{"id":11192,"date":"2016-05-15T21:09:26","date_gmt":"2016-05-15T19:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=11192"},"modified":"2016-05-15T21:09:26","modified_gmt":"2016-05-15T19:09:26","slug":"poems-by-ian-smith-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=11192","title":{"rendered":"poems by Ian Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Brochure as Memento Mori<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Former Calulu Post Office it says, High Ceilings.<\/p>\n

Lots of Shedding conjures a wry verb.<\/p>\n

Verandahs, Porches, twist my heart with love<\/p>\n

as artless as these framed angles are artful.<\/p>\n

Historic Old Charmer the board blares.<\/p>\n

I am up for auction, I jest, but nobody laughs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

View from an attic window<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fields of frost below, early days of writing,<\/p>\n

shucking the duvet on runny nose mornings<\/p>\n

to fill pages instead of slouching off to work<\/p>\n

quickened me, my dream world manifested.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know about nearby Adlestrop station,<\/p>\n

had never heard of Edward Thomas\u2019s poem.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rain on wind protested at the window<\/p>\n

of my attic I probably called a garret,<\/p>\n

ruffled rooks high above sheltering horses.<\/p>\n

A gas heater on castors by my side<\/p>\n

like a metallic seeing-eye dog-cum-desk,<\/p>\n

collected a pattern of Olympic coffee rings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I backpacked on after winter toting an archive,<\/p>\n

crisscrossing latitude and longitude\u2019s grid,<\/p>\n

an urge to arrest smell, sight, sound,<\/p>\n

a selfish kind of love like a secret luring me.<\/p>\n

Now at ground level I feed a wood stove,<\/p>\n

outside, attendant currawongs, different crows.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I squeeze into my navy pea-jacket<\/p>\n

worn those years gone, heavy with silence,<\/p>\n

the spare button in its silken pocket<\/p>\n

to finger-fiddle, conjure past voices,<\/p>\n

a high window, a view, a fierce fever,<\/p>\n

breath steaming through the strainer of memory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Something on my mind<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Karen Dalton singing on You Tube is like a drug.<\/p>\n

Her throaty voice grabs me by the throat<\/p>\n

the way a tolling bell might summon me.<\/p>\n

To what?\u00a0 Something left?\u00a0 The churning past?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have flexed scornful wit on pop music.<\/p>\n

Now this song evokes old iron bridges,<\/p>\n

crossing them slowly, sultry light flickering,<\/p>\n

especially its start, that plaintive Yesterday.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I want to rush back, keep her above ground,<\/p>\n

save Karen headed for dead-set trouble<\/p>\n

even as she pours out a wounded life,<\/p>\n

save myself this heartaching regret.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Looking Back on Anger<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I never saw the ending of Look Back in Anger<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Engrossed in the film of John Osborne\u2019s play<\/p>\n

which I hadn\u2019t seen, nor yet theatres from inside,<\/p>\n

I watched on TV in hospital until lights out.<\/p>\n

Left hanging, I objected but it was no use.<\/p>\n

Protesting, a trait of mine, always led to scenes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ah, films of plays, relationships in settings.<\/p>\n

My earliest memories of soot-laden suburbia,<\/p>\n

the bricked-up arches of dubious gentility,<\/p>\n

flooded my senses from camera angles as I saw<\/p>\n

the places that described me though I now know<\/p>\n

it was the angry dialogue\u2019s echo effect.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do we need to know how stories of others end<\/p>\n

because we are stuck with our own, mine a time<\/p>\n

of exhaust fumes filling the bus terminus,<\/p>\n

of coupons, football scores, not enough money,<\/p>\n

of a damaged family stuck in life\u2019s labyrinth,<\/p>\n

stained after surviving the chaos of war?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shall I ever see the finale of Jimmy Porter\u2019s anger?<\/p>\n

Despite so many old films on late-night TV<\/p>\n

transporting those of us whose dreams jangle,<\/p>\n

that black-and-white film eludes me, never listed.<\/p>\n

Was his degree rewarded with a satisfying job?<\/p>\n

Did he emigrate, re-marry, write, calm down?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Brochure as Memento Mori \u00a0 Former Calulu Post Office it says, High Ceilings. Lots of Shedding conjures a wry verb. Verandahs, Porches, twist my heart with love as artless as these framed angles are artful. Historic Old Charmer the board blares. I am up for auction, I jest, but nobody laughs.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1208,77],"tags":[1209,1123,1173],"class_list":["post-11192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-46","category-english","tag-egophobia-46","tag-english","tag-ian-smith"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-2Uw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11193,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11192\/revisions\/11193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}