The Abelard Poets

EMPTIED SPACES

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The Abelard Poets

EMPTIED SPACES

DAVID JAFFIN

with an etching especially created for this volume by Jacques Lipchitz

Abelard-Schuman London

© Copyright 1972 by David Jaffîn

LCCC No: 72-7225

ISBN: 0 200 71874 6

Printed in Great Britain by W & J Mackay Limited, Chatham

Abelard-Schuman Limited 158 Buckingham Palace Road London swl

and 24 Market Square Aylesbury Bucks

Contents

Emptied Spaces 9

Night-time study 9

Old man in the park 10

Frostscene 11

Idealized 12

After a portrait of Lenbach

(1890s) 12

Road building 13

Not by choice 14

Remembered 15

The pool 15

n.y.c. 16

To the historical 17

Descent 17

To the death of Chiewitz 18

Mirrored 18

Empty chairs 19

For the fisherman at Voula 19

The room 20

Firing squad 20

Cycle 21

Hunters 22

Retreat 23

Door partly opened 24

On the 7th 24

A bouquet of flowers 25

Waiting 25

A man at his desk 26

Perspectives 26

A glass bowl 27

Sofa 27

Still 28

Statue in the park 29

On the hanger 29

Old Roman road 30

Exactly as it was 31

A bowl of fruit 32

Autumn room 32

Again for Rosemarie, and for my sons, Raphael and Andreas

These poems have appeared in the following periodicals:

The Poetry Review; The Anglo Welsh Review; Workshop;

Tribune; Enigma; Akros; Oasis; Second Aeon; Capella (Ire-

land); Contrasts; Samphire; Forum (University of Houston,

USA); Elizabeth (USA); The Smith (USA); The Gallery

Series Poets (USA); The Galley Sail Review (USA); The

Little Review (USA); Descant (USA); The Wisconsin

Review (USA); The Green River Review (USA); DeKalb

Literary Arts Review (USA); Poetry Venture (USA);

Bitterroot (USA); The Indian P.E.N.; Ophir (South Africa);

Other Voices (Canada); Envoi; Platform; Headland; Scrip;

The Informer; Orbis; The Florida Quarterly (USA); The

Free Lance (USA); Ghostdance (USA); All in; Poetry and

Audience; Ore; Northeast (USA); Zahir (USA); Viewpoints;

Caryatid (USA); Gong; Open Places (USA); Gaga.

EMPTIED SPACES

The candle's spent,

It was flesh

He meant to say,

But the words burned

Still, left him a

Room of emptied

spaces.

NIGHT-TIME STUDY

for my son, Raphael

The stars went out,

Each of a single in-

stance, prepared

That night to be

Indefinably still: the

Feel of touch, the

Sense of the real

Fingers on cloth 5 stars

went out,

Each of a single in-

stance.

10

OLD MAN IN THE PARK

An old man sat where he was,

wooden-framed

In the fountained park,

His thought the same

As the things about him:

The barely coloured green

of grass

Brought to mind, reminded,

The emptied pond,

Swans that gathered their wings

there once,

The sun florescent gold, bold

emblazoned sun.

The old man sat where he was,

wooden-framed

In the fountained park.

FROSTSCENE

In this stillness

One expects the eye to move.

So much here is hard and cold,

Wrought/untold between

us.

If we could touch

That this silver-silence could thaw,

Straight out to the tips of our

Fingers, that this branch

Could bear its spring of sap,

Unexpected, and liquid in

intent.

If we could speak

That our words could break

As flower from stone declared,

That quickened sense

Impulsed in light . . .

But in this stillness

One expects the eye to move.

So much here is hard and cold,

Wrought/untold between

us.

11

12

IDEALIZED

Transfig-

urations of thought,

idealized

That probable af-

ternoon

Lighted with sound:

Your feet my plea-

sure

Performed in tact and

measure —

You smiled,

Peripheral to the

sense.

AFTER A PORTRAIT OF LENBACH

(1890s)

You stood

And the world stood still

where you were.

And your dress encompassed

that space

well-knowing each and

every care

It had traced right down

to that

Same selected moment

Where you stood in a world that wasn't

anymore

Looking out, looking out

perpetually silent.

ROAD BUILDING

They cut a road out of that

landscape,

Planned and contrived to con-

nect two places

On the map which they had

never seen.

They came with their tools,

With their rough-handed workers,

With their skills, with their plans

And surveyors and at just the

Right time of year.

They chose the curves and angles,

They exposed that soft soil

to their wants,

They laid flat that land,

Poured burning tar on a readied

surface

And let it dry down deep.

And they curved those sides away

Proportioned to the proper

slopes

And then they took their tools

And their rough-handed workers

And their skills and their plans

And surveyors, packed up and

went home.

13

14

NOT BY CHOICE

They found themselves at the same place

Not by choice but by chance

Each had decided to come for

Some other reason of his own and

That place wasn't final

Either as a destination but

More like a point of debarcation as

Rivers that run together to a

Common source and then feed out in-

to the same sea

They came, each separately,

Each with his own thoughts in hand,

Underway. It was like changing

Trains at a common platform

Waiting at the same time

For the same thing

And yet only for themselves -

But that train didn't come,

The rivers failed to

Run together and they found

Themselves there at that same

Place, not by choice but

By chance each had decided to

Come for some other reason

of his own.

REMEMBERED

Time is falling,

Let it step into the past

briefly

And leave no mark

As words scarcely brought to

mind —

I think of you so,

Of the lightness of fallen

snow

That leaves no mark

Except when winds (trans-

parent) wake.

THE POOL

Look down into that

watered place,

The light's gone out of

your transient face,

Leaves shadows there

instead 5 •

That pool's bare,

Cracked at the edge,

Thoughts you gathered there

Will blow and break

And end for winter's

sake 5

Look down there

At what you've found out

of yourself.

15

16

n.y.c.

Perhaps these stones have spoken

(and their voice conceals

the want of light),

Or glimmering shadows per-

petuate here

A certain sense of desire

(in the twilight of

laughter when birds ex-

hibit their skills) —

Imagined wings of flight

Awaken not that real sense for

light;

Perhaps these stones have spoken

(i placed my fingers to

feel the want of

flesh)

And their words passed in

me

The coolness of another

afternoon.

TO THE HISTORICAL

Imperfectly known,

Abandoned in time to touch

and stone

This sanctity of fact fin-

alized, idealized

The tentative act itself

Imperfectly declared

As the fictions of waste:

Flesh, blood and bone,

And the fictions of time:

Touch and stone.

DESCENT

Those steps led

down,

Casements (enclo-

sures)

Of equalled sound

Consecutively apparent

We came to the

river

(river of dreams),

Though your hand ceased

to touch

(river of lights).

17

18

TO THE DEATH OF CHIEWITZ

Death has a separate room,

A single door that leads

in

And light at the

window's edge

A glass cleaned dry,

Sheets propped high and the

smell of flowers;

It has it all

That room it calls its

own

And the flesh that wears

away there, un-

observed.

MIRRORED

I looked to your face,

It reflected mine;

You smiled, I was cold;

Your voice tremoured -

No, it was the leaves;

And when I pressed your hand,

The pulse stilled.

EMPTY CHAIRS

They stood in their own

separate place

Gathering sounds they wound a-

round themselves as

Carefully as cloth's matter

of taste

Concentric/preconceived

eyes

That peered from under

cover out

Preconvicted to stone

They stood in their own

separate silence

Chilled by the fires,

Rubbing their hands

And renewing the cold of their

stiff and back-boned

chairs.

FOR THE FISHERMAN AT VOULA

Irreconcilable stood the

night,

It's armour of stars —

Light fires of the vaul-

ted wind,

Begin, but beware

You have raised a fish

from my heart,

That cold moon watching

through its mountain

of glass.

19

20

THE ROOM

The room prepared,

His steps neared against mar-

ble stone,

Left a cold presence

That wasn't his,

But came with him, in-

cidentally 5

The door was high,

Beyond reach as he passed

by

A shadow became $

He stood alone,

Columns of marble stone

Marked off to the

place where he stood.

FIRING SQUAD

They stood them up as

Tabled chairs turned

Over to be shot

at

Inside/out suspended to

The vacant airs of pro-

bability framed with-

out care of more or

less than hap-

pened there

Tabled chairs turned

Over to be

shot

at.

CYCLE

They stood him in a room

And told him to stay there.

At first his hands were warm,

But he could feel their heat de-

cline.

He stood as high as he could

That room was still

Four cornered, walled and

made of wood.

He sat at the centre of

Things that he thought.

And then he began to walk,

side to side,

Increasing the step be-

tween.

He stood straight again as

A tree stripped of its sound in

the autumn rain.

And he began to dream,

Crouched and crumbled in

shadow.

And they came at last to

carry him off.

21

22

HUNTERS

Through the wood,

Through the porous-chained

darkness

Break-combed pines of

shining stillness

Fabled high, foot naked-

marked

Scent, as scent they

come

shadows

cornered-turned

COMMAND

Calling that light forth

Through the wood

And at a step

And at that stance

fired

Finger- pressed steel

fired

To the veins

And at that still-moment

light.

RETREAT

You wouldn't have known where

They were going, backwards,

retreating

If it weren't for the sun in the

westwards sinking to

That stillness those flags

became

And their faces cleansed with

dust, protective now —

They didn't know either and

Weren't going to ask,

But simply came as they had

gone

One after the other,

Keeping time to what no one

knew,

A music perhaps, long since

forgotten

They were retreating

As they had from the first,

But from what they weren't

certain

Nor why, nor when, nor where

But simply came

As they had gone, one be-

hind the other,

Keeping time to what no-

body knew.

25

[II] DOOR PARTLY OPENED

You let the light

in,

Angled-off,

Your hands closed as a

Shadow hanging there

You let the light

in

As far as your face

could allow.

ON THE 7th

It was on the 7th

that she died,

I remember dates exactly

since then,

She closed her readied

eyes

To the dead of that

winter

As shades

That should be drawn a-

round her yet,

Tentatively uncertain,

Broken at the sides

A circle we chose to

frame her there.

24

A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS

The fundamental truth,

perhaps, was,

That you held strange thoughts

in your hands,

But the flesh,

Your own, was warm, the

blood receded

Though these fingers would

urge their way

Prompted by an unfamiliar

sense

To the flower itself -

But they were many,

That light as if blown by

The suddenness of your

thoughts.

WAITING

I've sat by the fire now

These six days and

Waited — I'm not sure

For what 5 once

(somehow distinct) I

Thought I knew

As leaves blew in the

Wind and fires

Raised their flame;

But I've forgotten now

What it was these

Six days I've waited

for, just sitting and

Thinking about

nothing.

25

26

A MAN AT HIS DESK

It was night,

The dark drawn down and

He grew accustomed to

himself

In contrast: less dark,

less severe j

The cylinder lamp,

Its ample string,

Desk of grained/surfaced

wood

Became understood as

objects

As he to himself,

Of which he was pleased

and certain.

PERSPECTIVES

It was too finished to

be true,

That fibre set to a

single mark

You had been told to

believe -

Truth behaves less justly,

To the eye at least

Perspectives change

But for the time and to

the moment

It was too finished to

be true,

But too fine to be left

concealed.

A GLASS BOWL

Spoken of

glass, words re-

flect the

Ordered sound,

Placed on the ped-

estal,

Turned round,

That form appreciably

diminished —

touch is less than

sound.

SOFA

When you sat there,

Upon that silken cover at

the farthest edge,

Your dress drawn out as

Long as could be re-

membered,

Consciously concealing that

shyness of yours,

We came to think of it

as old

And softer than it

really was 5

But now that you've gone,

We've redressed the

surface

To provide another ap-

pearance

And we don't think of

it at all,

Though it sometimes

watches us.

27

28

STILL

Night has

Closed its curtains,

There's a still in the

House that won't stay-

In place. I wake.

I cross the

Sounds of my steps,

But the silence re-

turns.

I open the window

The moon can he seen,

Almost touched if

I think it clear enough

The dark becomes ap-

parent but the

Still is, is still

Even in this light

I close myself behind,

Recross the steps to

My room, open and

Close the door,

Consider myself in sheets

and sleep

But the night is wake

And the moon a hollow

disc

The windows keep looking

out

As silence thinks.

STATUE IN THE PARK

This visible sun compoun-

ded of silence

As thought placed and pro-

vided for

(obscured in stone)

He found himself prophe-

tically alone

(the man and the mir-

ror)

Suspended in time upon

its horse.

ON THE HANGER

You left your clothes, out

on the hanger

Prim and clean

Pretty and closed

I could have thought of

you without them

If you hadn't posed

quite that way

for me

At least in the morning light

Hanging yourself out

Without apparent

Cause so pretty and clean

And each of those but-

tons clipped to

my fingers.

29

30

OLD ROMAN ROAD

There were a few markings left.

They ran through a field

Planted with corn and

Into a wood at the other side,

Out. They didn't disturb.

They kept to their own

Ways as if they were useful

Still and a drawn carriage

Would soon come running

Through. The corn concealed their

Wants and the wood closed

Them in from observation,

But they remained

As an organ with discontinued

Use, directing traffic in

two directions.

EXACTLY AS IT WAS

There was no need to look

again, everything could

Be remembered now,

Exactly as it was, where

You stood,

A bit off to the right,

Uncertain of yourself,

The table set,

Reflected glass that wan-

ted warmth,

And we should ease our-

selves

(somewhat further per-

haps) into those

Cushions and smile, almost

out loud;

And when we talked

That room seemed further a-

way,

All that light and glass

That reflected nothing

of ourselves.

51

A BOWL OF FRUIT

It was placed

Not quite to the centre,

It was alive as colour

To be turned but

Partly upwards

Concealing shapes and the

shadows below.

It was a thing to be

touched,

Accentuated from as

Fingers creased to that

glass of surface.

It was placed

Not quite to the centre

To be perfect, to focus ones

Thoughts, but alive as

Colour extended slightly,

upwards.

AUTUMN ROOM

for my mother

We are used to the

Flowers there,

That room composed to the

Shades of your hair

And colours your dress

Made there as you

Moved about, con-

sidering, preparing;

Used too to the lights

on the wall,

Leaves falling,

That lateness of scent

When smoke tells

And winds relent their force

That room as silent still as

Flowers faded there.

32

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Emptied Spaces