Beautiful!
[…]
I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices:
I am the graph diagram,
Composite face.
[…]
I am the man they call the nation’s backbone,
Who am boneless – playable castgut, pliable clay:
The Man they label Little lest one day
I dare to grow.
I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining, bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round
Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
And in the correct order:
The Man In The Bowler Hat
I am the unnoticed, the unnoticable man:
The man who sat on your right in the morning train:
The man who looked through like a windowpane:
The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting
Morning pipe smoke.
I am the man too busy with a living to live,
Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch:
The man who is patient too long and obeys too much
And wishes too softly and seldom.
I am the man they call the nation’s backbone,
Who am boneless – playable castgut, pliable clay:
The Man they label Little lest one day
I dare to grow.
I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices:
I am the graph diagram,
Composite face.
I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining, bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round
http://vimeo.com/70885550 a radio recording of himself reading a poem.
http://thefilter.blogs.com/thefilter/asj_tessimond/
In Canterbury Cathedral
Trees, but straighter than birches, rise to the sky
Of stone. Their branches meet in the sky of stone.
Stone fountains leap and meet: their traceries are
As light as lace. These prayers of stone were prayed
To a God I can’t believe in, but were made
By Man, men almost gods, in whom I can
Believe: were made as strong, to last as long
As time. I stare and pray to Man alone.
[…] leave as your final legacy
A box double-locked by the spider
Packed with your unsolved problems
‘The Children Look at the Parents’
[…] leave as your final legacy
A box double-locked by the spider
Packed with your unsolved problems
‘The Children Look at the Parents’
In Canterbury Cathedral
Trees, but straighter than birches, rise to the sky
Of stone. Their branches meet in the sky of stone.
Stone fountains leap and meet: their traceries are
As light as lace. These prayers of stone were prayed
To a God I can’t believe in, but were made
By Man, men almost gods, in whom I can
Believe: were made as strong, to last as long
As time. I stare and pray to Man alone.
Pingback: Bits of time and sound by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond. A poet hidden and then almost lost! | SOCIALISM: the Informant