Bella Peacock

Dreamhole - Cento

The universe is a void in which there is a dreamhole
under sleep, where all the waters meet.
Like a freed shadow
stepping outside the universe
life slips by like a field mouse
and the Great void remains.
This form, this face, this life
cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air.
Tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree
where all love ends.
Forget the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
become unsubstantial, reduce to a wind.
Your name is Courage
lay beside me in the dawn.

Lines 1 & 2: Allen Ginsberg 'Laughing Gas'
Line 3: T.S. Eliot 'Marina'
Line 4: Anne Carson Autobiography of Red
Line 5: Allen Ginsberg 'Laughing Gas'
Line 6: Ezra Pound 'And the days are not full enough'
Line 7: Allen Ginsberg 'Laughing Gas'
Line 8: T.S. Eliot 'Marina'
Line 9: T.S. Eliot 'What the Thunder Said' (The Waste Land)
Line 10: T.S. Eliot 'Gerontion'
Line 11: T.S. Eliot 'Ash Wednesday'
Line 12: T.S. Eliot 'Death by Water' (The Waste Land)
Line 13: T.S. Eliot 'Marina' - Original: "Are become unsubstantial, reduced by a wind"
Line 14: Ezra Pound 'Fragment' (1966) Original: "Her name was Courage"
Line 15: Ezra Pound 'Alba' Original: "She lay beside me in the dawn"