A companion to THE WORD OF SINNA LUVVA blog. An Outlet for new poems, drafts of poems and even rediscovered or reworked ones! For more poetry by Malcolm Evison see the Related Sites listing.

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

The Candle (one poem - two versions)


Although most of the drafts for these two versions of the same poem were written in January 1991 (during phase two of the First Gulf War), subsequently modified in 2005, I am still unable to decide which is the final version. Each version has its merits and no doubt their flaws too.

THE CANDLE (Version I)

Waiting to break
this happy equilibrium
the flames shaft

laps the glowing air.
Today the bombs
fall on Baghdad –

I watch the candle burn.
A patterned globe
of wax emits

a subtle fragrance –
no flesh is burning
here in my room.

Is this the flame
that purifies –
surgically pue?

An opening of the door –
a minor turbulence,
the flame now licks

the candles side.
The meltdown of the globe
begins so casually.


Malcolm Evison

*************************

THE CANDLE (Version II)

A patterned globe
of wax emits
a subtle fragrance.

The flames shaft
laps the glowing air
waiting to break

this happy equilibrium.
Is this the flame
that purifies

whilst commentators whine

of surgical strikes.
Open the door, create
a minor turbulence –

the flame now licks
the candles side –
the meltdown of the globe

began precisely
with the strike
of that first match.

Today the bombs
rain down; a patterned globe
emits the stench

of burning flesh.

          

   Malcolm Evison

Monday, July 01, 2019

Continue-uMM


                        
              Continue-uMM (second draft)


                               time alone knows
what it is
it passages through life

but as for all the rest -
quite unaware
of what makes it tick

we struggle on -
but are we fixed
in an imaginary

continuum


                              Malcolm Evison
@ what I choose to call
30 June 2019 / 01 July 2019