arts

Poem Of The Week: Machines By Michael Donaghy (1954-2004)

Machines

Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer’s twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell’s chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante’s heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn’t, of course, I’ve fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsichordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.

In the effortful and concentrated 'Machines', the notions of mechanical and musical creation circle each other with increasing complexity, as though the two forms were to some degree indivisible. American poet Michael Donaghy's own poetic process mirrors the concentricity of gears and the performative beauty of the pavane with a gentle circumlocution of rhythm and rhyme.

The poet's address, to a loved one, binds the two in a kind of harmonic grace, whose latitude can encompass Ptolemaic foresight, and Dante's sense of divine immanence, as moments of aesthetic apprehension 'melt into the air'.

If the cyclist and harpsichordist 'steer' aesthetic interpretation beyond the mechanical realm of their tools, then the writer, too, may find creative wonder in the resolution of text and the receptive imagination. Donaghy's masterful final couplet renders a sense of proportion watertight.

'Machines' is taken from Shibboleth, published by the Oxford University Press (1988)

Also by Steve Whitaker...

Poem Of The Week: The Grocer By Craig Raine

The White Hart Hotel - Lincoln

Poem Of The Week: 'Them Animals Is Disgusting' By Peter Reading (1946-2011)

Poem Of The Week: God's Grandeur By Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

The Seed In The City: The Holdings – A Poetry Anthology From Leeds Irish Health And Homes