Drum Magazine Issue 3 | Page 41

Photography © Newton U Brown

Drum: VERSE

POEMS OF SHAPE AND MOTION II
I walk slowly in the wind
Watching myself in things I did not make:
In jumping shadows and in limping cripples
Dust on the earth and the houses tight with sickness
Deep constant pain
The dream without the sleep
I walk slowly in the wind
Hearing myself in the loneliness of a child
In a woman’s grief which is not understood
In coughing dogs when midnight lingers long
On stones, on streets, and then on echoing stars
That burn all night and suddenly go out
I walk slowly in the wind
Knowing myself in every moving thing
In years and days and words that mean so much
Strong hands that shake, long roads that walk
And deeds that do themselves
And all this world and all these lives to live

©

I walk slowly in the wind
Remembering scorn and naked men in darkness
And huts of iron riveted to earth
Cold huts of iron stand upon this earth like rusting
prisons
Each wall is marked and each wide roof is spread

Like some dark wing casting a shadow or a living
curse
I walk slowly in the wind
To lifted sunset red and gold and dim
A long brown river slanting to an ocean
A fishing boat
A man who cannot drown
I walk slowly in the wind
And birds are swift
The sky is blue like silk
From the big sweeping ocean of water
An iron ship rusted and brown anchors itself
And the long river runs like a snake silent and
smooth
I walk slowly in the wind
I hear my footsteps echoing down the tide
Echoing like a wave on the sand
Or a wing on the wind
Echoing, echoing
A voice in the soul
A laugh in the funny silence
I walk slowly in the wind
I walk because I cannot crawl or fly

Martin Carter 1977. Poems of Shape and Motion from Poems of Succession by Martin Carter (London: New Beacon Books)
recorded by Linton Kwesi Johnson on the More Time album (LKJ Music, 1999)

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