Vivian Smith: ‘Headlines in the 1940s’ and ‘For John Watson at 80’

Headlines in the 1940s

Across the breakfast table, latest news,
details linger that you can’t forget:
“He struck him with an ice pick through the brain.
They hunted him to Mexico. We knew
they’d stop at nothing just to get their way.”

Later on your paper round
you get the news before the street wakes up
Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi,
the day you learn to ride no hands.

Playing round with parts of speech:
topical, optical, critical, political,
sociable, negotiable,
reliable and still unclassifiable—
so much near, so much out of reach.

Vivian Smith

For John Watson at 80

Australian poet and mathematician,
in the Blue Mountains

Your name crops up in unexpected places
in Scottish verse, and Sherlock Holmes;
you’ve always written for the happy few.
You’re in the zone, producing every day.

We write and publish where we can.

Picaro lines your opus numbers up:
adaptations, versions, variations,
tributes to Montale and Bonnard,
Moerike, Morandi, and Nerval,
those who kept their distance from the crowd,
those who knew the way to bide their time.

Keep going at whatever rate you can,
there are rewards that none of us can plan.
Your voice that will survive is never loud

Vivian Smith