Raster. Jaargang 6

[p. 506]

A walk along the shore
Kenneth White
Scotia Deserta

I

.......

for the question is always

how

out of all the chances and changes

to select

the features of real significance

so as to make

of the welter

a world that will last

and how to order

the signs and the symbols

so they will continue

to form new patterns

developing into

new harmonic wholes

so to keep life alive

in complexity

and complicity

with all of being -

there is only poetry

[p. 507]

VII

goddess

dark wind blowing in from the sea

this dawn

the deep-blue mussel-beds

writhe and crackle

the salt sand

reflects in its pools

the awakened gulls

and the first

redness

as you open your belly

over the island

and the day comes cold and howling

[p. 508]

XI

believing

that the biological

aim of art

is to project around us

the images

the proofs

the manifestations

of a power of synthesis

at one with life

and maintaining life

against solitude

and fragmentation

the cold aggressiveness

of the space-time world

[p. 509]

XII

and

that the surface of things

can give enjoyment or disgust

but the inwardness of things

gives life

knowing that the poetry

which says that inwardness

also gives life

[p. 510]

XX

living in obscurity

like Hakuyu -

his name meant

White Obscurity

his name meant

he who lived in the hills

back of Northern White Water

or secretly though not unconsciously

in the cities of Europe

living my life

founding and grounding

a world

[p. 511]

XXIV

And Munch

asked about the book he was writing

the autobiography

answered

I

have put it aside

it is

nothing but chaos

nothing

but

chaos

and

‘I am very lonely here’ he said

‘but I go on

working quietly’

[p. 512]

XXVII

having lived in Glasgow

where men die young

or become comedians

lodged in a large dark room

with three shelves of books

one trunk two suitcases

a table a chair a bed

on the floor a rough carpet

(Connemara red)

in one corner a rug

(a Tibetan goatskin

on which I used to practise zen)

on the first wall was pinned

a print of Hokusai

on the second was

an X-ray photo of my ribs

on the third was

a long quotation from Nietzsche

on the fourth

was nothing at all

that's the wall I went through

before I arrived here

[p. 513]

XXXI

for

like Kandinsky

returning to his studio at twilight

and seeing a canvas

‘of indescribable

and incandescent beauty’

it happens

that the ‘known’ materials of my life

sunk almost into oblivion

by familiarity

suddenly blaze out

materia poetica

of new realities

each time more complex

and I advance

[p. 514]

XXXIV

even crystals

know disorder and shadow

but since our aim is not perfection

but natural form

in movement

this will not deter us

or cause us

to plunge ourselve into

morbid disintegration

we must think in reality clearly

knowing that

given a sufficiently

complex ground of signs

even the most acute

of the problems of disorder

may be solved

through what is called

semi-classical approximation

[p. 515]

XXXVIII

 

now here in the north

 

beyond the barren red

 

in the outbrecks

 

ortan in this husky weather

 

at my owdny of a poem

 

living out on this grand

 

that runs into the sea

 

with fanns of whiteness

 

drifting up against my windows

 

writing in goliment

 

till I get da whole fargis

 

on to da page

 

tinks du I'll make it

 

by God I will try

[p. 516]

XLI

Urquhart

inherits a ‘crazed estate’

in the extreme north of Scotland

sets himself up a library

(later confiscated by usurers)

with books gathered from 16 countries

in the mansion of Cromarty

and writes

a pedantic and fantastic

treatise on trigonometry

called Trissotetras

a Pantoxponoxanon

to deduce the genealogy

of the Urquharts

from the red earth in the hands of God

a translation of Rabelais'

Gargantua and Pantagruel

and Logopandecteision

an introduction

to the possibilities

of framing ‘anew idiome

of far greater perfection’

than all existent languages

for all

‘pregnant and ingenious spirits’

dying

at the age of about sixty

suddenly

on the Continent

in a fit of excessive laughter

[p. 517]

XLVI

following the path

that ‘path compendious

deviating from common obliquity’

which Michael Scot

the leading mind in western Europe

in the early 13th century

an internationalgebildeter Mann

with a mass of knowledge

crystallising in his brain

into shining thought

and a love of complexity

that makes him delight

in distinguishing say

sidus from astrum and

both from stella

and all three from

signum imago or planeta

(repugnant to content himself

with a numb generic)

calls

the way of true science

which is poetry's commencement

[p. 518]

XLVII

the poem being

what happens when

a welter of substantial

feelings and facts

have passed through the thalamus

the belly of the brain

and ascended

without short-circuiting

right up into the cortical region

from where

abstracted

they return again

worded on the tongue