A few months ago, I went to a workshop on Modernist poetry, during which we looked at Wallace Stevens' '
13 ways of looking at a blackbird'. It was new to me at the time, but I was immediately grabbed by it - the range of metaphors, the use of imagery and so on. Expanding beyond blackbirds to include other plants and animals, here's a semi-autobiographical response...
13 of life’s moments shared with Wallace Stevens I
During a squall,
jackdaws shelter
on the leeside of policemen.
II
Nothing is certain,
just as seaweeds are not plants.
III
We sit silently,
us good mates –
the landlord doesn’t mind lodgers having guests,
but what is there to say
when he’s watching TV
and idly cupping
his mastiff’s testicles?
IV
I am an old Jack Russell,
my balls drag in the snow.
V
There won’t be bluebirds over
the White Cliffs of Dover,
not because I don’t dream of peace,
but because the bluebird is not
native to Europe.
VI
Disappointed to find out that
the mummified foetus
of a Tasmanian Devil
has already been sold,
I have to ask myself ‘why?’
VII
Norbert Dentressangle,
Nippon Yusen Kaisha
and Dong Fang,
Triton and Mol the crocodile
bring what from where?
VIII
Pale grey ballast
recently laid and rolled
is soon obscured again
by shoots
of grass and Buddleia.
IX
Flossy the dental nurse
is a nine-grand rhino,
fibreglass,
green and white
with apple-a-day shoes.
X
One big man
admits on stage
how his life was saved.
The saviour,
on duty and
not knowing this until now,
sheds a tear –
gentle gorillas in our midst.
XI
The joy of
discovering a new
sexually-transmitted disease
of ladybirds.
XII
Crows gather,
fly down
and coalesce –
now a back-bent
black-shawled hag.
XIII
We are all stardust,
only some are golden.
