Bridges

[eclipse]

As we walk across clock hands my

shadow and I are reunited, after

crossing St Ives bridge. Their is

a tunnel at the end of the light

as the moon like a fingertip opens

glass, placing the bridge against

the eyes of the night, sleepers cross,

some slouch heavy with dreams. Ambling

through St Ives next morning pedestrians

are like type writer keys as rain falls

on them, I find words to resurrect the bridge

sunk deep into my heart, but there is no-one

left to cross.

[badger11]

 

pedestrians

are like type writer keys as rain falls

 

What a marvellous image.

 

Typo- There is

 

best

 

badge

[abstrect-christ]

A sad poem about the narrators loss of self or emotional identity -- haha i can relate on a bunch of levels.

 

Nice small poem.

[David W. Parsley]

Hi Barry, I enjoyed this poem and its perplexities very much. I like the way you bring a specific place into the poem, helping to anchor the more surrealistic imagery and symbolist language. The familiar motifs of moon, dream, sleeping, clocks, and eyes are here again, but they do not repeat within the poem and are refreshingly juxtaposed with startling action such as that of fingertips.

 

Fingertip action is clearly important to the poem's atmosphere and meaning, but I am still deciding just what is being symbolized. I get an exciting sense of some original insight pondering over a working that is not quite fate or the medieval conception of cosmic/divine "machinery". Even the sleepers crossing are not all participating in any common action, even something as basic as dreaming, but they cross just the same.

 

I also admire the inside-out treatment of a well-known near-death experience:

 

 

... There is

a tunnel at the end of the light

 

Nice word-play in the style of Dylan Thomas, arresting the reader with the reversal of terms as well as deftly provoking one's multiple associations with the root phrase, the nearness of death and its mystery (another recurring theme for you, but not explicitly mentioned once - brilliant!).

 

I spent several days deliberating over this poem, taking time to google and bing on the bridge and its setting. I even looked to see if there is actually a tunnel (hey, you already showed that there are literal elements here, why not this one, too?). If there is one, it is not mentioned. But the bridge figures in a number of separate articles and there are plenty of images showing swans swimming along the arches, perhaps some gulls. Most fascinating is the existence of a chapel in the middle of the span, one of only four such bridge chapels remaining in England. The simply adorned windows evoke an echo of the glass in your poem. I am left with a sense of possibilities, of titillating enigma and spiritual potential weaving through your images.

 

It is a fine poem (please fix the typo pointed out by badger) honed of excess verbiage and clear of repetitions. A nice achievement, distilling that sense of alienation well expressed by abs. I will return to this poem. If anything else occurs to me, I'll drop another comment. For now, I like the poem's tone and deep potentials.

 

Thank you,

- Dave