[ilds] One cannot copy to unearth the new

[slighcl]

PRESS INTERVIEW [from Collected Poems: 1931-1974 (1985) , Faber and Faber  ]

Capacities in doubt and lovers failing?
We feel time freshen but we keep on sailing.

No, sir, I do not cannibalise my fellow-man
In writing of him. I just fict.
Unfashionable if you wish, or even unreal
So to evict the owner from his acts
In propria persona; spit out the bones
When once the bloody platter's licked.

Of course things experienced or overheard
Swarm up the wall and knock;
But we disperse them as they flock
And redistribute, word by silly word.

But when Totals turn up and insist
We give them way; and only then you see,
However chimerical or choice or few,
One cannot copy to unearth the new.

1966/ 1966

-- 
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Charles L. Sligh
Department of English
Wake Forest University
slighcl at wfu.edu
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