Poem
Peter Riley
HALF-LIGHT OF DAWN
HALF-LIGHT OF DAWN
HALF-LIGHT OF DAWN
The reveille sang out in the yards of the barracks,And the morning wind blew on the street lamps.
It was that time when a swarm of harmful dreams
Makes the dusky youths twist and turn on their pillows
When, like a bleeding eye that throbs as it moves
The lamp makes a red stain on the daylight
When the soul, fretted and heavy under the weight of the body,
Mimics the hostility between lamp and light.
Like a face full of tears that the breezes wipe clean,
The air is full of the tremor of vanishing things
And men and women tired of language, and tired of love.
Here and there the house chimneys began to smoke,
The women of the town, their eyelids pale,
Their mouths open, slept their stupid sleep.
The homeless old women, dragging their thin cold breasts,
Blew on the embers and blew on their fingers
It was that time when, what with the cold and the dearth
The pains increase of women in labour.
Like a sob interrupted by a froth of blood
The far cry of the cockerel tore apart the misty air,
A sea of fogs washed the buildings
And people in pain in the depths of hospitals
Let out their final rattle in uneven hiccups.
The party-goers walked on home, wrecked by their efforts.
Dawn shivering in a green dress with pink roses
Advanced slowly towards the deserted Seine,
And dark Paris, rubbing its eyes,
Reached for its tools, old working man.
© 2007, Peter Riley
From: Snow has settled [...] bury me here
Publisher: Shearsman Books, Exeter
From: Snow has settled [...] bury me here
Publisher: Shearsman Books, Exeter
A version of Baudelaire, Le crépuscule du matin
Peter Riley
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1940)
Peter Riley must now count as one of our ‘senior poets’, with a large back-catalogue of publications, but he occupies a strange position in contemporary English letters, due in no small part to the sheer range of his work. In some respects, this range, and his interests, rule him out of contention for a number of critics, and it would be fair to say that he probably annoys as many critics from ...
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HALF-LIGHT OF DAWN
The reveille sang out in the yards of the barracks,And the morning wind blew on the street lamps.
It was that time when a swarm of harmful dreams
Makes the dusky youths twist and turn on their pillows
When, like a bleeding eye that throbs as it moves
The lamp makes a red stain on the daylight
When the soul, fretted and heavy under the weight of the body,
Mimics the hostility between lamp and light.
Like a face full of tears that the breezes wipe clean,
The air is full of the tremor of vanishing things
And men and women tired of language, and tired of love.
Here and there the house chimneys began to smoke,
The women of the town, their eyelids pale,
Their mouths open, slept their stupid sleep.
The homeless old women, dragging their thin cold breasts,
Blew on the embers and blew on their fingers
It was that time when, what with the cold and the dearth
The pains increase of women in labour.
Like a sob interrupted by a froth of blood
The far cry of the cockerel tore apart the misty air,
A sea of fogs washed the buildings
And people in pain in the depths of hospitals
Let out their final rattle in uneven hiccups.
The party-goers walked on home, wrecked by their efforts.
Dawn shivering in a green dress with pink roses
Advanced slowly towards the deserted Seine,
And dark Paris, rubbing its eyes,
Reached for its tools, old working man.
From: Snow has settled [...] bury me here
A version of Baudelaire, Le crépuscule du matin
HALF-LIGHT OF DAWN
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