Remembering purpose suddenly

Was in town today, and look what I found in a second-hand bookshop ... Frank Redpath's second (posthumous) collection of poetry, which was published a year after his death in 1996 ...

... was delighted to find this volume - already being the proud owner of his first 1986 collection :-)

Here's a poem from within, in which he makes his characteristic, sharp observations of the ordinary --- all to rather wonderful effect:


Coming To

Remembering purpose suddenly, hearing the clock,
Is always to be lifted from that sailing
Utterly unintentioned elsewhere; looking,
Feel, between tick and yes-I-thought-so tick,
Frank recognition wheedling you to share
Whatever reach-me-down events surround you there.

Always a shock, but it soon passes. Why,
There’s Mrs Body-Language from Dun Brown
Taking her dogs out for a crap; that clown
Who always parks his car with one wheel high
Mounting the kerb; lumping from tree to tree,
That lass who jogs and jogs so earnestly.

It seems to fill their time. Why shouldn’t he
Who sits here, vacant in a cooling car,
Get out and do as they do? Check the doors,
March up the path, go in and make some tea?
He will. He always has. But not without, untrained,
The sense of some huge ocean being drained,

Some timeless tide retreating, leaving the pier
Grey, mussel-crusted, drying; tilted smacks
Newly defined and useless; weathered rocks
Disarmed, reduced to holding rock-pools; gear
For loading, launching, signalling left dry:
And more time left than these can justify.

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Frank Redpath (1927 - 1990)

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