Friday, February 10, 2017

Robert Sheppard: Catacaustic for Tom Raworth (posted IM)



Catacaustic


                               for Tom Raworth


 


Twentieth Century Blues 73


Articulates 15


Some Words 2


Study 3


Numbers polished

petrol back to his room

changed continuously in the swell

clouds flickered the afternoon stalactites

a stone cracked open leaving

the docks

map a blank plan destroyed

50s flights of steps to work at two chairs

scribbled falls flickered to speak

near rushing table

remembered the last news

labelled a quick sketch

in the ejected

hold sides of wire tiles

between air spits

on the windows happy with lines

appeared to hold breathing

from the real shutters

switched the day’s dog shit off

as the cleaners run down the central hoardings

pick up endless photographs

of xerox stone hits roofs to shout down

bright red shoes

the shutters scrap of blue steps through his head

at the bottom of decay

dark grey calm eyes

flash the starts of ends

and adding in paper twists loud

real fingers approach

the last poem stated his method.



19 December 1999

The next poem, as it were, also tried to 'state' Tom's 'method', this time in a poem written I.M. See here.

Read 'On Tom Raworth: The Speed of Writing and the Poetics of What is to One Side' here.

I have written critically of Tom's work a great deal but here's a relaxed take on his extraordinary 14 liners.

See also from my abandoned novel Thelma here which features Tom Raworth as a character,