David Menzies
The Narcosis of Water
Ed. David Miller
May 2017. 37 pp. ISBN-13 978-3-901993-59-6
£6.00 (+ 1.00 p&p), €6.00 (+ 1.00 p&p), US$8.50 (+ 1.50 p&p)
 
“Who knows how much of David Menzies' gently, profoundly reticent writing went into some tip for want of rent. Bemusement did not have ascendency over amusement in his mischievous temperament. But we all pull down the corners of our mouths at what must feel so wanton a paucity of such sterling pages. David's bashfulness was (and is) not to be confused with diffidence. His was a confident eye perceiving what is here registered with forthright concision. David Menzies! (red wine), salut!”
Guy Birchard

“This is the poetry of a true outsider, an outrageously original writer whose work, both in subject and style, lay beyond the stunted interests of Anglo literary fashion. His poetry is rooted in the nightmares and cruel beauty of C20 Europe yet alien/ated in a pre-socratic encounter with a timeless inscaped world. The Narcosis of Water is a fascinating glittering fragment of a lost jewel."
Tim Allen


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Table of Contents


Excerpts from The Narcosis of Water

Cadiz, 1992
(in memory of Edouard Roditi)

‘So hot, too hot, this city,
urbus, ville, and staat’,
said the poet of ancient languages
and traveller amidst the kindness of mankind,
up in a tower, upon the city,
Cadiz,
handsome,
I have never seen her.
‘At night, uncomfortable at the stairwell top,
lightswitch, emergent.’
Dieppe. Cliffs. Fresc-light.
Switched-on;
Angelus Mortum Photon.

Dawn, a translation from the Arabic into the English
settles on a table of bare boards.
The Host is outstretched,
sprawled at the end of this passage of Cadiz.

‘So hot,
Cadiz.’
 


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