WASHING The washing lines are out along our street Where next-door-neighbours we have never met, Amend themselves to hides, and hidden thus What lends them shape, and makes voluminous Sleeve-selves, self-published in the outward strut Of bodies this late hour holds hearth-side, housed. The washing lines are taut along our street As hopeful harpsichords, and passionate Ghosts in soaking trousers take a neat Bow, to no applause. They call up blades Out of thin air, and fall on them, and this Selfless act goes unlamented, wanting blood. Those breasts which on Frau X must sit so decorous; That waistline straked round Herr YZ so vast (though of this bust we’ve yet to catch a glimpse though flesh to freight such waist appear mysterious) Pronounced, paraded, published: all by virtue of The sopped extent, of linen hanging limp, As invite to the wind’s caress, undressing each Contour of the body; beyond its reach, and yet Haunting our retina: neighbours we have met Barely, if at all. Squarely baring all, extend the reach Of lines beyond a thought. A poem ought To break the attitude that has preferred A threadbare insight to what might have clothed, With voyeuristic visions drily spun, Those neighbours never known; Though tears some nights are heard To thread the intervening walls, that keep Somebody, unexamined and disconsolate, Bedizening strange cheeks. And, waxing obdurate, we think them clean Unreachable, save when Rinsed conscience rhyme the poetry we write, Appointing it to speak For spirits, wearing mind and bone akin To those our own is costumed in, Establishing a grief. Let poetry be hearing wide Enough to brush those lives laid on the line Of that transgressive threnody – The naked vowels To which our words intend, the selves un-housed, At next-door-distant hearth-sides, washing them With suds of verse, to cleanse a hurt. This art Is like a wind, caressing care-worn hearts With open, unseen, hands: a discipline Of broken sounds, breezed into consonance. PD
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 19:05:30 +0000
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