Not Pastoral Enough

Veronica Forrest-Thomson

It is the sense, it is the sense, controls,

Landing every poem like a fish.

Unhuman forms must not assert their roles.

Glittering scales require the deadly tolls

Of net and knife. Scales fall to relish.

It is the sense, it is the sense, controls.

Yet languages are apt to miss on souls

If reason only guts them. Applying the wish,

Unhuman forms must not assert their roles,

Ignores the fact that poems have two poles

That must be opposite. Hard then to finish

It is the sense, it is the sense, controls,

Without a sense of lining up for doles

From other kitchens that give us the garnish:

Unhuman forms must not assert their roles.

And this (forgive me) is like carrying coals

To Sheffield. Irrelevance betrays a formal anguish.

It is the sense, it is the sense, controls,

“Unhuman forms must not assert their roles”.