Poetry, in passing

[kaberett]

I have more-or-less finished reading the entirety of Michael Donaghy's work: three slim volumes. I first came across him (as so many others) in Staying Alive, with Machines. This morning I lost my heart to two more pieces; Poem On The Underground, which contains the glorious lines

But Harry Beck's map was a circuit diagram
of coloured wires soldered at the stations.
It showed us all we needed then to know,
and knew already, that the city's
an angular appliance of intentions, not
the blood and guts of everything that happens.
Commuters found it 'easier to read'.

Here is the other, in its entirety:

Midriver

- and is a bridge: Now to either then:
child to lolly: spark across the wire:
lover to the target of desire:
Lambeth to Westminster: back again.
Verb's a vector not a monument,
but someone skipped a stone across this river
fixing its trajectory forever
in seven arches after the event
- so stops halfway and, neither there nor there,
but cold and rained on and intransitive,
watches London switch from when to where,
why to silence in the traffic jam,
thinks I can see the borough where I live
but here is temporarily who I am.

Comments

[adeliej]

I've been thinking about these three poems since you put them here, and thought I should mention that. Thank you.