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Someone had a lot to say this morning…

"Tonight in the Equinox," by Roger Illsley

Talk in Cardiff

 

Big crowded restaurant next

to Mermaid Quay & my wife
steps out to take a call & I
focus on total sound of voices
talking--a liquid aural sculpture
of what bubbles, bursts, and flows
out of minds onto tongues & lips
& teeth. Fricatives and sibilants,
bumped rhythms, syncs and
overlaps, high-lows, quick stops,
clicks, loud cackles, the symphonic
babble of us. These folks

talk about, these eager eaters
paroled from homes, & they talk
to talk, as talkers do and must
& it's just good to listen
to the rich chopped salads of sounds
severed from sense--a dense
space, a tide. My wife returns

& I say, "What was she calling
about?" She says, "Oh, she
just wanted to chat."

At the British Museum

In truth, crowds of the living

interest me more today
than the British Museum's
superbly lit and curated
tablets, weapons, hordes,
clocks, and deities.

A constant flow
of self-selected people
moves toward and away from
the table where I sip coffee
and scribble. A Chinese
mother breast-feeds her
child in the cafe. Teenagers

from every culture rankle
at the forced parental trudge
through these tombs (one
young woman sees my
notebook & pen and smiles:
another writer). Here come
the tall, the old, the short, the
chaired, the sexy, the enwrapped,
the rapt, the aching-arthritic,
the dazzled, the done-in,
the spongy voluptuous--

the everybody from everywhere
who take charge of idiom,
clothes, beliefs, behavior,
and most importantly:
secret thoughts, quick
connections, living impulse--
those dear seeds of civilizations.

London, 2023

A brisk but polite flow

of people on sidewalks, in cars.
Yelling and honking--rare.
Women everywhere, from
everywhere: how splendid.

A sturdiness of old kept-up
buildings--like thick, healthy
urban bones. Conversations
that include listening and evidence.
Reading, valued. Few symptoms
of sick rage. A relative

freedom from guns, which now
hold American well being hostage--
a pistol to the national head.
A certain lust for gardens
and the farms beyond. A troubling
dearth of birds. Except for

pigeons, who have become
full citizens (I love them). An
adequacy, at least, of bookstores.
Calm news-readers, free
from pressurized speech
and false drama. Loquacious
cab-drivers with comic schticks.

A healthy getting-on-with-it.

"Hello, Goodbye, Swindon"

Hello, Swindon, where one

train passenger gets off,
gray clouds let a shaft
of sunlight through, and aluminum
chairs are perforated like
sheets of postage stamps.

The detrained woman sits
in one of these, puts
an allergy sprayer in both
nostrils, combs her gray
hair, sighs, and waits.

How interesting it must be,
I think, to grow up and live
in Swindon--in any place
without famine, war, and other
acute violence. The train

keeps going through tunnels
of green trees and brush,
as if landscape were a private
matter. Breaks in the vegetative
wall show hedgerows
and pastures (the discipline
of farms). Guernsey cows

give green grass a close
reading. Sheep gather
in fluffy, passive gangs. Dark
green, black-branched
oaks give off a Druid vibe.
Goodbye, Swindon.

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"Happier Today," by Roger Illsley

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A Summer's Day

 

in response to seeing the painting, "To a Summer's Day," by Bridget Riley, at theTate Modern Art Gallery, London. Image of painting courtesy Tate Gallery, copyright 2014 by Bridget Riley


A shimmering glare comes off
the river, a wavy shiver. Air
becomes a stream of blues
and greens, sheens and browns
and creams. Summer

swims in such blendings
and brief blindings, dives
into pools of light, laps
with wavelengths
at the feet of lovers. Oh,
yes, summer waves and hovers.

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