The imagery of “Chaucer’s mice” and “licorice fields” roots it in something old and earthy, while “lemonlight” and “dandelion pappus” give it a dreamy lift. A hymn, yes, but also a quiet reckoning, like standing in the fog of your own past and realizing it still smells like the ache of what can’t be touched again.
I think I saw this once before. I liked it better this time, enough to say that it raised in my mind editorial possibilities quite possibly disagreeable to yours. But possibilities, Mr. Allum, are intrinsically fickle, which compels me to say no more. Keep going. It's the only way to get anywhere, except that today I read how Nietszche has written how TIME IS A FLAT CIRCLE. More promise in lace pelvice? Yes and no. I'm both sure and unsure, a negative capability. As Mallarme so wrenching put it over several pages, A CAST OF THE DICE DOES NOT ELIMINATE CHANCE.
The imagery of “Chaucer’s mice” and “licorice fields” roots it in something old and earthy, while “lemonlight” and “dandelion pappus” give it a dreamy lift. A hymn, yes, but also a quiet reckoning, like standing in the fog of your own past and realizing it still smells like the ache of what can’t be touched again.
I think I saw this once before. I liked it better this time, enough to say that it raised in my mind editorial possibilities quite possibly disagreeable to yours. But possibilities, Mr. Allum, are intrinsically fickle, which compels me to say no more. Keep going. It's the only way to get anywhere, except that today I read how Nietszche has written how TIME IS A FLAT CIRCLE. More promise in lace pelvice? Yes and no. I'm both sure and unsure, a negative capability. As Mallarme so wrenching put it over several pages, A CAST OF THE DICE DOES NOT ELIMINATE CHANCE.
Thanks for taking the time to read and send this note. I did post this on my notes but decided to formally publish it today.
The cliffed shores and hedgerow fields
of my native Devon call to me too
after too many years with an ocean
separating me from my birth place.
We are like vampires that crave
to sleep on native dirt,
soft at our backs, these tender grains.
I know the pull will win, eventually,
like a mother's umbilical cord
stretched infinitely,
but never broken.
And so one day,
I will find myself buying a ticket
to return, home,
after all these years
to feel the soft soil underfoot
as I roam the cliffs,
with the cry of sea birds,
a chorus of welcome,
and perhaps fate
will cause our paths to meet
in that small country in the sea.