The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sat 7/26/2008)

[RetroLounge]

Redoubt

If only because in another country you are free
to renegotiate yourself or what you thought you were,

I found myself this night approached by a man in a suit.
When he asked me what I was drinking I didn't demur.

French was a lingua franca. He showed me a worn photo,
wife and children smiling at us from some Polish city.

We'd already exchanged names, whatever they were. So what
did I do? I told him I was a writer, not well-known.

Me? I'm a salesman, he said, I travel in fountain pens.
He represented all the big companies like Mont Blanc.

It was the coming back-to-the-future thing in the East,
though back where I come from, he said, they'd never gone away.

But what they desired now was 'Western exclusivity'.
And what sort of thing do you write, would you like to try mine?

Even before he proffered it I knew it was a fake.
He'd filled it with fancy ink. De l'encre violette.

So I wrote that I was a writer of fiction and poems,
and if you're about to ask me what they're about, I said,

that's for the reader to say, whose guess is as good as mine.
He smiled. And how did it all end up? I said, picturing

the scene, bottles with strange labels glinting in the background,
the bartender pretending to polish a glass, and you

looking the Mont Blanc man in the eye. I imagined snow
outside, the footsteps that brought you there already erased

as were his that crossed yours at the threshold if not before,
as you were a stranger to me once when we first met.

I stared at my face for an age in the en suite mirror.
Then I must have crawled into bed before my mind went blank.

Ciaran Carson

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



Poet and novelist Ciaran Carson was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1948. After graduating from Queen's University, Belfast, he worked for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland until 1998. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1978.

His collections of poetry include The Irish for No (1987), winner of the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award; Belfast Confetti (1990), which won the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry; and First Language: Poems (1993), winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize. His prose includes The Star Factory (1997) and Fishing for Amber (1999). His most recent novel, Shamrock Tea (2001), explores themes present in Jan van Eyck's painting The Arnolfini Marriage. His translation of Dante's Inferno was published in November 2002. His most recent collection is Breaking News (2003), winner of the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year).

Ciaran Carson is also an accomplished musician, and is the author of Last Night's Fun: About Time, Food and Music (1996), a study of Irish traditional music. He lives in Belfast.



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

:hi:

RL

[xchrom]

1. ...

I imagined snow
outside, the footsteps that brought you there already erased

as were his that crossed yours at the threshold if not before,
as you were a stranger to me once when we first met.

I stared at my face for an age in the en suite mirror.
Then I must have crawled into bed before my mind went blank.

[lizziegrace]

2. ...

that was my favorite part too.

Morning love...


:hug:

[xchrom]

4. mornin love!

:hug:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. My dear Retro...

Mmm, how lovely...

I love how it turns around on itself, playing with memories...

Thank you...

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

5. You're welcome!

:hi:

RL

[BlueIris]

6. Niiiiice. Got to love those Irish masters. nt

[RetroLounge]

9. Met a poet from Northern Ireland at Sarah Lawrence

He turned me on to this guy.

Of course with his accent I thought he said "Karen" so it took me a while to find him.

:hi:

RL

[blueraven95]

7. Hi Retro -

I'm not sure if I get this one at all. I think I need to think about it some more.

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

8. ...

:hi:

RL