Source: A.S.J. Tessimond, ‘Cinema Screen’, The Walls of Glass (London: Methuen, 1934), reproduced in Hubert Nicholson (ed.), A.S.J. Tessimond: Collected Poems (Tarset: Bloodaxe Books, 2010), p. 16
Text: Light’s patterns freeze:
Frost on our faces.
Light’s pollen sifts
Through the lids of our eyes …
Light sinks and rusts
In water; is broken
By glass … rests
On deserted dust.
Light lies like torn
Paper in corners:
A rock-pool’s pledge
Of the sea’s return.
Light, wrenched at the edges
By wind, looks down
At itself in wrinkled
Mirrors from bridges.
Light thinly unweaves
Itself through darkness
Like foam’s unknotting
Strings in waves …
Now light is again
Accumulated
Swords against us …
Now it is gone.
Comments: Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (1902-1962) was a British poet, influenced by the Imagists, who frequently wrote about city life and on several occasions about cinema. Another poem of his that is close in ideas and imagery to this is ‘Silent Cinema‘, p. 110 of the Collected Poems.
