HARMONIOUS APPEARANCES

‘the distance between consciousness and the world
is not to be measured in words’
                   – Diffidentiae, III, ii

1.
If I have used the word ‘dither’ in a number of
depleted texts concerning the English countryside it
may well be that some underlying indiscipline or
superior cause is pressing its case     On pleasant days
my speckled woods and meadow browns are a source
of great comfort

At any other time this high street store would have
been considered overstocked     It is clear that a select
range of items – mostly non-utilitarian if popular in
the grand scale of things – is now entirely absent
Bafflement has not been reported     The clientele is
busy with the construction of what it believes to be
more accommodating dogma

Re. the possibility of an absence less than total I
would refer the incautious to both philosophical and
ritualistic need     Reality requires no-one to maintain
a vigil     In simple and non-negotiable terms such
completeness is a luxury afforded only to the mind’s
eye     It is not readily available for inspection

The collapse of monastic and solitary life once common
in the land may be put down to a) over-refinement b)
zealous repetitions and c) the deployment of a range of
ideas discontinuous with the greater inhabited past
The goatherd is seen however infrequently as a man
amongst many

Art though it is still recovering from its past position
of subsidiarity now feels able to promote the methods
by which base matter can be attracted to and in certain
conditions converted into ‘light’     into provocative and
cheap ready-to-use forms of instruction     Galleries
claim to wield the most effective sociological devices
for crowd control     There is minimal residue



2.
As incident-full as a local building site is to a town’s
inhabitants     and quite as noisy…     the colours in
any dialectic such as this are anxious to militate
against the limited range of tones authorities once
considered optimal     it is so argued

Vivid in its realization care bridges the most
destructive of sentences     There are worse turns for
the worse – form’s hard equality?     When mists are
burned away the current becomes itself in orthodox
if fainting light     No strangers at bay it is silence
conning the coast     One may be forgiven for positing
the existence of acceptable and unacceptable boundaries

I have been made aware of many such changes in
belief and practice     My rooms are testimony to the
clear north light     Experiments are more often than
not canted towards and in favour of the unknown
Horizons unrecognised are in hard retreat

It is as exacting as anyone would expect     The
appearance of numerous irregularities and minor
imperfections is guaranteed to enhance the required
outcome     Night time by comparison is cause for
regret     Much will be made of an overarching tension

Emphasis and release     function and frequency
speculation and condition…     all prove to be but
competing deviations where the deployment of ‘inner
truth’ is concerned     The poem as extrusion product
is capable of manipulating any number of false
propositions     Retirement to first principles is ever
an option



3.
Hidden abstractions account for the ‘value’ given to
those vertical and soaring lines of a magical structure
Weather plays its part     I have witnessed the nearby
cathedral     its comings and goings     its greedy
attendant gulls     Delight is hardly to be countenanced

This day is not without a deviant grace     I am not
wishing for one moment to put forward a proposal
for the rehabilitation of nature     What is… is
naturally become     There is no gainsaying     Metaphors
return to base without further signal     I am often
in the right place

What may be said of any verbal or visual disturbance
is that the willing mind is entirely capable of
incorporating it within the spectral array the sciences
have laid down     To be at home with the ordinary is
to be in a steady state of inspired apprehension     The
promised light of the theologians is not to be
bargained for

I have been away for a long time     Political realities
have proved no match for the glamour of the
imaginary     Distrust has become a password for
acceptability     Attention to self and the geography of
self has led to none of the predicted meetings of
minds     I am in my right mind     It is said there will
be burning and rumours of burning

For however brief a time – say within the space of
a paragraph or a passing conversation – any one
thing may suffuse and suffice…     The fault and the
beauty both lie at the door of the beheld     Deception
is key     The beloved is always out


          © Peter Dent 2002