In William Turner's 'Venice'
a wraith tower like a rocket
rises to the distant eye,
spectered by that cloud
lens that looks from the other side,
over each instant
of interest,
upon the huddle of bedraggled boats,
gathering compassion.
Far walls are on sunfire;
litter floats
in mid bob.
And the day-enchanted domes,
singing public over the squalor,
demonstrate an ascendant urge,
as the low landscape remonstrates:
"People are put down
to make the rich feel rich;
a similitude of folly:
big cocks with clocks" -
sky-rakers that beguile the eye
from glory lent by light.
Looking southwards from dusk,
the small boats rock in their shadows
as if the reek tingled
with a water sadness -
mixed elements; miasma
mud and ordure.
Yet light has the last word:
palette of cloud drubbed on high over
like comic sprites or demons,
or the alien presences
banished now to T shirts:
sky writings innocent, perhaps;
yet how strange to see
Fenris over Italy.
YOU ARE READING
Tapestries
PoesíaPoems from 1978 onwards. These poems are in a different style from the later MajorSeventh, the earlier ones often with more of an Eastern-influenced cadence. Later, they vary a lot in form and style.
