Landing Light

94 Pages·2004·6.18 MB·English

by  Don Paterson

by the same author
poetry
NIL NIL
GOD'S GIFT TO WOMEN
THE EYES
editor
IOI SONNETS
ROBERT BURNS: SELECTED POEMS
LAST WORDS (with Jo Shapcott)
DON'T ASK ME WHAT I MEAN (with Clare Brown)
DON PATERSON
Landing Light
11
faber andf aber
First published in 2003
by Faber and Faber Limited
Bloomsbury House
74-77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This paperback edition first published in 2004
Typeset by Faber and Faber Limited
Printed in England by T. ] . International Ltd,
Padstow, Cornwall
All rights reserved
© Don Paterson, 2003
The right of Don Paterson to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or
otherwise circulated without the publisher'S prior consent in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similiar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
that covers up the hill and cross,
the fallen hush, His own held breath)
but stare it down: the thawing earth
sustains a temporary gloss
A CIP record for this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-571-22064-9
ISBN 13 978-{)-571-22064-9
4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3
for ].C.Z. and R.T.Z.
Contents
Luing, I
St Brides: Sea-Mail, 2
Sliding on Loch Ogil, 4
Waking with Russell, 5
The Thread, 6
Incunabula, 7
America, 8
The Forest of the Suicides, 9
The Hunt, 15
Letter to the Twins, 18
A Fraud, 21
The Reading, 23
A Talking Book, 26
The Rat, 32
Form, 33
The Box, 34
The Last Waltz, 35
The Shut-in, 39
Web, 40
Three Poems after Cavafy
One Night, 41
The Boat, 41
The Bandaged Shoulder, 42
My Love, 43
A Gift, 45
The Wreck, 46
The Alexandrian Library, Part III, 47
T winflooer, 57
Palm, 60
Archaic Torso of Apollo, 6 I
The Long Story, 62
'96, 67
Colophon, 68
The Sea at Brighton, 70
The Light, 7I
The Black Box, 72
The Landing, 79
Zen Sang at Dayligaun, 8I
The White Lie, 82
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements are due to the following: BBC Radio Four,
BBC Radio Three, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Flora Poetica,
The Gift, Landfall, London Review of Books, Near East
Review, New Republic, Poem for the Day, Poetry Review,
The Poetry Society, Prime, Verse.
The author would like to express his gratitude to the Scottish
Arts Council and to the Society of Authors for their support.