Oliver Essame, SOF Letters’ Editor, Gospel Hill Cottage, Chapel Lane,Whitfield, Brackley NN13 5TF. Email: oliver@essame.clara.net sof 64 November 2004 From:The Verb to Be is Everywhere Irregular Anne Ashworth writes:‘It was a new year, and I decided to start a reflective poem journal ... under an alphabetic discipline.’ Her pamphlet The Verb to Be is Everywhere Irregular was published by Sea of Faith in 2003. Here we reprint ‘N’ for November.
Seems there’s a need for nerve ends to nuzzle newness, brush the unencountered.
Beware nettles, naturally.
Nettles in spring are nourishing but this is not their season – for this is Now, a night in the ninth month, summer at nunc dimittis.
Take note of Now.
Now is the only place the verb To Be has leave to be.
Never indulge Narcissus.
Nostalgia will not do nor necromancy.
Nine o’clock news, naught for your comfort.
Nails, napalm or the norms of need, it’s crucifixion now.
I name some known to me What demon angler nets them?
Nemesis, born of night? – the only goddess some have encountered.
Their nightmare is the nursery of tomorrow and new unthinkable normalities.
But no!
There is another news, news of a further country, that nameless numinous realm that is not negation.
May I be nuncio.
From The Verb to Be is Everywhere Irregular by Anne Ashworth, published by Sea of Faith, 2003.