Issue 4: Ian Cartland
E pur si muove
What is the view from the window?
The view from the window is blue and green.
And how did last night go?
Last night went on forever.
Did they repair your wrist watch?
My hands are clasped on the writing desk.
How is your writing going?
I am diving out the window.
The boating lake is green and blue.
I let a drop slip through my sealed
eyelid, it forms a backward tear.
As a frog escapes raw
from scalding water, or the measure
of two spheres’ rise to meet a parapet,
I’m spilling back my memory.
But where will you go later?
To a book burning, call it dinner
with Galileo. Call it a warm night
out of season, I want to feel something
on my skin while I imagine
that if we fell from an open window
I could reach the ground before you.
Leisure Day
Parachute drop at dawn.
I like my heels to be pressed
to the sun lounger.
Canopy and canopy
folded into canvas packs
in time to the Brandenburg;
I lick stamps, bang them down
on postcards. My hotel coffee
trembles: I’m a desk man.
Ten harnesses grip armpits.
A poolside tape recorder
plays a moving Beethoven
as the jumpers’ tan boots dangle.
I float, sunned arms folded
on a wet, tiled lip:
imagine all the difficulties,
dining Italian
underneath the high board.
Knotted riser cords
flop from a parachute pack.
The tangled surface
of the swimming pool
is strung like a Hockney.
My hearing is exquisite.
The second violin
drops a pin from her hair.
Spaghetti of the day
slips from my plate
into the deep end.
Nine men land.
Man ten dwells on home.
Ian Cartland was born in Derbyshire. He lives in Cambridge, where he is involved in running the CB1 Poetry readings series.
Copyright © 2010 by Ian Cartland, 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.
