i.m. John Riley, 1937- d. October 27/8, 1978 and John Anderson, 1948-d. October 28,1997

from A MILE FROM POETRY, #27

Midnight Interrogation

(A review of John Riley's

Ways of Approaching)

the feet of the old begetters make your dozen

jump : the new images observe each other

a tickle it is the freer the line the

more wilful the stirrings : no 

one halts the caravan with such

avarice as you

you would tell the first inhabitants get

out & walk if their promenade across

the mind's peace the ash-woods the

cleared fields made parade of

Oh tis Autumn or

this view Lady & you

& by the same token would

deliver you to the dreadings of your

perennial night-walk on a platter the

lines of doomed auxiliaries felling the 

after-dinner song & 

the scents of mint & nasturtiums at the

poem's centre nothing to

the nothing at your centre the

flight of love's victims the

collision of affectations & easy

procedures with love's caravan : the nothing

of which you write it's

nothing you say secured on the

base-line of an empathy with the beautiful gardens & a

native lad running his kite 

[1974]

oOo

from THE GOLDEN LAUGHTER

The Last Sulk

(acausal parallelism : ) train stopped. the (unmistakable)

river bird preens its leg of our conjunction. never 

ending city reducing vitality trailing out

along the line. mile upon mile. so what "a tennis court"

but suddenly a silver generator's just fine. John Anderson'

s the poet who explodes our "white ibis". relegated*

to a footnote is simply not what we will be. what will

he be? what will we be? Last Quill & Restaurant. 

i'm looking forward to the great blank news.

the next decade is requisitioned. whether singing 

or tilling it's our first chosen beginning.

her hair or land-mist & rivulet

red lines in my fingers. he said/she said

kiss me. almost did. provided for in day-dream.

their fare's a kind of Zion. two birds on that pond.

more mist in the eucalypts of the valley.

sunshine on rising mist & smoke-stack's

grey climb. HITLER'S WAR i'm languorous

demurring "mine". its hill profusion &

dimpled plain. & trapped fog again.

i cant help thinking Our Power Was Thrown Away.

green so swiftly purple (verdigris). i'd settled

for nothing tending the abscess my fingers

trailing through air instead of their red hair.

A NIGHTMARE. tunnel through granite. then

smooth curve of river & never-a-care.

hard to proceed from there. i hanker after

rank lines. that buggerizing jalopy the

rhyme & style. resting motors on the highway

not one car to pace the train. 

think no more.

deny upbringing's cadence.

LOST!  but in which vernacular forest forest

host of heaven. i go home

i see brown rushes

i see broken branches sawn trunks

a by-road's damp patch

pulling red lines from their hair

my fingers curl flail no more the empty air

my fingers couched in the ardent there

* there now gasp!

rapture aside

aspiring on my time

red lines at my throat

[June, '79]