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
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]
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