Monday, November 17, 2008

Stanley Pelter: ALWAYS DISCORDANT


pitch of loud thunder
bedtime soon dreams of a dream
in a stranger’s house

An untidy B&B trembles under threat of a turbulent train that hurtles toward an old viaduct overhanging an ancient relative’s house. Any loitering light dissolves into a slag of darkness.

A hollow, ill-fitting bedroom door shakes in time to bouts of tantrums. Sometimes it is deafening. Always discordant. Mock porcelain cups, saucers, even plates, jangle at soprano height. Unclaimed bedroom windows overlook a permanent alley. Crowded bins spill, reshaping an already closed-up wall. Divided women settle into their dream of a dream shape while love movements extend into a pool of exuberant colours that press close to a shared event. Dissolved in rain, lampposts wave from top to bottom. Only when sight of it stops can thrush sounds flourish, goldfish glow their surface, goldthread lines lead sheep in a tame walk across their dream of a dream.

Beyond rain-touched taints of a moth flicker, fingers glide into growths of old softness, new tautness, tonight’s speech. Here is where thought lines stop. Some part. Outside newly co-opted shape is ice blue. Music drips from an over-strung washing line.

Inside a maybe dream, globules of honey are covered in pollen.

below zero....beyond their dream of a dream....not yet sound of day

In her sleep she is sure......................................In his, he is not.


just a single path
delves between two valleys
slow flow of juices



by Stanley Pelter
Claypole, Lincolnshire, England

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