POETRYA poem by Rufo Quintavalle
published by Retort Magazine, on April 20th, 2010I had tried so many different things,
tried everything
but the fire wouldn’t take;
the Christmas tree I had hacked to pieces
on the 6th of January in my 33rd year
then left for a month
to dry, sap forming beads
on the branches’ cut ends
(crown of studs
around a breast)
was fed into the chimney
as kindling;
the oil
in its needles fizzed
and the flames
reached up and round
the bought logs from the hardware store
and smelt as though the Seneca were blessing me with sage,
and died;
a friend said it was to do
with air: air
that needs to circulate
freely for fire
to burn,
so I propped
the logs on other logs
right-angled
to give them height
and the air space,
like the sky
which Hopkins
held his hand
up into
and saw the mother of God in,
to move around in and make
in moving
but the coals and twigs,
the little wood
burnt red hot and brilliant
and the big wood
wouldn’t take.
I tried toxic stuff:
wrapping paper,
paper bags,
chopsticks,
detritus,
turned my living room to landfill,
billows spilling out and upwards,
staining
the artwork, shortening our lives;
I asked professional advice and learnt
that the very manufacture
of the fireplace might be at fault,
that it might be too high for its width or depth
or any other of those two by three equations;
something, warmed to this idea
the architect in (the poet in) me,
and like chess I experimented,
logs back
middle
and forth
hung flaps of cardboard
from the mantel
piece’s lip; surelevated the whole show
on a grill, as if if one could get the setting right,
the rest,
like modernist Utopias
or a barrow boy in a Savile Row suit
would all just fall into place.
I tried other woods, I blew and fanned,
I opened doors and windows and froze,
the goal of warmth forgotten in the quest:
to make at least a small place work,
and a void consume indefinitely
but it wouldn’t take,
no matter what,
& the skinny flame
flickered
like a
drunken
bride.
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© Rufo Quintavalle 2010
Rufo Quintavalle is a British poet who lives in Paris. He is the author of a chapbook, Make Nothing Happen (Oystercatcher Press, 2009)
http://rufoquintavalle.blogspot.com/
http://rufoquintavalle.blogspot.com/
More poetry by Rufo Quintavalle at Retort
April 20th, 2010 | Tags: 
Top drawer, Rufo.
Great. Love it.