Another pull on the oars

The evening breeze

and then
the reeds rustle.

The snake swims 

in the skin

of the water

It vanishes into the reeds.

I face away

from the place

That is always before me.

New Year at Rodmell

The sponge behind my forehead

Is pale and dry and rather dim

Like a bloody sun in a fog

Exasperated unhappy struggling

Worked over with heat and yaps of dogs

Unlike the parson astride his saddle

Or the cold dishonest footman

With clear hard picture of human life

Where the whole world falls into shape.

Poem for Jean Cocteau

"It started at Stravinsky's Le Sacre

With five she-devils of terrible aspect;

I determined then I should come to the arts

As a monk goes to monastic orders.

"It was then I believe

I became possessed

By some ferocious inner thing;

A thing that has remained unknown to me.

"Was that fierce thing an inner being

Or an unknown form of memory?

What was that thing? Ideas came

And I hurried myself to write them down.

"The mathematical calculation

The language

The content

The apparent simplicity -

"All were there to serve that thing

Which was a thing

With a subtle and secret mechanism.

"How came those words

To send those poems

Into the sky?

"That inner thing,

What is it?"