Mike Ferguson

Novel Finds

© Mike Ferguson 2019

Gazebo Gravy Press

Some of these poems have previously appeared in: Decals

of Desire, Dispatches from the Poetry Wars, International Times,

Ol’ Chanty-Chanticleer Magazine, Stride, X-Peri

Rambling

With rambling thoughts

in that propensity of nature,

though not strongly against the will,

the inclination to this

led me to the life of misery.

There seemed to be something

fatal, a competent share of learning,

but satisfied with nothing

my head began to be filled with propensity:

the usual corruption of words.

I was born in the year early

with rambling thoughts.

Cannot

I cannot express

the bright side of my condition.

All our discontents

enjoy comfortably

the dark side.

I look upon

and covet something

not given.

The want of secret comforts

I cannot express.

[from Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe]

Time

At a time

very loose and incorrect

the brutes

prevailed

giving offence,

monstrous:

yahoos in England,

creatures

feared.

Our composition,

the academy of the herd,

successively inserted

people in power

being in esteem

and especially at a

detestable time.

Corrupt

Men are ennobled

for their wisdom

eluding them.

But by what those

admirable

little

odious

vermin

perfect toward

procurement

I cannot but conclude

corruption.

[from Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift]

Treat

The entertainer provides,

gratifying palates,

or may depart

from the ordinary

as one who gives

rather than keeps a taste.

An author

ought to consider outwardly

to approve to abuse,

to commend disappointment,

be indifferent

and utterly themselves.

Therefore,

giving offence is

provided for,

an eleemosynary treat

of being disagreeable, a

well-meaning contrary.

Another

Generally misunderstood,

a public embrace

is a great instance of bespattered want:

to kiss you

for having a thousand kind invitations

of allusion

lies in desiring another

for I have observed

no one ever desires your sides of the question.

[from The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling – Henry Fielding]

Apprehension

He might celebrate

their discourses on

subjects less cautious

than the beautiful:

sickly contradictions on

apprehending the surmises

of most mysteries;

reflections in question.

It was difficult to

make do with

symptoms of affection

when greater infirmities

venture to represent

the homely populace.

Thou

If thou dost

and thee demands

in the name

of this whom

thou denies, the

nearest of thee

to the last

rightful power is

thy demand whom

thou hast got.

[from The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole]

Yin

She could our fondness

from the blue bed

all our tenderly migrations

for the world or each other

read as because we loved.

Yang

In this life then

given to enjoy

we may be more

to suffer

as to have nothing left

to wish for.

We daily see

thousands who by

nothing left

examine the world

to reflect on

good and evil.

[from The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith]

View

partial vapours rolled

through the blue tinge

of air

and lost in waves of

floated landscapes

along the river

from north, and to the east

frowned with forests

veiled in clouds

and lost again in the

mist of distance

to the south, on the west

exhibiting awful forms

sorrowfully corrected

the margin of repose

Thinking

First

they are beautiful

stored with ideas

ever ready to

escape error

necessary to the form

of the world within

necessary equally to

the pleasure of

thinking

counteracted by

the languor

of relief, stored in

uneasy sensations,

pleasure –

the necessity of thought.

[from The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe]

Devotion

Some came

with no better means of

an idea

than curiosity,

true devotion

to a fruitless attempt.

Some came

to be assembled;

some came

because it was piety,

but the ostensible motive

was to show themselves,

to find employment

as devotees,

to hear the preacher

with auditors.

Ah!

Abandoned

in the

Cavern of Love,

He Ah! Eye, He Ah!

he pants

to his solitude.

No comfort,

propped upon

the fragment of

his passions,

He Ah! Eye, He Ah!

he inflames

the setting sun

become his companion.

He looks round,

feels the

monotony of

only to pass the day,

resolves to become

an Hermit in the

Cavern of the

Love’s tumbling

ennui, feels

wholly forgotten –

no one

is there,

He Ah! Eye, He Ah! No

[from The Monk – Matthew Lewis]

Truth

He cried

to his wife

impatiently

You want this truth?

He considered

his rightful

property

Do you want

a truth

universally acknowledged?

Someone of little

known feelings

or views

of others,

his lady

had no objection

to hearing it.

Luck

Mrs Talked, Mrs Earnest

and Mrs Afterwards

were so happy with the

effect of

the accomplishment of amiable

maternal feelings

and the establishment

of family.

It was lucky they relished

domestic felicity.

[from Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen]

Cold Imagination

You navigators

I am already far north

of the breeze

on an expedition

of undiscovered

solitudes.

What may not

be expected

gives me a foretaste

of beauty

sufficient to conquer

forebodings,

a cold northern

play of delight

to my imagination.

Fallen

Like Adam

capable of exciting

I was apparently

alone

warring with awe.

[from Frankenstein – Mary Shelley]

Vassalage

Such being

England

watered by the

pleasant deeds of

fabulous interference

he wished an

ancient licence

haunted of yore

would extend

in fortifying means

of power

the national convulsions

for merry times

in a popular

English song.

Daughter

His grey hairs

are not desolation

but folly from

the heart,

being a parent

and feeling a stranger.

It is with his

daughter against him

who forgets the distance

from the last time of

oh, my father

oh, my father

[from Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott]

Sal Volatile

She had whimpered a

tender, gentle

passion

genteel tears

beautifully

calm and dignified

so there was no need for the

sal volatile that

obliged her departure

from eminent virtues

to one-eyed

dramatic hysterics.

Superintended

She pressed him

but she never let him

alert or elude.

She thought to herself

they hide from us

artless and confidential.

If he had but a

little soul

I might make something

of him.

She thought to herself,

I don’t mean indefatigable,

but she never let him perceive

how often

the best of women

disarm complacency.

[from Vanity Fair – William Thackeray]

Mist

Scenes

of lamentable

intervals

on pages

drear in their

pale aspect:

the treats

of the haunts of

my book

I returned to

mist.

Stubble

Stubble exposed

I looked in

his face

for a moment

flaming

and he must

yield to the glance

physically

involuntary

a furnace.

Whatever followed

he grabbed my waist

reading my arm

as I did

not unconscious

yet.

[from Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë]

Folly of Offending

We touched on topics

of the laconic kind –

auxiliary verbs,

relaxed pronouns –

and notwithstanding the discourse

would be a subject of interest to me,

his style of humour

was offending

since the consideration of this folly

was repetition.

Charmed

Winds

and bitter

northern

sickness;

bleak

country torture;

the terrible intimation

of the impassable

physiognomy,

and oh,

this dearth

out of doors,

till

a charming introduction

to a

human life!

[from Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë]

Follow

I was burying

bettering

as paternal acres

for my children

to walk in

these steps,

assured in a

father before them

who in ambition

urged they

would listen,

persuade them

to honestly

express light.

Possession

How many, many other things

to part with in life:

heart and joys

do not advise you to good reason,

but sorrows and love –

keep both more than you can bear.

[from The Tenants of Wildfell Hall - Anne Brontë]

Struck

She

a soft ball of muslin

drowsy

lay curled

whispered the difficulty of

keeping married

seemed to pause

formidable for a few minutes

immediately rolled herself

to every sweet quality possessed

when the prettiness

seemed to give and

she

had fallen asleep

struck

in difficulty.

Man

As a man

a man

cast-away

simplicity of

the noun

‘man’

the adjective

manly

and this word

gentlemanly

lonely

spoken of

as a man

endurance

strength

exaggerated

used

inappropriately

unacknowledged

distortion

to his

to his

fellow men

immured in

himself

meaning as

relation to

others

in a term

that only

he

is often

prisoner to

[from North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell]

Ours

Seems to me that

the small miles of the sea

are low buried,

ours.

The distant sea

is a leaden line beyond,

intersected with dark,

raw,

bleak places

feeding on beginnings

overgrown with

shivers.

My impression is

our sea

shivers too,

growing afraid.

Pork (Not Alone) With Gravy

There’s a subject!

There’s a subject!

Gravy!

(spooned onto my plate)

in parenthesis

A discourse!

A homily!

Gravy!

(a pint onto my plate}

in parenthesis

A Sermon!

Hypothetical!

Gravy!

(pork gravy on my plate)

in parenthesis

Subject!

Text!

Gravy!

(plenty of gravy today)

in parenthesis:

A Carvery

for Ray.

[from Great Expectations – Charles Dickens]

Robinson Crusoe

Lord knows

Robinson Crusoe

plagues me

I have tried that book for years

stout years

and I have found it

my story

into the bargain

Robinson Crusoe

is too much

four shillings and sixpence

in past times

in my time

turned seventy

Robinson Crusoe

a heap of never

was written again

Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe

six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES

my bad?

One Nation State

A reflection from

the colouring of

contradiction

cloudy

jarring

for any one

transmogrified

by other people.

But I am showing

through – English

foundation

all together

we of determination

Here I am

colouring firmly

my side

[from The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins]

Her Mind

Her mind

was feminine,

according to custom,

without

eccentric agitation.

She had looks:

plain dress

[drapery as martyrdom]

and mildly

acquiesced to the

promiscuous.

A marriageable girl,

she tended to

religious feeling

and sentiments;

was enamoured

by the light

of Christianity

and yearned

for eternal

doctrines,

solicitudes of affection.

Her mind

was in those days.

Soulful

To be a poet

on the playing chords

of emotion

quality escapes,

but

finely-ordered

knowledge

and discernment

passes back as shade.

Instantaneously

into

feeling

feeling

feeling

and

feeling

is to have a soul.

[from Middlemarch – George Eliot]

Big L

ALways speLLing the words

with a big L

Lady

and

Let

Letters

perusaL

tabLe

wiLL

quickLy

herseLf

Learned

and

Literature

Lady Literature

devoted to Literature

and speLLing

with a big L.

Mr T[horoughly]

He knew nothing

of nothing

had not even

reflected in his life

knew nothing of working,

had probably never read a book:

political history was but a

moment’s trouble.

On the subject

of himself

he essentially believed

there was one man

undoubtedly

himself

very ignorant

of government

thoroughly necessary

to glory.

[from The Way We Live Now – Anthony Trollop]

Long Tongue

“Hm,” he said.

“Well,” I sighed.

“It’s not easy to describe. I really am ashamed of my long

tongue.”

“Yes, I think it is,” I said.

I want to ask, but with weight of consideration and obviously

sullenness in the bargain I can’t.

“You see,” he said.

“Must be deformed?” I inquired.

“No, sir,” he presently resumed, “something displeasing. I use it

I know.”

“What sort of man…..”

“I am of the other party.”

“You might have warned me. Detestable.”

He was an extraordinary looking man. Pedantically exact. A

down-right long tongue. I saw him use it.

Possibility

This dreadful

shipwreck,

the duality

of a man

Dreadful man

in this

duality of

a shipwreck

I told myself

exposed to

discoveries

I had learned

both truths

Exposed to

learned truths

I myself

told both

discoveries

Struggling

Pleasure

Together

Evil

Knowledge

Knowledge

Evil

Together

Pleasure

Struggling

Struggling with

evil,

the pleasure

of knowledge

The pleasure of

evil knowledge

with

struggling

To dwell in

the duality

I pass beyond the

point of

primitive possibility

I pass the

possibility

of beyond duality

to dwell in the

primitive point

[from Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Robert Louis

Stevenson]

Knighted

In old times,

a baronetcy for

a chin,

hereditary;

now if

rich enough

debased

into hunting

whim

nose up,

a knighthood.

Feminine

Sensitive man the woman:

to explain

to our sense

was doomed –

why should it be

traced to philosophy

doomed as

gossamer

tissue

snow

the wrong

thus finer

than such

of this?

That upon

so often

the coarse

appropriates

the pattern.

[from Tess of the D'Urbevilles – Thomas Hardy]

Market Supply

Whatever.

He knows

I have no faith.

He knows perfectly.

I am

and He knows.

To be a man

like me

He knows

I can have no faith.

Whatever.

He sells and

I do nothing.

But there is

a market.

He will

supply the market

and there’s your

ready man

of concession,

The Optimist.

Whatever.

Before I Began

Round to the

back of began,

each new beginning,

I write it

before I have got it,

before I have got it

into working shape.

[from New Grub Street – George Gissing]

Inferences

His calling-card

a mischievous smile

broad enough

for a mastiff,

too broad

in my opinion.

I said,

My dear fellow

you have a

dog’s jaw.

Astutely observed,

he said,

dog teeth very

plainly visible.

My inferences

were unambitious.

Surprise Interrogation

Watson: What is it?

Holmes: A terrible sound.

Watson: How do you know?

Holmes: The growling ground.

Watson: Where did you hear it?

Holmes: Inside the hound.

Watson: When were you there?

Holmes: Once he was found.

Watson: Why did you listen?

Holmes: I was duty bound.

[from The Hound of the Baskervilles – Arthur Conan Doyle]

Bubble

The Time Traveller

was animated

eyes burned brightly,

incandescent lights

in the lilies of

his face,

and was expounding

in his earnestness:

a recondite matter to us

in this after-dinner

atmosphere,

a paradox to our

lazily luxurious bubble

of free glasses.

Haves and Have-nots

Workers

the Have-nots

continually adapted

to the conditions

constituted as

to be miserable

and Labour there

getting ventilation to the

Haves

not suffocated

not rebellious

[from The Time Machine – H. G. Wells]

Snake

You could see on the vast country, and its tail any

more. Tail any more. It had got of one? Got of one?

I went on rest curving afar over a boy to dream

gloriously over. Dream gloriously over. Map,

resembling an immense snake of darkness. Snake of

darkness. But there was lost in the depths of I try to

get charge True, by this time It had become a place a

blank space of delightful would a bird—a silly little

rivers and lakes and names. Lakes and names. A

mighty big river, that was a big concern, a it in a

shop-window, it was not a blank space bird. Blank

space bird. Then I remembered there of craft on that

lot not shake off the idea. Off the idea. Company for

trade on that in it one river especially, trade without

using some kind looked at the map of the land. Of the

land. And as I fascinated me as a snake It had ceased

to be the sea, its body at of fresh water—steamboats!

Of fresh water—steamboats! Why shouldn’t filled

since my boyhood with thought to myself, they can’t

river. They can’t river. Dash it all! Dash it all! I

uncoiled, with its head in along Fleet Street, but

could mystery — a white patch

Horror

The expression

The horror!

is more than a breath.

If a whisper,

The horror!

cried in ruthless surrender.

The veil of a hopeless

The horror!

is a hopeless desire.

Did he?

Did he?

Oh….

[from Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad]

Kim Lodge

His nickname

Masonic Kim,

he learned lithe

indiscretion

hand in glove

with men

of success –

he knew the beauty of it,

held views

sleek and shiny.

Human

Human Hog

or the

Human Dove

the Wheel of Life

will expound them

so let the chela follow the

shadows through the very

Wheel

cycle by cycle

ascending or descending

study the troubles that come

and when the shadows shortened

note who would

throw a few flowers to a

poor man

[from Kim – Rudyard Kipling]

French Motor

Only a man who knows reason talks of

reasoning – that or he is French, unfathomably

French, knowing the limits of reason as a

paradox of principles, a thinking man at the

same time, but without a thinking machine.

The method of his is clear and commonplace,

French. The French electrify the world with

French thought: a machine cannot motor without

petrol. Starting any paradox from such a naked

state – if he is a French man at the same time – he

is carrying modern fatalism as a truism of

commonplace French thought. Nothing of motors

talks to reason, for that is brainless. Intelligence

is French; the paradox of the truism is nescience.

Worship

For heaven’s sake,

he read the Old:

that was what was the Testament

rather than the New –

he read a Bible

for misprints.

I dare say he was

useless,

a Mormon

or Protestant,

but will people understand that

polygamy of reading?

And when he reads everybody else’s?

An Oriental Book?

Now, just think about it.

[from The Innocence of Father Brown – G.K. Chesterton]

Jingle

The jingle

for Acts of Parliament

and an indescribable pause

suspense

making it up

then

brass bands

high singing

out it boomed

out it boomed

then

Big Ben strikes

Westminster bellow

Westminster jingle

and the fools we are

Ruins

For all those

hurrying along,

the enduring symbol of

wedding rings,

removed by

the ruins of time,

and the majesty of the

gold people of England,

sifting their

ruins of dust,

this Wednesday morning

greatness was passing

a hand’s-breadth

from the ordinary

[from Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf]

Void

I saw in

the plain

all that

that means,

that I paint

dissatisfied.

All my art

is in some

curious way

the Romantic

spirit hidden,

merely visible

presence,

a wonder

of what

the woodland is

void of

landscape.

Art cannot

express the

identity that

is void.

You

understand

me?

Dorian Gray

is to me

the ideality

that is void

in this world’s history.

Looking Back

You looking at me?

Are you looking at me?

He shrugged his shoulders.

Told his own sin.

He laughed,

felt

called upon to tell what had happened below

vanity.

He was the portrait

looking at him.

[from The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde]

Gravely Untonsured

Bearing a

bowl,

sustained

solemnly aloft

as grained

untonsured hair,

he looked coldly

at a mirror

and called out

coarsely

from the dark

winding stairs

in his throat

I am blessed

gravely

on the top.

Refluent

Render with

beauty and light

her motion,

tranquil and

resplendent;

her repose

luminary

appointed of

her light;

this invariability

of her aspect

is her constancy,

her refluent

splendour.

[from Ulysses – James Joyce]

Power

She power.

She with his appetites

can have power

over him.

Certainly,

she could take him,

a woman could

take a man

himself

achieve her orgasm

a very pleasant connection

without herself

coming to the crisis

of his yielding,

let him finish and

probably flounce

away,

a very pleasant power

over him.

She power.

Fucked

To fuck oneself

into fire

forked white fire

fucked white fire

flame alight of fucking:

it comes of fucking.

To fuck oneself

into peace

snowdrop of forked white fire

snowdrop of fucked white fire

then we can want

between-whiles to

fuck

when the peace

flows between us,

the flame

brilliant

when between-whiles is

chaste.

[from Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D H Lawrence]

Conditioning

Porcelain summer

beyond the panes,

only a thin yellow

light glared through

and in. The workers were

white too, but for them a

wintriness in their pallid

overalls, frozen

in their labor, their

conditioning of work

for the World’s rich

in a long recession.

Deity of Things

Between

the sun

and nightmare

they came

laughing bellies

hovering

like locusts

from that

other world

suddenly throwing

truer-than-truth

chewing-gum

sex hormones

velveteen flannels

grasshoppers

petite beurrers

viscose pyjamas

things things things

from above

from immensities

from that other world

[from Brave New World – Aldous Huxley]

Alternative

Mr Unseen

Mr Unseen –

this could not have

better summed up

Murphy

who was of himself

unseen,

his immunity

from himself.

The last Murphy saw of Murphy

was himself unseen:

to end on then

a long unseen of himself.

[from Murphy – Samuel Beckett]

Truth

True Truth contained,

it was said,

a place where it was

impossible

to have entanglements

simultaneously.

What entanglements?

the architecture of war

the apparatus of uniforms

the steel doors of freedom

the strength of mansions

the barrier of News

the glittering of ignorance

the barbed wire of economic affairs

the slogans of machine guns

the maze of peace

the roof of education

the elegant lettering of slavery

the gorilla-faces of love

All these ministries of

entanglement

a Miniplenty

in the fine arts of

pyramidal Truth

soaring up

just business.

Power

Power is power,

but we are different

when we do not want it

for that.

It takes all our courage

to question this.

We are

unwillingly

the answer to our question

asking of it,

what motive?

Why the method

of one’s own motives

for power?

We are not in this power

relinquishing for our own sake

for others;

interested in the good of others.

There are other means

to an end where

this is this:

the good of others

is

the good of others;

being equal

is

being equal.

[from 1984 – George Orwell]

Images

The writer

speaks to images

rather than craft

from which,

to look ahead,

is seen as professional.

The writer

chooses that

convenient moment

to believe

images choose me

slanting like a god across

his technical ability.

Professional,

he had seriously noted it

with inaccurate pride.

Writing and Love

I

Writing seemed blocked

when suddenly the

impasse to the unconscious

has a solving conversation, and

words come undisturbed though

dispirited from the problems.

II

Towards the

there of love

on her breast

on her thigh

fire dangling

between altar

and imprisoned

I know which

from my mouth

will move

to the there.

III

The mouth will

move to my writing

of her thigh fire,

unconscious words

undisturbed by

her solving and love.

[from The End of the Affair – Graham Greene]

Creature

Something dark

was in their hands

and the heat

shouted an order.

This controlled them,

a long intentness

of gaze,

diamond in the haze,

bore over them

and they saw

the darkness on it.

The heat. Sweaty.

Swaying in them

the complexions

of shadow.

Then the creature.

Taboo

Of parents

and school

and diameter

into which

we dare

the taboo

of law

of not

of was

of knew

invisible yet

taboo

and the law

conditioned

protection

invisible yet

a handful

of taboo

aimed

at life

[from Lord of the Flies – William Golding]

Novel Finds

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