The Knowledge E-Book

Robert Peake

• Herausgeber: Nine Arches Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 43

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Robert Peake's incredible eye for detail illuminates a collection of stirring and delicately attuned poems that not only roam but actively seek – travelling far and wide to all manner of places but also moving through time, taking leaps of faith or journeys into memory and sensation. From postcards to portraits, from ancient and modern wars to cosmopolitan cities, wildlife, and even a tiny ornamental skeleton, Robert Peake finds a sharp focus for the bigger picture both far and wide and closer to home. These carefully-controlled and eloquent poems know the subtle and deep consequences from each small gesture; the ripple-effect across each story, the altering of lives and history; the still, quiet centre from which it all begins. Robert Peake is a British-American poet living near London. His newest short collection is The Silence Teacher (Poetry Salzburg, 2013). His previous short collection was Human Shade (Lost Horse Press, 2011).

Leseprobe

THE KNOWLEDGE

The Knowledge

Robert Peake

ISBN: 978-1911027-01-0

Copyright © Robert Peake, 2015

Cover image © Eleanor Bennett

www.eleanorleonnebennett.zenfolio.com

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Robert Peake has asserted his right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

First published April 2015 by:

Nine Arches Press

PO Box 6269

Rugby

CV21 9NL

United Kingdom

www.ninearchespress.com

Printed in Britain by:

The Russell Press Ltd.

Ebook conversion by leeds-ebooks.co.uk

THE KNOWLEDGE

Robert Peake

for Valerie

Contents

The Argument

White Pigeons

Still Life with Bougainvillea

Amuse-Bouche

The Argument

Robin

Grass-Talkers

The Flies

Badger

Ursula

The Hills

“I Was Born to Small Fish.”

Adelphophagy

Nocturne with Writer’s Block

British Matches

Matins With Slippers And House Cat

“Have A Nice Day!”

April

Sometimes I Wonder What I Do

Postcards from the War Hospital

Last Gasp

Postcards from the War Hospital, Autumn

Despot’s Progress

Unidentified Photo on the Internet

Mr Ergosum Speaks

Problem

Blessing the Bankers

The Rouchomovsky Skeleton

Soldier at the Tomb of Alexander

Historic Spring

America, Its Elements

I. Fire

II. Water

III. Air

IV. Earth

The Age of the Incredible

First Citizen of Bruges

Martyrs’ Cross

A Robot’s Understanding of Friendship

Postcards from the War Hospital, Winter

Making Love to the Sound of Gunfire

The Smoke

La Campagna, London, Friday Night

Smoke Ring

Home Office, Croydon

Clapham Junction

Soho

Brick Lane Market

Canary Wharf

Blackheath

Two Women in Heels Walk Briskly Toward the Train Platform

Calling all Stations Blues

Seraphim

Million-Dollar Rain

Tap Water

Geopositioning

Jellied Eels

The Knowledge

Small Gestures

Meteorology

Acknowledgements

“The penalty for education is self-consciousness. But it is too late for ignorance.”

– Marvin Bell, ‘32 Statements About Poetry’

The Argument

White Pigeons

are not doves. They do not stand

for peace, but flock and swoop

above my head in the blue before dawn.

They are a liquid in the air,

elastic, bunching and swarming

like oil drops on water.

I do not want to know the physics.

I do not want to make a documentary.

I stand and watch them ripple like a flag.

The soldier inside me wants to salute.

The prophet takes it for a sign.

They double-back, like a bed sheet, folded.

And then they dip below the tree line,

leaving their absence to hang in the air.

I never wished they were more than they were.

A mourning dove now sounds his call to prayer.

A red-tailed hawk lords over mousing fields.

I have heard some call all pigeons wingèd rats.

But these were different, bred to home,

which means that they were practising,

and work never seemed as elegant as this.

Tie a message to my foot. I will assume

my place in the aerial formation. Let me

be a single snowflake in that flurry.

Still Life with Bougainvillea

The bougainvillea taps

at the window, and you

are gone. The cat watches

over the path where you

might return. I watch

the cat, and the small

flowers inside the flowers,

as they brush the pane.

On the cat, there are fleas.

In the flowers, flowers.

In me, your absence drums its

fingers at the points

where I notice my pulse, taps

its beak against the bars

of my chest. Small creature

in my own creature body,

white flowers enveloped in red.

Amuse-Bouche

A dollop of cream from your own

mother’s milk, seasoned with tears

from the first girl you kissed,

garnished with coarse-cut parsley,

served in a snail’s shell.

Lint from your best-loved jumper

sprinkled with grains of a childhood sandbox,

wax shavings from your preschool crayons

nettles from the banks of the pollywog pond

all arranged in a favourite lunch pail.

Of course, for dessert, we have madeleines,

to dip in a tea made of vapour and dust,

sweet-smelling, like the home of your elderly aunt,

which dissolve upon contact and waking. Go on.

Have another. You will never be full.

The Argument

The bees make a mask, rippling like sauce,

covering the beekeeper’s eyelids. He shaves

them off with a credit card, the stench

of pollen clotting his nostrils, the logic

of terror unable to win its case, though

tiny legs tap their reasons across his pores.

The argument to remain placid is as soft

as the fur-covered thoraces, as clear

and as light as the transparent wings.

Do nothing. Breathe through your teeth.

In swarm, a cloud of electric current,

but here, on the contours of his face,

they seem to wander tip-toe, sleepy,

navigating over each other with compound

vision, kaleidoscopic-sighted pilgrims

oblivious to one another on their quest,

brushing the tips of their long fore-wings

against the keeper’s eyelashes,

as close to kissing as they will come,

bound together without intimacy,

curling under each other like a slow-

motion rioting mob, a water ballet

where the music is stillness, is tapping,

the brush of abdomen, antennae, and legs.

Robin

Bold and tattered, slashing into view,

tiny courtier teeming with invidious mites,

we welcome you at the waterspout, bent sprig,