Postcards

An ongoing series of drawings on old postcards. The biro alters by obliterating part of the image, drawing attention to the remaining portion, rendering it without context with space for us to travel into a new, imaginary narrative. Made as part of the respond/reply project, where artists Caroline Wright, Phyllida Barlow, Helen Rousseau and poet George Szirtes responded to each other's work.

 

Postcard 3      George Szirtes

1. The Rower

At which point was the boat quite lost to sight?

At which point did the rower realise?

At which point did the single oar lose meaning?

At which point did the land entirely vanish?

At which point did the waves become a wall?

At which point did the mind become the sea?

 

Because if mind and wave and wall and sea

are of one substance, and the loss of sight

result in loss of meaning - so that wall

is where the mind is - should we realise

our utter loss, we might entirely vanish

into a sea that never had a meaning.

 

But then, being alone with lack of meaning,

blank sea and brittle oar, the place we vanish

into is somewhere we can’t name as sea,

and where we drown is just an oversight.

There’s nothing there to know or realise.

It’s all the sound of wave hitting sea-wall.

 

I wish we could hear the voice that is the wall -

a single voice that concentrates all meaning

into oar or wave. How good to realise

that sense of being alone on a blank sea

in voice or name, to find ourselves in sight

of any land, even one due to vanish.

 

You’ll find this card tomorrow. The days vanish

in the usual haze however we stonewall.

I like it here. The sea is quite a sight,

darker than usual, flat, yet still a sea.

The weeks are almost endless. I’ve been meaning

to write you this. A card, I realise

 

is just a gesture. One can’t realise

all one’s ambitions. I seem to vanish

in myself. I’ve long been out at sea

without a landmark, no familiar wall

to climb or peep over. What kind of meaning

could I ascribe to it? Where is the sight

 

equal to this? What wall holds meaning

the way this does? I realise the sea

is more than sight, and some things always vanish.

 

2. Reverse side

Received the  parcel

Safely, many thanks, Bella[1].

Monday. Leamington[2].

 

Received the  parcel

Safely. Now it is Wednesday

And the sea is calm.

 

Received the parcel

Safely in the second year

Of the war[3]. Thursday.

 

Received the parcel

Safely, with many thanks. Sea

Calm. Nellie, with love.

 

Received the  parcel

Safely. It is still Friday

And the sea is calm.