A life in poetry & prose

I have my son to blame for this. I wanted to spend the rest of my life gathering together some selected poetry & prose that I had written over the years, publish them privately and present them to my nearest & dearest on my demise. 'No.' said my son. 'Publish a blog, and share it with the rest of the world!'

Well, I cannot believe that the rest of the world will be in the least bit interested, but here goes - as a toe in the water.

Let me begin at the end, or the present. I have always been interested in poetry and my life-long study has been about Ezra Pound. In May 2003 the following poem of mine was published in The London Magazine:


Pound's Oyster

And, in the spirit of others before
a great journey was to unfold.

Being in the eye of the mind
it had a splendour of its own.
More than that;
but how to show it.
How to describe such a majesty:

you'll have to trust what I say
in describing it to you
as though you were the lids of my eyes
opening up to what I see.

But because it is only between us
there will be the need
of some interpretative signs,
save others may stumble upon this
and the beauty be bountiful.

Let the colours be unsaid
for who knows what red is blood
what sea is green
what grass is green,
if they all suffer from the same name.

It must be a new experience
sepulchral in its importance
for that is what Pound saw
by opening the ancient oyster shell
and finding a pearl where there was no pearl.

On such a deity will this be fixed
for if you look you see
and if you don't you have not:
it is a colour of a different hue.


So there we are, but where have I been and what part has poetry & prose played? Enough of a compass to steer me in many directions.

Shall I tell you more?