Pete Spence



Some Notes From a Travel Diary.

i arrived in Antinoe on the anniversary
of the death of Osiris the tears for Antinous
had drowned the city under sand days later
in Djemila i found only the wind is manufactured
there and on my way to visit Rome i took a wrong
turn and found myself among the marble blocks
of Leptis Magna in Agdam i saw the shadow
of silence in Kantubek only a 'phone rings in
the center of the city unanswered i took the ring
road around Bayreuth and in Sesina i hope to play
a Quixotic game of Jai Alai with anyone venturing by
a cascade of all the xylophones in Casablanca
      COpenhagen      BRussels      Amsterdam
in Beynac-et-Cazenac for lunch a dish of Mique
washed down with a bottle of Badoit a little
aniseed retribution in Flavigny-sur-Ozerain coffee
with Remy Penard in Limoges and Saint-Quirin
for the waters Turku/Hameenlinna/Ainola/Loviisa/
Lahti a catchment for a saga in Warsaw a piano
drifts out of a window down Nowy Swiat past No.57
where the Skimandrites read the latest issue
of Almanach or Gga in Tiflis walking beside the Kura
my thoughts flow backwards an avalanche of cloud
falls on Dry Bridge on a stopover at the Rio in Milan
up the via Dante the Majestic Cafe is closed



Errors.

a couple of surprising errors on the way
like tripping over some rain that just fell
the weather being overgenerous just now
i prefer it when its lazy hanging about
in the subtle shape of the air
i bump my head on a low cloud the errors
mount riding off into a very tanned sunset
i'm not very keen to relive the moment
rubbing my forehead as the cloud moves
on ambushing an unsuspecting building
that would prefer to be a static inclusion
in a pointillist scene dotting the i's
of a murky landscape that wished it
was lost in thought hovering above a fresh
horizon slowly counting backwards forever



Sleepless. for Bill Zavatsky.

i think i fell asleep
reading Bill Zavatsky's poem
Sleep! maybe Bill had just woken up
catching me dozing off or maybe
we both slept through this unlikely event
happening in 2 distant places
but somehow synchronised
i've just turned the light on to write this
i expect to wake up in the morning
to a blank sheet of paper
floating towards me in my sleep
looming past me into the darkness
when Herman Melville walks by
and asks if i've seen
a great blanc sheet of paper
what! i perturb don't disturb me
reading Bill Zavatsky's poem called Sleep




Pete Spence was born in 1946. He is a poet, visual poet, and filmmaker, and has worked in various jobs to cover the ongoing deficit. He is currently retired from work but not from any of the above.
 
 
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