The Park Drunk

by Robin Robertson

He opens his eyes to a hard frost,
the morning's soft amnesia of snow.

The thorned stems of gorse
are starred crystal; each bud
like a candied fruit, its yellow
picked out and lit
by the low pulse
of blood-orange
riding in the eastern trees.

What the snow has furred
to silence, uniformity,
frost amplifies, makes singular:
giving every form a sound,
an edge, as if
frost wants to know what
snow tries to forget.

And so he drinks for winter,
for the coming year,
to open all the beautiful tiny doors
in their craquelure of frost;
and he drinks
like the snow falling, trying
to close the biggest door of all.

zum Anhören

Das ist meine Lieblingszeile:

"What the snow has furred
to silence, uniformity,
frost amplifies, makes singular:
giving every form a sound,
an edge, as if
frost wants to know what
snow tries to forget. "

Ist das nicht wunderschön?


"Note, the esoteric term "craquelure" means "network of small cracks" But more substantially, Robertson's brisk and vivid lines remind us, or anyone with jumbled memories from a night of hard drinking, of the attractive busyness of the intoxicated mind, which tries to "open all the beautiful tiny doors" of random, disinhibited thought. The Park Drunk loves his drunkenness, and thinks his perceptions significant. But really, the guy is just sitting around, wasted. The tragic news Robertson delivers is that his Drunk, to protect himself from that truth ("to close the biggest door of all"), would rather stay in his Park forever. " gefunden hier