THOMAS DUPRE, 29, is originally from Kent, and lives and works in Paris. He has previously published poems or essays (on Ezra Pound and the Troubadours) in Valet and Azure Bell (an online journal), and has recently finished a manuscript recreating Ezra Pound’s 1912 walking tour in Provence and his lost book Gironde

1

A pretty affectation, picked up
Half by accident – follow
The next pen stroke, look-around
See where its leading,

IT is not futile to put a thing in order
Find the right position, nudge
To left, to right, then flicker on
The next correction

To begin a striking image – not
By being struck, but striking well
And never stricken; lucid, calm
All quite yourself, whoever’s writing.

And all entirely private: Wrapped away
Avoiding adulation and contempt, 
Forgetting worldly things, and staring always
Out into at least the middle distance. 

All this proceeds, until at last there is
No crowd, no choruses or seas
Approve or disapprove, or can consider
Worth considering. There is, still, the ticking
Of a broken clock, a budget pen
And sense of moving.

The two poems that follow are loose versions of Provençal models, taking as point of departure poems by Guillaume IX of Aquitaine, Peire Vidal, and Bertran de Born. A sirventes is an Occitan/Provençal satire in verse, often political or moral

2

Out there on the stone porches the eyes fade,
As the wind picks up pace he blows warm,
Routed are the forces of the jealous horde,
Made a detour through to the high walls, brayed
Torn by the harsh scrub through whence I flee dawn,
Floored at the sight of the first light and the watch-call. 

Out there on the stone porches my head bowed,
And the last joy-song of the south-bird
Flitted away on the hot air of the first hour.
Crossed a new path through to the tower-shade, loud
Soothed by the soft words of the dumb girl, heard
It all echoed in the opening of the night flower. 

Out there on the stone porches the gang wait,
And the last white swan on the Lee-main,
Shimmers through the rutted banks and the dull reeds,
Made a sign at the far-light as the night, late
Folds around the flat pan of the dark plain,
Into the smoke-quiet of a new world where the light leads.

And I shall no longer cobble out sirventes,
Because here the law will not allow them.
And I shall no longer sing beside the locked gate,
Before the sudden dawn-glow comes to rend us.
And all the amorous plaints you’ll just reject them,
And wonder that the dawn should start so late.

3

Draw me towards
East-breath of the old land
                        Teeming
            With well-thoughts
I, Begging
            One hundred in the place
Of each word…

Purification of the mind
In her breath,
                        Breath bears slight – 
            Note of sulphur
Dead shore, Rose bound…

Ripe cherry laid on the side-stall,
            Cheap abundant
                        Fly pecked – 
Charged by season
All shout! Demanding water
            End of the water
Night comes,
On will-flats.

No more sweet
                        Encased
            By odd streams,
Find joy
Piled in abundance
Till the grieved laugh.

Trapped by deceitful senses,

No other strength holds
                        In memory
            Lark’s birth
Whelps, sings praises

All
            To be better content
            In a feigned world.

Coo, malignant dove
Awaiting crow’s peck
Lamb soars above pastures,
Better than I remember

…

No matter how soon the night falls
All found arrayed in the same way
Heads down, chained
Each manacle forged with expectation
The gravest loop; steel,
Pointed and neck-bound
Looks to the here-after
In ‘joyful hope’ which binds
Eternally –