Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Saving
- Out of this World
- Observatory
- Zentralfriedhof
- How to Remember
- Europe
- What's Gone Blue
- Plain Tongues
- As the Crow Flies the Sun Rips Day Open
- Boy
- The Roof
- Eva Braun in Linz
- Yellow
- My Girl in California
- St Peter
- The Soldiers
- Palace
- Outside Vienna
- Neutral Air
- Woman
- How to Forget
- The Sound
- In Time
- The Lever
- Fourteen Mistakes
- The Fall
- The Hold I Have
- Centre Strange
- Born Breathing
- The Heads
- Home
- Epilogue
- Maker
- Acknowledgements
The Fall
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Saving
- Out of this World
- Observatory
- Zentralfriedhof
- How to Remember
- Europe
- What's Gone Blue
- Plain Tongues
- As the Crow Flies the Sun Rips Day Open
- Boy
- The Roof
- Eva Braun in Linz
- Yellow
- My Girl in California
- St Peter
- The Soldiers
- Palace
- Outside Vienna
- Neutral Air
- Woman
- How to Forget
- The Sound
- In Time
- The Lever
- Fourteen Mistakes
- The Fall
- The Hold I Have
- Centre Strange
- Born Breathing
- The Heads
- Home
- Epilogue
- Maker
- Acknowledgements
Summary
What William felt for a yellow-haired girl, I felt till I heard
the furniture fall
during gravity's return
when the planets settled
and silence translated
to siren
Maud knew only ill love lasts
and the sisters dreamed of unlonely Moscow
even if this repeats it will still be first light,
first thought, the rubble of stones that clack against flood
the gap-between-teeth of sea-through-rocks
Tolstoy knows the cast of the world's show
and Flaubert knows how to walk and catch
a-mind-at-sprint, in word-pour, as his curtain creaks open on day
and what William felt for a yellow-haired girl
was what's felt for a known ghost
and only Maud knew ill love lasts
but is there nothing better
for the brain or ear
than the song? For the brain
or ear, what William felt for a yellow-haired girl, I felt till I heard
the furniture fall
during gravity's return – which made
song – when the planets settled
and silence translated
to siren
so we learned only ill love lasts
and followed, unlovely, to Moscow
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Nowhere Nearer , pp. 41 - 42Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2018