto nation,
so charas could criss-cross from Dresden to Dresden,
Burslem to Bialystok,
happy wanderers, buying pots of tea effortlessly,
and explaining the laws of cricket faultlessly
to Russians Germans Poles and Jews,
without an itch and nary a crux word.
5
Is our language complete? No way José
exclamation point. For all the rolling off the tongue
words remain such dullards, their relations obscure.
I – wish – that – she – would – call.
Just tell me, if you can, how what I mean is there.
Or even in: I – do – wish – that – she – would – call.
Just tell me, if you can, how what I feel is there.
How do such, or any, sentences give forth,
bring into presence, stand in for, resemble ...?
No way. But just watch them do it.
6
Is our language complete? Are you kidding?
Very often. Which is part of the lack.
I can't claim though that I am lied to often.
Even house-agents' clerks don't say the thing-which-is-not
deliberately, they are just optimists
by training, and the ones I know, the press they get,
it's hard not to sympathise. Would he really
leave a girl like that in her bedsit in her nothings?
Could her executive comportment turn peevish,
lead to murder in the master bedroom even?
I don't know.
7
Is our language complete? You bet it is!
Name one thing it can't do.
It can dawdle meaning-less-ly like this,
or be doing the same thing soul-ful-ly, if it says so,
drifting along the ramparts in a floaty dress,
the chalky hills [enter here] in the moonlight,
could be given anything to do,
as they were once said to skip.
The only question it has to ask itself is
how much is a sufficiency, elegant or otherwise?
8
Is our language complete? Well, you read the lines /
lies in the last poem, decide for yourself.
In truth I stumble and cast about even when
I'm talking to myself. There are the best of tools
in the tidiest of racks under the stairs
and these words are not among them, nor – I 'hazard' –
are there any such places words may be found.
But do not despair – and that's an order –
there are no angels, thus no perfect prattling,
and the painstaking repair of spiders' webs
best left to what's best adapted.
As the nightingale 'with her sweet self she wrangles'
we must just strive with our creature tongue.
9
but who can I talk to? To you?
I'm always looking for a way to talk
and I could talk to you
but who might you be?
Are you a parson and should I be afraid?
See! I feel you misunderstand already –
I don't mean these days a reverend
but someone parsonical, already guyed
by the adjective, already gagged
but still mumming in that corner of my eye
I will not turn to –
Oh, you are not my heart's delight,
you load my heart, you want me
for your adversary and that's fair enough
in a democracy, and though I know I would lose
the argument, something I really fear,
what is the most you can deal me,
what would stand me bare-headed in the market place?
I know, but with the lily-stink about me,
not in words, or otherwise, can I turn to you.
10
I'll take me to the visagiste.
She won't say, 'Mornin' Squire, how're y' diddlin'
but just set tranquilly to work so that, without a word,
I have every assurance of a new face.
My polpy, and as twilight falls, geranium-coloured nose
will be no more; my skull bones will be cracked
and blended, no longer angular;
my skin – how you say? – hydrated.
Smat! Smat! I shall be new.
I shall know who I am.
11
Things are not what they seem.
This is the big idea of the detective story,
as of Plato. What is really happening as
I study his palm is that the conjuror
has taken my braces and my watch.
There is always a second world
and it's not even out there,
we're just watching the wrong thing.
But in the worst of mysteries there are no clues,
or, if you must believe in them, they cannot be read.
Who took my braces, my watch, the lost children may,
the authorities say, never be known,
save in the parallel and smug universe of crimes.
12
No, not suddenly; gradually, bit by bit,
and reluctantly, after much valiant struggle,
one recognises the disorder:
one cupboard, cabinet or tallboy will not do,
place mats are never in their place,
nor tea towels, pillowcases, serviettes;
the crucial kitchen-drawer always has
the wrong batteries, withered elastic bands,
part-warranties, a fuse, sundry string (some plasticated),
a dead pen-torch and none of it helps,
despite planning,
none of it helps –
objects that survive, survive,
like this stout black box 12 inches × 6 × 6.
One must never admit it is all one has.
13
Hotshit philosopher, just tell me what
is always veiled, or, at least, you know, the kind of thing?
or what on earth are all our interpretations
of?
I'm guessing I'm not to expect
a silver ladder from the parted clouds,
nor a window to open
and she let down her hair.
These are the beautiful stories of revelation and release
and are ruled out.
Yes, in fairness, I know you know
that fewer even of you yourselves
can, or would want to turn your heads towards
– crudely put, but how else? – the truth,
and return to tell us just how things are
and thus should be
– fiercer yet burns the fire,
the shadows ever more spectacular
and Virtue no longer tries to peep
but foxtrots, jogs or saunters in the flames.
14
He'd been waiting for a taxi, Pamuk says.
He had got home at last, and just as he put his key in the lock
he concluded that any meaning anyone might find in the world
he found by chance.
I'm not happy with this.
If the only meaning comes by chance
is chance the only meaning?
But understanding taxis and understanding birds,
earthworms or foxgloves,
following the methods each for each,
might reveal the same algorithm eventually,
and each algorithm slot into the next,
ever outwards until we have some such triumphal cry as
'l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle!'
and, before you laugh, if one thing is to move
heaven and earth might it not best be love?
There is a voracity for laws which I know I feel,
just like the man approaching his own front door,
I would conclude, conclude.
15
The beauty outside constantly interrupts.
George Seferis, Journal
These black-eyed, snow-white pansies for instance,
careless of their opulence,
generous little souls,
and the raucous lorikeets, green and red,
in the trees near the ocean,
and the ocean and the ocean of light they live in.
I could cultivate an indoor phrase, 'pansy-blind',
as though there is a tale to be told of them
as of every meadow, grove and stream.
Better not interrupt,
which will have to mean: be blind, be deaf,
do not push fingers out towards them.
Can it be true one ancient put his own eyes out
to see more clearly? Can we think yet?
16
Courtesy of Reg Mombassa
I should like to draw attention
to the part-consonance of
Calvary and Clovelly.
It is not immaculate, not as nice
as a parallelogram, agreed,
but does serve as a pointer
to what, in language, might sort with what,
what might tumble together
as false friends do
leaving us as under a signpost
which has been tampered with overnight
and is now trying to keep a straight face.
Which leads me to ask have you ever noticed
how the Madonna is always trying
to get some reading done?
The book is falling to the pavement
as the angel calls,
or open on her lap,
or on the lectern
with a book-box spilling over by her foot;
even later on she is still absorbed as the bambino
finds a wicked thorn to play with.
Must she have had some other life,
and, it seems to us moderns, a very modern one,
but it fell away?
Could it be said she was saved from words?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Reasoner by Jeffrey Wainwright. Copyright © 2012 Jeffrey Wainwright. Excerpted by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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