Now it would seem a time

Now it would seem a time

Three verse poem - a time for living, forgetting, and no time to mourn.

1944-11-05

One page typewritten document

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SYeomanHT104405v10026

[underlined]POEM – “NOW IT WOULD SEEM A TIME”[/underlined]

Now it would seem a time for living:
Dead pinpoint maggot
Pricked on harsh leafback’s horn
The invulnerable worm bleeds
In his months’ granary.

Now it would seem a time for forgetting
Death and the discord of
My shaking body shocked limbs
The timeless wandering oh miracle
Of sleep in bleeding eyes
Moon’s malice ice-breathed
Salt of sickness strained
To some mother’s child
Unstroked hair burnt
Unloved under the polished tomb-arc
The valley of his rapid sky
And drug my lung-cells
Stimulus to mothwing heart
In adrenalin safety.

Now it would seem no time to mourn:
I holding no venom no fire-splash
No dreamsbreath under
The rippled mood’s ecstacy
I my strawthoughts plaiting
To their fast unconscious cowardice
Of my patterned dark.

5 Nov 44
Tuddenham