Shadows on the Ground

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Shadows on the Ground -A portfolio by Irving Layton-
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Shadows On The Ground-A PORTFOLIO BY IRVING LAYTON-This portfolio of poems has been published in a signed, numbered and limited edition of 200 copies. Typeset by Speed River Graphics and printed by Ampersand (Guelph) on Carlyle Japan. December 1982. Copyright � Irving Layton, 1982This is copy #_156Irving Latyon~ MOSAIC PRESS/VALLEY EDITIONS -ISBN 0-88962-196-9 DESIGN: Doug Frank
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THE ANNUNCIATIONWhat angels will we meet on the way to the post office?What kisses will the leaves rain down on your neck?Your footsteps leave no shadows on the groundfor the morning sun makes a bale of themwhich he tosses over the first white fence that we passThe announcing angel robes himself in ordinary dress.What name does he whisper in your perfumedand delicate ear? Judith? Deborah? Eve?When you incline your fragrant head to listen,the storewindows blaze and shine and the village streetRobed in its summer foliage resounds like a West Point salute with the sound of uncorked champagne bottles; all the birds in the street take the happy noise for cues and suddenly whole orchestras of them and the singing choirs of girls and boysMake such a jubilation, it frightens off all evils and sorrows forever; your burgeoning form parts the air before us like a sorcerer's wand and the angel in ordinary dress extricates a wing and blesses its bounty with its own bright feathersNiagara-on-the-Lake, June 4, 1980Irving Layton
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SAMANTHA CLARA LAYTONInto the ordinary day you came,giving your small nose and chin to the airand blinded by the noise you could not see.Your mother's smile was your benediction; my wonderment will accompany you all your days. Dear little girl, what blessings shall I ask for you? Strong limbs, a mind firm that looking on this world without dismay turns furious lust into love's romance?These, my child, and more. Grace keep you queenly and kind, a comfort to the ill and poor, your presence a bounty of joy to all that have vision of you, as I have now who hold your fingers in my trembling hand.Irving Layton
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PORTRAIT OF A MODERN WOMANFor her, sex is something she holds in reserve;alienated from her real inner self,it's tended with care like some exotic plantto allure the stray butterfly to her sill.She takes Yoga classes and watches what she eats,is prudent about money and emotionsbut unfurls her independence like a flag.Having been in analysis for insight(so she informs me) and not therapyshe discusses love as an abstract painting,a flowing involuted figure by Moore.She likes catching it out when it makes its springand holding its quivering form up to the light,yet wonders why it blackens and disappearsor grows into some bloated attachmentthat mocks her with mouths shaped like grotesque suckersAn artist in living, she swears by passionand spontaneity, mistaking ferventloquacity for something she's too cool,too cautious to possess, too ungivingin the modern sense; dismaying the lost menwho circle around her long shapely neckuntil they break from the enchantment and run.It always baffles her she's so much aloneor with old lovers, mostly now with women,for her mirroring image shows her beautifuland the great Moore had once praised her talent.It would be a mercy to make her seethe fault's not entirely hers; it's in the stars,in the revolving potter's wheel that's sent the sexesflying off in contrary directions to wanderamong sapless words that hang in the airlike stricken November leaves no wind has cometo shake loose. Dry November leaves, my dear,whose ghostly rattle when a small breeze stirs themexpresses your sad vacancies for the world.Irving Layton
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EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE HAS ITS PLACEI lie on my hotel bedand watch the clouds move across the sky; they are in no hurry, they move slowly, but they never pause or rest. They are light and have their placein the universe. When I close my eyes I can imagine I have been dreaming of sheep. The days also pass slowly. They too are light and have their place. I swim, converse with a friend, read poetry.Everything passes, even a woman's malice when she knows she is no longer loved and her body, no longer desired, is only a heavy insupportable weight to be coddledand dragged from room to room, its orifices useless.But that woman too has her place in the universe and moves relentlessly on.Irving Layton
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MAKE ROOM, WILLIAM BLAKEHow can I my Imagination save? A wondrous child I have and do not have. The lively blood in me grows slack and chilled. The cistern is empty that once was filled.She was the fruit of luxuriant love and brought me the light from the sun above. In gorgeous truth she turned each day to spring. Taken from me, drear is the song I sing.The Hebrew seer cursed the day he was born. I too preach to deaf ears, contemned, forlorn. Inspiration is not for common clay. Men toil at rooting it out night and day.My grief is an immense water-logged bowl. Into it I plunge my frantic soul to temper it like a spike in clouds of steam. Now only of foul knife-deaths do I dream.November 15, 1981The day when coming to see my child I once again found myself talking to a closed door.Irving Layton