John Hall
Changing lines


Slightly smaller . . .



S
lightly smaller
All have red crowns
Whitish belly
Isolated black streaks
Seldom drum
Both parents share in care of brood
Resident


T
hese centuries of the decline of ancient philosophy
Almost forgotten
The task of gathering and ordering the entire corpus
Quite natural for them
Logic, physics and ethics as their guiding thread
Hand down material not put in question


T
here can be no plagiarism in philosophy
A permanent type of the speculative temper
Nature as a mirror or reflex of the intelligence of man
The impress of reason
Living energy of an intelligence
Experience has gradually saddened the earth's colours for us


W
ould you ever say I don't want to hurt you without hurting?
Pain-killing a typical metaphor
Morpheus was the Roman's god of sleep
Of quick-sand dreams
This love vague and necessary
These things that I do to show that I am here
Mourning the loss of bed-warmed skin
A device for carrying distance over sound
A ritual act against night fear of incompetence
Pray for the competence of prayer
Speaking about to begin, about to end, where blessing comes


M
argins without pages
Your words give off the others you know nothing about
A listening you can assign to the dead if you wish
Your solitude is strangely companionable
You have crossed through loneliness to the other side
You have to go back, with ink in your mouth
You miss the nameable dead horribly
There is no one to tell
Your tongue moves in solitude
This could be called talking to yourself


Y
ou cross over again
You rejoin the dead if they will allow
Only as you speak to yourself
You speak for them
You speak because of them, out of loss too, grieving the previous dead
And all the time you are blind, your rainbow eyes


Y
ou should sleep you would like to sleep
You find that you have behaved badly in another's dream
Something you do that you will not say that you do
A lover – actual or desired – hovering over your exchanges
Fails to protect hurtful data