{"id":5442,"date":"2018-12-23T12:53:55","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T12:53:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/?p=5442"},"modified":"2018-12-28T14:07:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T14:07:00","slug":"stephen-emerson-poems-from-sector-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/5442\/stephen-emerson-poems-from-sector-lights\/","title":{"rendered":"STEPHEN EMMERSON: Poems from Sector Lights"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

from<\/em> Sector Lights<\/p>\n

4)<\/p>\n

My lighthouse is in Dungeness.<\/p>\n

There are two. The old and the new.<\/p>\n

Yes you can read about history, but<\/p>\n

you can only live in the past.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have decided to write letters to<\/p>\n

the lighthouse and throw them into<\/p>\n

the sea. Everything else is illusion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We all fall down.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These letters will be destroyed.<\/p>\n

The old and the new. I will learn nothing<\/p>\n

and neither will you. Yes, you can read<\/p>\n

about history. But you can only live<\/p>\n

on the path.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

& watch the rain falling. Falling into<\/p>\n

the sea. Watch the rain falling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Falling into the sea.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

6)<\/p>\n

I is inside and outside. I am outside.<\/p>\n

I am only inside when I am staring at<\/p>\n

the sea. I throw stones into the sea.<\/p>\n

Rocks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The rock is in my and, and the<\/p>\n

rock is in my &. The rock. There<\/p>\n

is a dog in me. It barks. It has bitten<\/p>\n

and it will bite again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In me a dog drowned in the sea.<\/p>\n

A dog drowned in the sea in me.<\/p>\n

It was white. The dog was black<\/p>\n

and white.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The dog was black in me. The sea<\/p>\n

in me a dog drowned. The sea in me.<\/p>\n

A dog drowned in the sea in me.<\/p>\n

A dog drowned in the sea. A dog.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

7)<\/p>\n

This speak kills love. What speak?<\/p>\n

Exactly. Now fold your thoughts and<\/p>\n

put them in a drawer. I gift this to you,<\/p>\n

my fingernails and hair. Now I am<\/p>\n

yours, completely.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This speak is our weapon against<\/p>\n

what’s granted. It is my knife, and I<\/p>\n

will never let it go. Even if I have to<\/p>\n

hold it in my mouth when you’ve<\/p>\n

cut off my arms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Crossed fingers\/severed hands.<\/p>\n

A votive tied around a tree.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Language erodes first. Regimes<\/p>\n

create nonsense. Leaving words<\/p>\n

meaningless. What’s left?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There’s nothing to understand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

9)<\/p>\n

Under certain external pressures<\/p>\n

language begins to break down. The<\/p>\n

lighthouse told me so. It calls out to me in<\/p>\n

the early hours. Not by voice by drone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I get up. Get dressed. Start the car and<\/p>\n

drive to Dungeness. 2,3,4, sometimes 5<\/p>\n

in the morning. I get out and listen to its<\/p>\n

3 million bricks against the backdrop of the<\/p>\n

100 billion stars of the milky way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am devastated. The self disintegrates.<\/p>\n

Melting into the Geiger counter of the<\/p>\n

constantly shifting stones.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sea deposits objects of a similar size<\/p>\n

and weight in the same troughs. A line of<\/p>\n

bottles, a line of ropes, a line of driftwood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here lie the bones of a dog.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

11)<\/p>\n

We skim stones across<\/p>\n

the surface of the sea<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first time we made time the<\/p>\n

time we made the first<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We Skimmed stones holding hands,<\/p>\n

the surface of the sea<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The rock is in my and, and the<\/p>\n

rock is in my &<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our love<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

lake<\/p>\n

a<\/p>\n

like<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Flows though<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

&<\/p>\n

flows<\/p>\n

through<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stephen Emmerson is the author of\u00a0Comfortable Knives\u00a0<\/i>(KFS),\u00a0Family Portraits<\/i>, and\u00a0Poetry Wholes<\/i>\u00a0(If P Then Q),\u00a0The Journal of Baal\u00a0<\/i>(Veer), and Invisible Poems (ZimZalla). He also makes and exhibits poetry objects. More information can be found here:\u00a0https:\/\/stephenemmerson.wordpress.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from Sector Lights 4) My lighthouse is in Dungeness. There are two. The old and the new. Yes you can read about history, but you can only live in the past.   I have decided to write letters to the lighthouse and throw them into the sea. Everything else is illusion.   We all fall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[53,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/black-mountain-junction-box-5_edited-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42xiC-1pM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5442"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5486,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442\/revisions\/5486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}