Shadwell Stair

Shadwell is Thomas Jefferson's
father's estate, now notable as
a filling station at a glossy
planned unit development of er-
satz gentry fantasy. It is also 
the name of something important.

   I am the ghost of Shadwell Stair.
   Along the wharves by the water-house,
   And through the dripping slaughter-house,
   I am the shadow that walks there.

   Yet I have flesh both firm and cool,
   And eyes tumultuous as the gems
   Of moons and lamps in the lapping Thames
   When dusk sails wavering down the pool.

   Shuddering the purple street-arc burns
   Where I watch always; from the banks
   Dolorously the shipping clanks,
   And after me a strange tide turns.

   I walk till the stars of London wane
   And dawn creeps up the Shadwell Stair.
   But when the crowing sirens blare
   I wish another ghost am lain.


























Wilfred Owen
The Collected Poems
  of Wilfred Owen
    Shadwell Stair
C. Day Lewis, editor
1920
Chatto & Windus, 1963©

Horace at your back vii: only one thing

     You occupy the nest; I praise
     the brooks of the lovely coun-
     tryside, its woodland and rocks
     overgrown with moss. In short, 
     I know life and am a king of the
     moment, I leave behind those
     things you extol to the heavens
     with loud applause, and, like the
     slave who refuses the sacrificial
     cakes from his master the priest,
     it is bread I want and now prefer ..

     I am dictating these lines to
     you behind Vacuna's crumbling
     shrine, happy in everything
     else apart from not having 
     your company to share.



I like it, that one
studies pretty stren-
uously with this son
of a slave. I like it,
that there is always
more. I like it, that
so many of the minds
I admire, walk around
in his consciousness.
The rigor they accept
is infectious, a bond.







  Through the years, the 
  hexameters, flows an  
  uncanny demonstration. 
  The strain is nothing.  
  One is being imagined.































Horace
20 BC
John Davie
  translation
Satires and Epistles
  Epistles I, 10
op. cit.

Short conversations in July

     Pinkie and Gooey
     are giving us a
     dinner dance at
     Piping Rock, and 
     you're taking me.

     Oh?

Origins of Wednesday v: fortune's pivot point

    What turns its face too soon, too late.

J.D. McClatchy

Hazmat: Poems

  In the Valley

  [fragment]

Alfred A. Knopf, 2004©

Arthur Devalbray

  photographer unknown

New experiences

 

I enjoyed a salad of

Summer peaches yester-

day, right in front of

a guy who's always cit-

ing that line from Eliot

to me. Didn't say a word.

Meanwhile, I was feeling

slightly sorry for Apple.

It was warm, but not un-

comfortable, and readings

fell to hand without
prompting. 

ii  Lucas Plazón

      

Does anybody want the story on Gaza?

Should not a posting on the

eternal debaucheries in the

sacredly contested niche be-

tween good and evil, find a

way of furnishing fuller de-

tail? So one may think, un-

less it meant inconvenience

to the horses, much less to

the breakfast table. Yester-

day it must have been truly

awful to have been Mr Kerry,

and have to explain knowing

nothing and vouching for it

at the same time. He called

to mind the child starved on

propaganda, furiously reknot-

ting its drawstring in shame.

It was with gauze of excep-

tional dispensation, in that

gruesomely loaded slogan and

begging question we uncritic-

ally recite, right to exist.

     Yet in the fulness of his

     experience, if not of its

     utility, and holding the

     position that he does, as

     something of a custodian

     of a generation eligible

     now to be destroyed, one

     would assume he'd be wil-

     ling to dispense with sub-

     jecting listeners to apol-

     ogies preparing for it. We

     know, they study Orwell at

     St Paul's.

George Orwell

Politics and the

  English Language

op. cit.

Mortal open secrets written down

   Thus, in the choice of a
   Devil, it hath been the
   usual Method of Mankind,
   to single out some being,
   either in Act, of in Vi-
   sion, which was in most
   Antipathy to the God they
   had framed.. For I think
   it one of the greatest,
   and best of human Actions
   to remove Prejudices, and
   place Things in their tru-
   est and fairest Light..

   In the 18th Century this

   language went public, in

   an outpouring of satiric

   contests; its brilliants

   simmered somewhat merci-

   lessly, a mode unfortun-

   ately more imitable than

   their means. As Jonathan

   Swift retreated to Let-

   combe, his close allies

   looked in, to cheer him

   up: Dr Arbuthnot, Alex-

   ander Pope, a few others.

   Arbuthnot was attending

   the dying Queen, Pope

   was translating Homer,

   and Swift was readying

   an abdication to Dublin.

   They were losing a hard

   political struggle to-

   gether, but the language

   kept their relics close,

   almost as its conscience.

Never repeat that melancholy tender word, that you will endeavour to forget me. I am sure I can never forget you, till I meet with (what is impossible) another whose conversation I can delight so much in as Dr Swift's: and yet that is the smallest thing I ought to value you for. That hearty sincere friendship, that plain and open ingenuity, in all your commerce, is what I am sure I can never find in another, alas. I shall want often a faithful monitor, one that would vindicate me behind my back and tell me my faults to my face. God knows I write this with tears in my eyes.

Jonathan Swift
A Tale of a Tub
1710
op. cit.

Arbuthnot to Swift
  August, 1714

Leo Damrosch
Jonathan Swift
  His Life and His World
Yale University Press, 2013©

How does Putin differ from Reagan?

    With Putin, it

    was unintended.

   It would be unseemly now

   to enrich our umbrage by

   referencing the manifest

   of MH17. But hypocrisy's

   never stopped us before.
   Possibly HIV can serve a-
   gain to inflame loathing.

i     Alessio Pozzi

ii    Marc Frick

iii   Abel van Oeveren