Three Poems

W.S. Graham Reading

Word drunk was what they called him. Well:
I don't know about words.
                    He sat there turning the pages
unable to fix on a single verse
plaintive and truculent
                    quarrelling with the book,
as if to surrender to a single instance
of language
                    was to surrender.

Then: 'Read any one of them,' somebody cried:
'they're all marvellous!'
                    And we beheld a marvel:
an Archangel
                    a little damaged
igniting the dark firmament with speech.
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