Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Saving
- Out of this World
- Observatory
- Zentralfriedhof
- How to Remember
- Europe
- What's Gone Blue
- Plain Tongues
- As the Crow Flies the Sun Rips Day Open
- Boy
- The Roof
- Eva Braun in Linz
- Yellow
- My Girl in California
- St Peter
- The Soldiers
- Palace
- Outside Vienna
- Neutral Air
- Woman
- How to Forget
- The Sound
- In Time
- The Lever
- Fourteen Mistakes
- The Fall
- The Hold I Have
- Centre Strange
- Born Breathing
- The Heads
- Home
- Epilogue
- Maker
- Acknowledgements
Out of this World
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Saving
- Out of this World
- Observatory
- Zentralfriedhof
- How to Remember
- Europe
- What's Gone Blue
- Plain Tongues
- As the Crow Flies the Sun Rips Day Open
- Boy
- The Roof
- Eva Braun in Linz
- Yellow
- My Girl in California
- St Peter
- The Soldiers
- Palace
- Outside Vienna
- Neutral Air
- Woman
- How to Forget
- The Sound
- In Time
- The Lever
- Fourteen Mistakes
- The Fall
- The Hold I Have
- Centre Strange
- Born Breathing
- The Heads
- Home
- Epilogue
- Maker
- Acknowledgements
Summary
In Vienna the young
woman kicks at a fence at the station, waiting
to catch a train out of the world. Digital sign says no train's due.
Out of the world or out of the mind?
On this weak-lamped morning, I watch
the woman kick the fence, which, after a fit of
persistence, falls. What loveliness
increases, what passes, what woman
now standing on tracks staring down
the train. Blazed light.
She is too far for anyone to reach her.
Is it like picking up an instrument and beginning to play.
Is it like a smattering of false similes, fooling foreignness into feeling familiar.
Man on his back hugs guitar like a lover,
but will not play a note.
The woman makes no more noise.
In creased hills, rubbled grass,
in rocks scattered like blades,
I see the country I'm from,
though I'm so far nowhere
nearer. No nearer death,
no passing train. The world's
stealing all the leaves again, leaving
notes in a language I don't read.
Because this fence guards nothing
but dark weeds and smashed glass
this morning I have kicked it down. The digital sign
says nothing's coming.
No time to count down.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Nowhere Nearer , pp. 3Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2018