Point the telescope & insert coin,
Turn and fully return knob.
Observe the View and at night the Moon.
Don’t look at the Sun. Hold child on stand.
Coin-operated telescopes are a rich source of found poetry. Who can forget the Yard’s analysis of the shattering Scopepoem at Well-next-the-Sea (“The second stanza makes hot tears spurt.”)?
The Clifton poem can surely claim to be in the same bracket. It hardly needs me to point out the reference to the Book of Ecclesiastes in the second line’s lyrical flourish (“Turn and fully return”) nor the hopeless ‘optimism’ of “and at night the Moon”. As for the double-blow of the concluding line, if there is anywhere in this world a man cold-blooded enough to read it aloud with dry eye and lumpless throat, I've yet to meet him and I'm not sure I'd want to.
Superb. I once compiled poetry from the tragic little emails colleagues would send about having failed to establish video connection to London or, better still, having that connection blatantly severed at the other end.
ReplyDeleteOne moment I cherish was:
"I could hear them
But they couldn't hear me."
Charming. A genre that is entirely new to me. The third line is surely a translation from Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, but I confess that I find the last line a bit Reeves & Mortimer.
ReplyDeleteGadj - well there's a lot of tragedy in the comedy of R&M.
ReplyDeleteAnd NGB - that one says it all, really. Says it all.
the biggest question:
ReplyDeletedid you get to see any owls?
One cannot see owls when one's eyes are filled with tears, Worm.
ReplyDeleteFor pith, boldness and truth, it takes a lot to beat:
ReplyDeleteObjects in mirror
May be closer than they appear.
Isn't one of Meatloaf's interminable songs about that?
ReplyDeleteAren't all songs really about that?
ReplyDelete