Just before Christmas my writing co-conspirator sent me a mash up of two pages (and stupid me forgot to take a ‘before’ picture) and let me loose to see what I would do with it.
The left hand page is the front page of the New York Times, the day after the moon landing. The right hand page is a diary entry.
I turned it into a blackout/erasure poem and reproduced it below with some changes to punctuation.
The After Analysis Is Fading
to have to go
a half degree
angle it and take a swing
without threatening the surreal
earth. There is no time to
whisper
heartbeats told of a religious space
the time to see each other
but isn’t now
and I agree.
command, kiss his cheek, and
informed it’s not tentative
his arms
replied. not actually going to let me go.
the unsaid stuff in
degrees in the sunlight. We let each other
kiss
degrees below zero, short enough to stop it becoming
a blanket, more like floating and less
night
I see his light, he’s
higher, put the window down
this landing in the
after analysis is fading
flying through the
equator, the beautiful buzz
reduces the messenger
the moon
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 