Approximately in the Key of C E-Book

Tony Curtis

• Herausgeber: Arc Publications
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 36

Beschreibung

Curtis's humour and charm, ability to turn a poem with the seemingly simplest of images, and that understanding of how words will play over the listener's ear, are hallmarks brought to the fore on the page... His greatest skill is to make readers go 'yes, of course'; he reminds us of what we've known all along. Michael McKimm, The Warwick Review

Leseprobe

Approximately inthe Key of C

Published by Arc Publications

Nanholme Mill, Shaw Wood Road,

Todmorden OL14 6DA, UK

www.arcpublications.co.uk

Copyright © Tony Curtis, 2015

Copyright in the present edition © Arc Publications, 2015

Design by Tony Ward

Printed by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall

978 1910435 41 2 (pbk)

978 1910435 42 9 (hbk)

978 1910435 43 6 (ebk)

Cover photograph:

‘Currach No. 18’ by Liam Blake

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part of this book may take place without the written permission of Arc Publications.

Editor for the UK and Ireland:

John W. Clarke

TONY CURTIS

Approximately inthe Key of C

2015

For Madge and Mae –a lifetime singingin the key of C

CONTENTS

The Mole and the Cosmos

A Blessing on Things Made Well

From the Central Mental Hospital

The Hunter

In the Wilderness

Amhrán

The Blackbird’s Lullaby

Unusually Dusty

Bless

Snow-capped

Talking to the Wallpaper Man About a Sculptor

The Fallen Oak

Electric Light and Butter Lamps

To Tunes Carried on the Night Air

The Old Painter’s Journey

Two Poems for Elizabeth Bishop:

1. House

2. Self-portrait Nude with Lota

Gunnie McCracken

Everywhere

Elements of Lamentation

The Blue-eyed Fish

The Old Grey Herons

The Headland at Skerries

Two Poems for Gary Snyder at 85:

1. One Hundred Words on the Old Buddhist

2. A Wish in One Hundred Words

Ash

Wendell

For the Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter

The Stubborn Historian

Easter Monday 1917

Civil War

The Cure

The Last Breath

One Hundred Words on the Consequences of Sex

Fair Weather

“When I was a child…”

Biographical Note

Acknowledgments

I have a friend I value here,

And that’s a quiet mind.

John Clare

THE MOLE AND THE COSMOS

for Philip McCracken

I have taken down

a piece

of the night sky,

just for the night.

At mole’s suggestion

I’ve put it by the window

where it looks glorious

against the mountains.

Some say moles are blind,

but it’s just that they love

to look at things far away,

like stars.

Sometimes when I step out

to look at the night sky

I have to ask mole

what’s what, where’s where?

And mole, as if he were

a poor country fellow

naming wildflowers,

lists off the constellations:

Southern Cross, Flying Fox,

Bernice’s Hair, Winged Horse,

Great Dog, Water Bearer,

Painter’s Easel, Chained Maiden.

Mole’s deep voice,

sunk like the roots of a tree,

sturdy, reassuring –

you just know he’s right.

A BLESSING ON THINGS MADE WELL

Michael Egan made a set of uilleann pipes

in 1850. Now they lie silent in a glass display

case at The Museum of Country Life

under a sign that says:

‘Approximately in the key of C’.

I love the beauty of those words.

You can’t but admire the care and precision

Michael put into making these pipes –

as tuned to this life as possible.

For isn’t everything, if looked at closely,

a little off key: lovers and dancers

only a step out, a step away;

talkers on the tips of their tongues;

towns at no distance;

doors and drinkers slightly ajar.

I’d like a copy of that sign to hang on my wall.

Especially in winter, when the poems are buckled, bent,

every one of them ‘Approximately in the key of C’.

FROM THE CENTRAL MENTAL HOSPITAL

I am here again this morning

talking, laughing, singing

with the patients: the lost, the hurt,

the just plain blown-to-bits sad.

A few miles away at Islandbridge

in the War Memorial Gardens,

a garden full of birdsong,

the Queen of England is laying a wreath

for forty-nine thousand five hundred

Irishmen who fell in the Great War,

young men who left the best

of themselves lying in the mud.

Sitting here amongst the patients,

I wonder how many have lost their minds

in No-man’s-land? How many are crossing it still?

From this crumbling trench I watch them, pity their step.

THE HUNTER

for Paula Meehan

This morning I called

to where she is wintering out

in a timber hut by the sea’s edge.

Everything is grey and leans

away from the wind,

except for the stove pipe

which is straight as a tall tree.

I knocked, but nobody was home: