The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

is it better to glue oneself to Constable's Hay Wain
or Munch's Scream, or a nobbled piece of tarmac
between the boots of justice and a leaf folded
wetly, like paper, or miles lost in-between?

we talk of
warmth and cold, temperature numbered 
in days and hours, in increments,
our words landlocked in nature's flux -
its constancy of crumbling coastlines,
and melt

and we hold on to art for dear love.




 

Until we reach the crumbling coastlines, the real tangibles of the poem are the Hay Wain, the Scream, and the tarmac.  The first two are art, the third is metaphor. The ambiguity of the first stanza is tantalizing – just where are the miles lost?  

The opening of stanza 2 reminds of a passage from a Stafford poem:  

And there is easy talk, for throwing
back like Annie-Over, or a minuet,
a way to act human in these years the stars
look past. . . . 

Then “our words [become] landlocked” and our lives are locked in the “constancy of crumbling coastlines” – a frightening and perpetual slow descent. I take this as the heart of the poem, the fulcrum.  The backdrop to our human need and drive to reach for the substance of inherent meaning.  Thus, our recourse to the lifeline of art.

- - - - - - - - - -  

S.1 L.4 – I keep reading “miles lost” as “lost miles”

S.2 L.1 – the endline break is inexplicable to me 

S.2 L.5 – “constancy of crumbling coastlines” breathtakingly good line

S.2 L.6 – short line works very well, so I don’t understand why the opening stanza line doesn’t function the same way, but for me it seems not to
S.3 L.1 – Great last word - the line walks up to a cliché phrase and my mind had already got there, but then to find the surprise “love”.  What playful gem of a line.

Wonderful, Dave.

T



 

I enjoyed the read. Sorry, I'm too shattered to comment cogently.