Draft to Publication 3

Came across a draft of a 'found' poem. It always interests me to look back and see how decisions I make along the process of making the poem affect the final piece. When I first started to write poems, I used a manual typewriter (this was about 1986!) and so I could see every draft stage of a poem. Now, mostly I just type over them on screen and all my workings are lost.

I'm not sure why I made the decision to turn 'lightning' into 'lightening' in the published poem, but changing the meaning completely just seemed to work.

My favourite Pablo Neruda poem is included, because it influenced everything I wrote at the time I first made this poem. And the line 'Days, all one kind, go chasing each other' is particularly apt at the moment.

Draft

I love with the punctuality of a rainstorm,
watching your eye’s dismay. Oh, but the song
on the sunny beach, made up as you walk by the rims of anguish –
thinking I'd go into an endless ecstasy for your boozing stride,

waiting to explain to his face in a photograph; a head and I.
The others stand still around. I’d hold all the sea;
a snake coiled in the history of forever.
Love – the lungs stretch their intricate wings.

Memories of the evening; the weft of my lifelong ailment,
the length of our lightning.
A wind still hauls on them –
was held in by the blackbirds.

Published poem

I love with the punctuality of a rainstorm,

Watching your eye's dismay. Oh but the song

On the sunny beach, made up as you walked

By the rims of anguish. Thinking

I'd go into and endless ecstasy for your boozing stride.

I wait to explain to his face in a photograph.

The others stand still around. I'd hold all the sea;

Love -- the lungs stretch their intricate wings.

Memories of the evening;

The weft of my lifelong ailment,

The length of our lightening.

A wind still hauls on them

Held in by the blackbirds.

Here I Love You

Pablo Neruda

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.

Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.