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Veronica Forrest-Thomson: A Retrospective |

Pfarr-Schmerz (Village-Anguish)

Making love & omelettes
                                            For every poem ought to contain
                                            at least one zeugma
we may discern a very
palpable corner of a
sheet. Like love it
                                            It ought to; and since “is”
                                            may be derived from “ought”,
                                            the sheet, the situation and
                                            ourselves exist (see, Proc. Arist. Soc.,
                                            supp. vol. XCCCI)
is like the palpable
light set square
in wooden tapestry
                                            stained glass (see La Sainte Chapelle)
like irony discerned
in fan-vaulting.
Interlocking rings
of glazed perception
turn in our eyes &
fingers, to be unravelled, Chinese
                                                            It was, therefore, quite right
                                                            of Chiang Hen to write down
                                                            the text only. For if the student
                                                            concentrates and uses his mind
                                                            he will discover the process
                                                            between the lines (see, The
                                                            Unwobbling Pivot
, trans. E.P.)
puzzles. Have you
seen the minnows
in the steel-dust,
the rose, the magnet
leaves, in the mere?
                                                            Irony as an acceptance of limitation
                                                            is our natural approach to the divine
                                                            (see, Elizabeth David, French
                                                            Provincial Cooking
)
If we are going
to get up we ought
to get up, and
                                            Thus we are derived from “ought”
eat our glazed
perceptions in
the form of
croissants, leaving
the palpable corner
to the sheet.

To seek mysteries in the obscure, poking into magic and committing eccentricities in order to be talked about later—This I do not.

Veronica Forrest-Thomson
Veronica Forrest-Thomson was the author of three poetry collections and the influential critical work Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry.