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F l a s h e s
i n   t h e   P a n
1 9 7 7  -  1 9 7 9
by Kenneth Belton

 
 
 
 

 

                        the last contrast
 
 
 

                                                     Black

                                                            as the shadow of her coffin's

                                                            lid

                                                            white

                                                            as the skin where blood once

                                                            flowed
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                            satori
 
 
 

                                          I coursed the wind

                                                tonight

                                                and raced against the past

                                                No one

                                                saw no one knew

                                                how much

                                                I lived and what I was

                                                For I

                                                alone was I

                                                And I

                                                alone experienced it

                                                Tonight

                                                I am the wind
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                        on being one's own man
 
 
 

                                                                     None knew

                                                                     the roots of my joyfulness

                                                                     when joy possessed me

                                                                     None knew

                                                                     my tears' or my smiles'

                                                                     history

                                                                                I despaired and

                                                                     none knew
 
 

 the first of the year
 

                              January

looks both ways and is

yellow

crocus and jonquil

mimosa and forsythia

and far from wintry winter

jasmine

a Buddhist month

a month

for not looking either way

perhaps

saffron days with no dead leaves

or buds

just hard black bending branches

that are

that focus the frost slough off

the snow

and gratefully unstiffen

in the odd hour's sun
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                                     instant joy
 
 
 

 Every poem's

 the last time

 and each new time's

 the first

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

preservation order
 
 

Loose of bowel

and eyes adrool

a sag in the scrotum

and a patina of weariness crusted

on to the body-stocking that was

my skin

              Is that

what I had to come to

what all

the fighting for breath to stay alive's

about
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

and the final comparison
 
 
 
 

Black was

black as the shadow of her coffin's lid

white was

white as the skin where blood once flowed

But now there is

no black and white

no love and hate

no living no dying

Only being

there is
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

           winter's end
 
 
 

nippled buds
yearning from old wood
birds

no longer feathering spasmodically

against the cold
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

a do-do
 
 
 

Do

do what you must

do

but

try to must do

only such as

when it's done

you can

have done with it

for good
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

wholliness
 
 

Be wholly

in every action you find yourself

involved in

sitting standing reading or writing

a poem

loving

suffering because of loving

and even loving suffering

Which doesn't mean

there aren't actions you can't be

wholly in

There are but your life

evolves

if it is really being lived

wholly

in such a way that you are not drawn

to be involved

in such actions as in which you cannot be

wholly

                                                                                                 ***
 Just as dogs

don't waste their energy climbing

trees

trying to be cats

                          So be ready to do anything and everything

with wholliness
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

wholliness 2
 
 
 

                        Not concentration
                        but
                        absorption
                        Absorption
                        but not exclusion
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

           any port
 
 
 

 
Yes

any skin

to touch and be felt by's

better than none

Any other's eyes

to merge pools with's

far rather than the mirror's

frozen gaze

And any smell

to have cling to me of sweat

but the known too well

my own
 

 

hair-splitting
 
 
 

                        My hair lives

in the past

and much more so than does

the rest of me

Today

for instance it's all bushy

and full of life

whereas I'm not

exactly as it was three days ago

after being washed

when I was too

                         Perhaps it's the dirt

that does it

fixing the past and keeping

up present appearances

Which could be why

washing a lot and often

is not such a bad idea

after all
figure in a landscape
 

Life is a landscape

My life is my landscape

Yours is yours

And I walk through my landscape

and am always in it

I inch round boulders

and step over furrows

Feeling the breezes

and sensing the scents

I jump the ditches

and sink into bogs

Everything I see is what I see

All my sensations are my sensations

The seasons pass

the weather changes

and I walk on

but I'm always in my landscape

and there's nowhere

I can go to or should want to

                                                                                      where my landscape isn't
 
 
 
 

                          elixir
 
 

                                I baked an old apple

tonight

a wrinkled old apple

that smelled

like a once cider-butt
 
 

But once

baked that sere old apple

racy

was with juice and youthness

plumped up and succulent
 
 

Would that

I too

could core myself and have

myself

baked thus
 
 
 

      orbiting
 
 

                     We live among eyes

at least I do

eyes fleetingly exchanged between buses

eyes casually touched at dusk

eyes plunged into

eyes wallowed in

certain eyes that signal helplessly

others that won't be caught

and then

exceptionally but no less painful

for that

sometimes

there's a sea of eyes

to wade against

or receding waves

of eyes that ebb
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                            uniquity 1
 
 

I'm not unique

when I'm being the only one

in a certain moment

to be doing a certain thing

but I am

unique

whenever I'm alone

in doing things that are

momentarily unique
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                            uniquity 2
 

 No I'm not unique

 because I'm alone in doing

what other people aren't

doing

but I am

uniquely alone

inasmuch as I

do what other people don't

do
 
 
 

                               uniquity 3
 

                                                                               Am I unique in being

the only one to be

in a crowded Roman bus or

in the world

who's holding a frozen fish pressed

against his thigh

and thinking it his fish is coming

back to life

                   No I'm not unique

in being alone in doing

what other people aren't

but I am

uniquely alone

inasmuch as I

know what other people don't think

of knowing

and think

what other people can never

know
 
 

         embarras de choix
 
 

A moment of cool joy

today

when it came to me

in a flash

that to get to where

I had to get

there were two

buses I could take

which took different

routes to get there

                              So as long as that's

the case what joy

and when once it's not

the case

and of buses to take

to get

to where I want to get there's

only one

there'll still be the cool delight

of knowing I can always

take it or

leave it
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

the mourning after
 
 

                                  It looks as if I've got my dying

one lifetime's

dying

over and done with once and

for all

Yes there'll be no more need now

for funerals of nearest and/or

dearest

The  only one

I have to be concerned with now's

my own

and I'm the last person in the world that that

concerns
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                          weather lore
 
 
 
 

                                                 Black clouds at night

                                                 may really be white

 
                                                 White clouds by day m-

                                                  ay mean rain just the same
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                   an antidote

                      against petty pacing
 
 

                                                           Today
 
                                                           is the nearest thing to tomorrow

                                                           that you'll ever get

                                                           to know

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

   the roaring forties
 
 

One can afford to be much younger

in one's forties than

in one's thirties

because one is that much farther removed

from having

to be young

And as for

the fifties and the sixties et cetera

well

anything goes
 
 

 
 

good deeds for the day
 
 

                                     Helping

sprouting sunflower seeds

to doff

their striped Phrygian caps

Shielding

a shivering cornucopia of wisteria

from the March wind

for a second or two

Encouraging

my ailing hair to let itself down

and dance a round of joy

with the same mad wind

Killing

after a day of indecision

the suckling black fly

pursed in my ivy's baby-fisted shoots
 

                                                                           ***
 
 

 
 
 

Being

aware of or at least imagining

the heaving heart of the ant

the snail's despair

Loving

the same cold morning's horn of plenty

and letting it feel my love as

unstintingly it let itself

be drained

by a moon-slivered sky

down to the last pale purple drop

Not inflicting

myself my thoughts my misanthropic presence

on my fellow-men
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

one possible consequence

of no-distinction-making
 
 
 

                                               If sage be

                                               no  higher

                                               than clod

                                                                to love one's dog

                                                                is no less

                                                                than to love God
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

                        su e giù
 
 

Forgive me

for not missing you

when I'm giù

but only

when I'm su

 Sad plus sad

 is bad

 you see

 while glad plus glad

 is ecstasy
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

to my cyclamen sowbread
 
 

Surely unique

as the flavour said to be given

by a diet of cyclamen corms

to the famed pork products

of Perigord

Nay as unique as

cyclamen sowbread itself

you are
 
 

 you never know when it may happen
 

 Like the young and any madman

I change faces

every day and sometimes

every second of the hour

So being though no longer

young more than somewhat

mad

I must suppose that it's because I change

faces oftener

than my underpants

that I've yet to have the usual accident

while crossing the road of later life

but when the time does come

for me to be struck down

by old age

I only hope it'll be the kind of day

when I happen to be wearing clean pants

and one of my better

faces

 the only pretty ring time
 

                                              Last springtime may

and one

that is of course I

can only hope that it is so

have been my last

the last to be greeted

by me that is

and some other sweet lover

together

             Nevertheless the one

the spring that is of course just

started ungreeted

has a sweetness all its own

                                           And those

to come equally ungreeted but no less

sung  I do not see why

and this I say not with wryness

gone wrong

I do not see why after all

my years of sweet loving

they shouldn't still recognize and relish

the lone lover and lonely welcomer

they'll find in me

 
 
 
 
 
 

an egg for all curates
 
 
 
 
 

I'm only bad in parts

remember that O Lord

For the place that my heart's

in is the rightest place to be
 
 

I will my son but do

in turn remember this

It's that you're only you

in parts that really worries me

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                  primavera
 
 
 
 
 

It's not a day to die

today

Or else  to do so not

knowing

that today is not a day

                                        to die
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

                    spring 77
 
 
 
 
 

Golden gazanias

ganymeding fringed cups of nectar

to the sun
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

          should one tell an adopted plant
 
 
 
 

You see my dear

the difference is I went to the nursery

and picked you there

personally

You

were wanted and I brought you here

because you

were you

Not like the others

cloned and seeded and carelessly sown

by Mother Nature

and abandoned to their fate
 

 
 
 
 

 
 

world without end
 
 
 
 
 

It's all either wave-

crests or troughs wherein there's no more snouting

after life
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

life is a go on the dodgems
 
 
 
 

It's strange

if you stop to think about it

not to say miraculous

that more people don't bump

into more people

in the streets and on the roads

which

of course may less strangely be

why those who do

do

because they tend to stop

to think

about it
 

 
 

              Gridasti:  Soffoco...
 
 
 
 

My mistress closed the dead

eyes of a once poet's wife

Then my

turn came and hers but I

was not to do as she years

before

had for the her of him

For my dear once mistress chose

to close

alone and for ever

the far-seeing eyes of this

dead poet's wife herself
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

                     stool-passing
 
 
 
 
 

How wonderful to want to write

to think in terms of being

a writer
 
 

As though writing were any more

controllable or special

than passing

stools
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                         rigmaroles
 
 
 
 

With a flip and a flop

and a holey-ho

Royal Flaps and Fissures
 
 

Hanzbeals

and Humpsa-hazy
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

               lacrymosa dies illa
 

Live

and the world lives

with you

Die and you die

alone
 
 

Dying is like having the breath

knocked out of you

It's a once and for all

experience

And one that should qualify as the one

time when déjà vu can be ruled out

But if

when your moment comes you do

happen to get that I've been here before

feeling

then better luck next time

round
 

                                                                       ***
 
 
 

Basically

dying is what other people

do

And not to put too fine a point

on it

it's the one sure way to steal the next man's

thunder

Compared with dying after all

everything else seems somehow

less important
 
 

If you think about it

nothing makes you feel more

left out of things

than dying

whether it's you who do

the dying

or the next man whose thunder

you'd been trying

to steal
                                                                      ***
 
 
 
 
 

For some people nevertheless

dying

is the only chance they have to do anything

with their lives

Despite which

the idea of dying obviously makes most of us glad

to be alive

with the one exception of course that dying slowly

tends to induce

a resurgence of the death-wish
 
 

In other words

when everything seems worn

and faded

dying may represent a colourful

alternative
 

                                                                       ***
 
 
 
 
 
 

Remember though

that dying is not a prerogative

but an interrogative

and while there's no getting round

its penchant

for taking the gilt off the gingerbread

of living

the fact of the matter is

as follows
 
 

Die

and the world dies  with you

Live

and you live

alone

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

apes and quintessence
 

Men stay men longer

than women do

but women are more women

than men are ever
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

    summing up
 
 

                            In this second

I would speak to all

I've known

wherever and when

in all my years

and look

into their eyes

whether dead or not

for they not only are with

me in this second

but are

me

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                        more nunsense
 
 

Do virgins

have pale hands and pulseless

veins

because they are

or are they

because they have
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

the moment
 

                      A curtain

                                     for my window

                      the blankness

                                      of what once was
 

 
 

7/7/77

(I had a thought
the night of the seventh
of the seventh month 1977
that it would have been nice
and might even have been auspicious
to have written a poem
on such an auspicious day
Then I remembered
that in scribbling this
the above
on the sheet of paper I'd used
to cover up the cellophane window of the envelope
enveloping my letter to you
not wanting to send you a blank page with it
I had)
 
 

 

      Overreaching
 
 

                                 Coveting the serenity

                                           of not coveting

                                                    any more

                                 desiring

                                 to be freed from having

                                 to desire

                                                           striving

                                                 not to see life

                                                          as strife

                                  unready still

                                  for being

                                  for being's sake

                                                   trying

                                               too hard

                                   reaching

                                   for
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

              if I were you
 
 

                                   Why not try

                                         putting yourself in your own

shoes for a change

Enough of being me

or as good as the next man

For

if you were always you

and if only I were only I

what a good and simpler world 'twould be
 
 
 

 going out in glory
 
 

I'm what you might sort of call

not to be too flippant though

a-spring-cleaning for the fall

My contract's over and so

         I'm here

                       cleaning out my bottom drawer

                       ditching debris with élan

         Yes I'm

                       heading for the last round-up

                       packing for my farewell tour
 
 

Truth to tell I'm almost glad

it's time for the curtain-call

Leaving a great show hurts bad

but cheers and raves aren't all

                Yes I'm

                              cleaning out my bottom drawer

                              ditching debris with élan

                For I'm

                              heading for the last round-up

             packing for my farewell tour

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

             many mansions
 
 

                                           Dead moths and scuttling spiders

                                           are at home

 in the Lord's sanctuary

                                           but so too

                                           the fragrantest of lilies

                                           and my soul
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

                        21 in '53
46 in Trafalgar Square
 
 

In the shadow of a banner

with the fountains

that are still

had to come my latest moment

of reckoning

Jubilee

Jubilation

colder than the dawn that never

dawns

upon the dying man

who accepts the proffered weakest

hour for dying

or strongest

as I celebrate my silvered

over adult

twenty-five
 
 
 

 
 
 

and be ye lift up
 
 

Souls not mouths

are for singing

praise unto the Lord

Mouths

are good for asking

for his blessing

but even

that

souls can do better
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

snail trails
 
 

Snail trails

silver threads among the green

of roadside grass

have led me on today but not

deceivingly

to Beanford Farm not far

from Sedlescombe

to which I bring

more probably prevented though

as in

God prevents us with his Grace

the place seems so

prepared

the peace I found at Benskins

in the sanctuary

that lovingly's been refounded

there
 
 

sanctuary
 
 

Sanctuary's

for going to

for knowing that it's always

there

not for wanting desperately

to be inside

it

or for dreaming of being

there for ever

For if the Lord is

your sanctuary

you'll never

need again

to seek a place to find

Him

 
 
 
 
 

rose festa
 
 

Rose-thorns and splinters and sea-urchin's spines

go under

the skin and

though festering mysteriously unseen

left alone

they use up

their venom and emerge miniaturised

stiff black snakes

from the flesh
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

pruning roses
 
 
 

Cutting back

                   dead growth

removing

                   twigginess

pruning

                   a lifetime

                   for the second

flowering
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 on
having the scales
removed
 
 

   To know what it is to have been blind
                                  is not always to see
     To know what it is to see
     is right seeing

     To know what is to die
      is to be reborn
     To know what it is to be
      is unbeing

     To know what is to have powers
      is not to need to use them
     To know what it is to have the power
                                  is to be used by it

     To know what it is to be blind
      is seeing
     To know what dying is
      is to be
     To know the power
      is the power of knowing it
      and to know unknowing
      is all-seeing
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

             surprise surprise
 
 

                                            There's never a last

                                             time for it's always

                                             the first
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
                                      Will
      passengers with children
             go through the gates
                            first please
 
 

  I wanted to make you

                                                  my child

  not to board the plane first

  of course

  but perhaps because still

  wanting

  to share my ancestry

  with you

  and the transparency

  that is

  now my flesh without end

  my mass

  without flesh and blood or

  world-span

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

despite appearances
 
 
 

To say that anything

is accidental

even the most trivial

occurrence

encounter or phenomenon

is like saying that the nucleus

of an atom

is there by chance

or that we burp

out of the blue
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

surface-depth
 
 
 

         The great unstriving

the effortlessness of reflecting

light

like pools of water

to the sun
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 Flux perpetua
 

                       Where the stream flows

to

is outside the smoothness

of the pebbles that are

flowed over

and quite without shadow for the ripples

of sunlight

Only those

fish the most who spawn

heed

the cycle of shoals and seasons

while the scales

of the few

who dart here and there amid the dappled

refractions

attracted by the constant whenceness

of the light

need

no compulsion to

refect it
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ergo sum
 
 
 

Learning to use

the body

learning not to be used

by the mind

is all there is

to learn

and to learning

The rest is seeing
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

bare bones
 
 

                    Nothing has added

meaning

Everything is as meaningful as need

and can

be

Bone

covered by warm flesh does not cease to be

what bone's

made and meant to be
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

after Blake
 
 

                                            Suddenly

looking no longer with

the eye

but by the grace of God

seeing

through
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Chinese boxes
 
 
 

                        Some people have old people

inside them

waiting

Some have young

even when they become not so young people

And some people have no other

people inside

because they always are

what their bodies are
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

old man's thrush
 
 

                               The last stretch

 exactly one month long starts with a soreness

 in the mouth

 and ends with an easing

 of the soul
 
 

 The first stretch too's

 an unwombed month of thrush but with a wild scream

 and quite  without easing

 for the soul
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

here and now
 
 

                         We only

                         live to learn

                         to die
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

   turn a blind ear
 
 

                                Some that are deaf

shout

some whisper

ones that make you know

what it is to be treated

like one

ones that make you feel

like one
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

seen from a train
 
 

                            Long sky-streaks of green and gold

sliced into epaulettes

by rank upon rank of slim canals

seen from a train
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

vacant possession
 
 

                                 Being possessed

                                                            is watching yourself not doing

                                 the things you know would give others

 pleasure

               and hearing yourself saying

the things you know will wound
 
 

 Possession  is being dispossessed

 of yourself

 but above all

                       knowing it

 and not being able to do anything

 about it
 


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