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rejectomorphI had spicy noodles for dinner Saturday and now I'm getting the non-surprising indigestion with reflux. When will I learn? If I had to guess I'd say never. But I'm so hot outside I might as well be hot inside as well, no? The outside hot is set to continue for some time, and I must remember to remain hydrated so I can have tears to weep over the wretchedness of it all. Today I will get to stay indoors all day, with no delivery of mail to induce me into walking down the driveway to the mailbox.
Other days these days I stay mostly in because I no longer have a city to walk through. It's been a long time since I've had one, or the energy to walk through it. But I remember the cities, which were like galleries in which we were the art, which kept moving and looking at other art, restlessly seeking one of those frozen moments of exchanged glances that might be recognition, when some portrait might be studied for a revelation of meaning, however frail or tenuous or brief. Most often we would just move on. Now I seldom make such walks through almost perpetually disappointing cities even in my imagination. I suppose I'm better off for it. I'm pretty sure such frequently futile exercise usually made my soul sweat. I don't need that, and certainly not in this weather.
Sunday Verse
by Edwin Morgan
If only we'd been strangers
we'd be floating off to Timor,
we'd be shimmering on the Trades
in a blue jersey boat
with shandies, flying-fish,
a pace of dolphins
to the copra ports.
And it's no use crying
to me, What Dolphins?
for I know where they are
and I'd have snapped you up
and carried you away
if we had been strangers.
But here we are care
of the black roofs.
It's not hard to find
with a collar turned up
and a hoot from the Clyde.
The steps come home
whistling too. And a kettle
steams the cranes out slowly.
It's living with ships
makes a rough springtime
and who is safe
when they sing and blow
their music — they seem
to swing at some light rope
like those desires
we keep for strangers.
God, the yellow deck
breathes, it heaves spray
back like a shout.
We're cutting through
some straits of the world
in our old dark room
with salty wings
in the shriek of the dock wind.
But we're caught — meshed
in the fish-scales, ferries,
mudflats, lifebleats
fading into football cries
and the lamps coming on
to bring us in.
We take in
the dream, a cloth from the line
the trains fling sparks on
in our city. We're better awake.
But you know I'd take
you all the same,
if you were my next stranger.
Other days these days I stay mostly in because I no longer have a city to walk through. It's been a long time since I've had one, or the energy to walk through it. But I remember the cities, which were like galleries in which we were the art, which kept moving and looking at other art, restlessly seeking one of those frozen moments of exchanged glances that might be recognition, when some portrait might be studied for a revelation of meaning, however frail or tenuous or brief. Most often we would just move on. Now I seldom make such walks through almost perpetually disappointing cities even in my imagination. I suppose I'm better off for it. I'm pretty sure such frequently futile exercise usually made my soul sweat. I don't need that, and certainly not in this weather.
Sunday Verse
Floating off to Timor
by Edwin Morgan
If only we'd been strangers
we'd be floating off to Timor,
we'd be shimmering on the Trades
in a blue jersey boat
with shandies, flying-fish,
a pace of dolphins
to the copra ports.
And it's no use crying
to me, What Dolphins?
for I know where they are
and I'd have snapped you up
and carried you away
if we had been strangers.
But here we are care
of the black roofs.
It's not hard to find
with a collar turned up
and a hoot from the Clyde.
The steps come home
whistling too. And a kettle
steams the cranes out slowly.
It's living with ships
makes a rough springtime
and who is safe
when they sing and blow
their music — they seem
to swing at some light rope
like those desires
we keep for strangers.
God, the yellow deck
breathes, it heaves spray
back like a shout.
We're cutting through
some straits of the world
in our old dark room
with salty wings
in the shriek of the dock wind.
But we're caught — meshed
in the fish-scales, ferries,
mudflats, lifebleats
fading into football cries
and the lamps coming on
to bring us in.
We take in
the dream, a cloth from the line
the trains fling sparks on
in our city. We're better awake.
But you know I'd take
you all the same,
if you were my next stranger.
