Unaccompanied
Desmond Graham’s third publication from the Villa Vic Press, Newcastle, available in Limited and Special Editions (with wood engravings by Chris Daunt), ‘Unaccompanied’, brings together poems on kindred spirits, other writers, acquaintances and friends whose presence has nourished his work. These little tales of the unexpected reveal how the imagination finds creative impetus from absence as much as presence, from coincidence as much as good fortune, and from its ability to adapt creatively, the vagaries of chance. The great Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, Rainer Maria Rilke, Geoffrey Hill and Tony Harrison; the invisible yet famous editor Catharine Carver; Osip Mandelstam and Walter Benjamin all are given roles, however fleeting, but never silent.
Launched in Germany in 2014, poems from the collection are also available in Polish translation in Graham’s ‘Nowe wierze’ (Gdańsk 2014). The Villa Vic publication is available now and will be launched in the UK in 2015.
Dreaming of Rilke
All day day-dreaming through feathered grass
and the spread of daisies underfoot
of Keats and Tennyson while others
laboured at their shots or caught
high-hit cricket balls like fruit
and knowing no secrecy about it all
until they found your sonnets out of Shakespeare
and gave you your first public
hooting as you tried to wrestle back your script
and some years later meeting Rilke
in a large French-windowed room
his back to you
and head-down as you entered
half-turning patiently
to give you welcome
and politely rising
pausing till you spoke
and on your silence asking
was there anything you wished to ask him
just ask
and he would answer
and from the far side
your own voice
eagerly in earnest –
‘Tell me about the First World War’
silence
and that look on Rilke’s face
of disappointment
puzzlement
and possibly a little pique
but too polite
and elsewhere
in his pride
to show it
and all the lines you could have asked of
all his angels animals
and wonderful false-friends of writing
waiting in his head to answer
went back to their places
in the dark rooms
of his making
and he turned
and sat back at his desk
I woke
feeling like the fool
who threw away three wishes
with his stupid questions
or the dolt who sold the milk cow
on his way to market
and lay there in the darkness
holding Rilke’s silence
like a handful of beans
‘Dreaming of Rilke’ wood engraving by Chris Daunt
Recording: from Unaccompanied
