Issue 29: Tim Plant
Dafuto Igirisuhito
I burnt the knuckle
of my right index finger
toasting crumpets
I should have used the electric toaster
but someone said they were better
cooked under the grill
It would not heal
yesterday it bled and scabbed
miniature beach-scape debris
I picked it of course
rolled the dried crust
between my fingers
Dropped it
onto the cover of
Post War Japanese Poetry
Almost the same shade
as the raised edge of the Sun
where it blends with the names
Ayukawa
Miyoshi
Kitamura
Narcissus Pseudonarcissus (Echopraxis)
he only pretended to gaze
at himself in the water
if she wanted
she could have
said something original
Theory suggests it was the image
that pretended to gaze at him
maybe it would be clever
or at least a way
of not sounding ridiculous
the function of reflection being to appear
to appear in the glass while remaining nubilous
answering by repeating the question
steering the fine line between receiving
the hard word or the soft silence
known but not knowing
would it have any sense of itself?
they might have made a handsome pair
cocktails and eye contact
ending possibilities endless
self is a slippery concept when talking of
the face in the water never the same twice
but whatever it was a shame
to hear her vowels dwindle
instead of her consonants egress
even if it were ever a single thing
what unity can be required of ripples?
the negotiations never began
positions were not taken
the eyes never eyeballed
from nymph to imago
echoes without origin
maybe by walking away
her vanishing point would have
drawn his attention
self repeated
seduced reduplicated
caught in his own reflection
again eye in itself
imagined image imagined
[Tim Plant first came to public knowledge as a subject of the ‘SPYCOPS’ undercover infiltration of left wing political organisations in the UK, beginning in the late 1960s. At that time, he was assessed as ‘a waste of time’.
Despite all of his efforts, this remains true even, or perhaps, especially today, as the most rudimentary search of the internet will demonstrate.
In 2013 after a long bureaucratic career, he gained the degree of Master of Arts (with Distinction) in Creative Writing from the University of Sheffield, which surely confirms the earlier judgement of the intelligence services.
He currently grumbles and grunts along as part of Juxtavoices, Sheffield’s legendary antichoir.]
Copyright © 2022 by Tim Plant, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
