The Sound Of Now
First line from Marie Ponsot, ‘Reminder’
I am rich. I am poor. Time is all I own.
Time is fair. Time is foul. I am all I own.
Pale hands pick me up and let me down again.
I smell shit and Shalimar. I smell cologne.
No matter on which page you hide, in which book,
I’ll know your name when I can’t recall my own.
A sob?... no, it’s a stab of recognition.
The knife cuts deeper. My thought is all I own.
They called me Marīa when I read Latin.
In this place I have no name to call my own.
Until the end, the sound of one hand clapping —
In the trees, the toucan plays a slide trombone.
Credit note:Published in Ambit 199: 71 (London; Martin Bax and Carol Ann Duffy, eds.) and reprinted in her new collection Trace Fossils.
Tim says: There are two good reasons that this is my Tuesday Poem for this week: first, it's a fine and most elegantly constructed poem, and second, I am running an interview with Mary - my second interview with her - later this week on my blog. Keep an eye out for it!
You can read all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog - the featured poem is on the centre of the page, and the week's other poems are linked from the right-hand column.
29 March 2011
Tuesday Poem: The Sound Of Now, by Mary Cresswell
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7 comments:
A fine choice Tim. The first cuplet ties up Stoic philosophy very neatly. And the last - the toucan plays a slide trombone - a counterpoint to the sound of one hand clapping.
Thank you for introducing Mary Cresswell to me. I look forward to reading your interview.
Golly, what an amazing poem, Tim. It takes - and deserves - several readings to begin to unpack its complexities, but I love it already. Thank you.
I like the 'offbeat-ness' of the poem and look forward to the interview.
I was enjoying this until I reached 'the sound of one hand clapping.' Seems to me this has become a cliche and it was a bit of a surprise to find it in a poem that's otherwise original in its approach.
Unless using a cliche was intentional, but....
Mike, I used it advisedly. I was suggesting that while death itself is a cliche (one we can never re-word), toucans may know tunes we'll never know! Of course, I have never been a toucan and hope very much I am not doing toucans and injustice. :~)
... Admire very much the inventive use of the ghazal form.
Thanks for your additional comments, Mary. It's not often that I get a response back from the poet herself! But it's a good practice and clarifies things (for me, anyway).
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