reading

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Letters from a Long Illness with the World
the D.H. Lawrence Poems

Barry Dempster

Letters from a Long Illness
with the World

… the D. H. Lawrence Poems

Brick Books

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Dempster, Barry, 1952-

Letters from a long illness with the world:

the D.H. Lawrence Poems

Poems.

ISBN 0-919626-64-5

1. Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert), 1885-1930 - Poetry.

1. Title.

PS8557.E4827L4 1993 c811’.54 C93-093958-1

PR9199.E4827L4 1993

Second printing, June 2006.

The support of the Canada Council and the Ontario
Arts Council is gratefully acknowledged. The support
of the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of
Culture, Tourism, and Recreation is also gratefully
acknowledged.

Cover art ’Liberation’ by RH. Varley, collection of the
Art Gallery of Ontario (Gift of John B. Ridley, 1977,
and donated by the Ontario Heritage Foundation, 1988)
and the RH. Varley Estate/Mrs. D. McKay. Cover
design is by Karen Ruttan.

Typeset in Trump Mediaeval.
The stock is acid-free Zephyr Antique laid.
Printed and bound by The Coach House Printing Co.

Brick Books
431 Boler Road, Box 20081
London, Ontario
N6K 4G6

www.brickbooks.ca

For Karen

Contents

Green as the Vein in a Young Man’s Desire …

Eastwood 1906

Eastwood 1908

Croydon 1909

Somewhere … London 1910

Croydon 1911

London 1912

Italy 1914

Italy 1914 #2

Hampstead 1915

Omens … Cornwall 1916

Cornwall 1916

Derby 1918

Capri 1920

Arabian Sea 1922

Feeling the Heat … Ceylon 1922

Australia 1922

From the Kangaroo Tree … Australia 1922

San Francisco 1922

Possibilities … America 1923

The Painted Life … New Mexico 1923

Oaxaca, Mexico 1924

Dei Monte Ranch, Questa, New Mexico 1924

Chasing Your Shadow… Mexico 1925

Dei Monte Ranch, Questa, New Mexico 1925

Dei Monte Ranch, Questa, New Mexico 1925 #2

Afterlife … the Atlantic Ocean 1925

The Christmas Eve Abyss … Florence 1927

Gstaad 1928

Mallorca 1929

Breathless … the Sanatorium 1930

Last Lights … Vence 1930

A Million Words … Vence 1930

When I Ciose My Eyes … Vence, March 1930

Books Are

Lawrence knew that identity meant nothing; the
important thing was entity, pure being.

… Anthony Burgess

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret.

… John Keats

My God, but I can only say
I touch, I feel the unknown!
I am the first comer!
Cortes, Pisarro, Columbus, Cabot, they are nothing, nothing!
I am the first comer!
I am the discoverer!
I have found the other world!

… D.H. Lawrence

Green as the Vein in a Young Man’s Desire…
Eastwood 1906

Green as a leaf’s vein. Green as
a thumbprint in moss. Green
as confetti on stillborn ponds
as infant grass.
Asleep in a meadow
my bare chest stains green.
The nestled loin stone
the polished jade.

Somehow the forest overwhelms
most of life. Chestnut roots
crack kitchen floors, holly leaves
scratch downstairs doors, rabbits
eat entire dresser drawers.
I dive from my gaping bedroom window
and am instantly stripped and shrunk.

The mines grow arthritic, blacken
back to dirt and undergrowth. The town
squats on its squalid hill and strains.
In the moonlight a young man
runs tiny in the valley,- a darting
nakedness, escape. In a bed
of violets, an exhausted embrace.

Women here turn red as berries
their slippers sinking in the leaves.
Shopgirl smiles whisked aside, strands
of scented hair. Bare ankles
marvellous in blue brooks. I would like
nothing better than to bleed
those berries between my fingertips.

Such are the tripping fantasies
of an Eastwood lad with the woods
set free in his nerves and wrists.
If only the world were totally green.
Men walking entire countries
with nothing hidden, blossoms
bursting in their eyes, each glance
a colour, a bouquet of flesh.

Green as the vein in a young man’s