DAVID JAFFIN
THE HALF OF A CIRCLE
THE HALF OF A CIRCLE
DAVID JAFFIN
THE HALF OF A CIRCLE
The Elizabeth Press
NEW ROCHELLE, N. Y.
Acknowledgments
Some of these poems first appeared in the following periodicals: The Antigonish Review (Canada), Ariel (Canada), Confrontation, Cottonwood Review, Eureka (Sweden), For Now, Gallery (England), Littack (England), Little Word Machine (England), Omens (England), New Poetry (England), Palantir (England), St, Andrews Review, Samphire (England), and The Windless Orchard.
Of was published as a broadsheet by The Sceptre Press, England, 1974, and Changes was published as a broadsheet byWords Press, England, 1975.
© 1977 David Jaffin • printed in Italy
For Mordecai Ardon
CONTENTS
DISTANCE	11
MID OCTOBER	12
EVENING’S LIGHT	13
PRE CONCEIVED	14
CLOSING A WINDOW	15
WHAT IT IS	16
MORE	17
TWO STORYIED	19
RECLINING NUDE	20
FORMS/ EXTENSIONS	21
ANOTHER WAY TO SEE	22
SHARP	23
SPACE	25
FOR RAPHAEL	26
THROUGH HIS HANDS	27
DEAD REALLY DEAD ?	28
ONLY WHEN THE RAIN IS HERE	29
TONE	30
CHANGES	31
THAW	32
THE HALF OF A CIRCLE	34
THAT WAY	35
CAUSE	36
CROCUS	37
OF	38
TOWARDS A NATURAL VIEW OF THEOLOGY	39
JUST ONCE LESS
40
41
STREETLIGHT	43
AT LEAST 4 TIMES	44
ESSENCE	45
LATE NOVEMBER	46
CONTRADICTION	47
SUSPENDED	48
FICTIVE	49
INTRODUCTION WITHOUT A FUGUE	51
KNEW	52
COUNTED PLEASURES	53
“This mid- October still”	54
THE WHOLE OF A CIRCLE	55
HEALING THE BLIND	56
STUDY IN TONALITY	57
“ a page turns ”	59
THAT WAY	60
AS THIS	61
ABOUT THE SADNESS OF TIME	62
WHY	63
LAKE	64
THE HALF OF A CIRCLE
DISTANCE
You left me thinking
the night is not to be touched
I walk the space be tween you and now
listening to myself.
MID OCTOBER
The leaves have colored for now, a touch
that told more than it asked
The sun waits behind whatever trees
it wants
Time condensed to this single pause
the silence after rain receiving itself
the folding of a page within the intent
of hands.
EVENING’S LIGHT
Late October
pre evening closeness
a bird breaking sound over water the
sun expecting to set
This artificial light where I sit
a table
touches my hand.
The glass permeates sound that I drink
in phrases to the bottom of my
thirst.
PRE CONCEIVED
A poem has only one place to be.
A light must be on it doesn’t have
the choice to think.
Outside the rain is
steps lead away as prints in snow
I see in glass
my eyes
touch your hand
the room arranged for this,
it needn’t be prepared .
CLOSING A WINDOW
You closed space from the win
dow the room edged nearer
dried leaves blew shadows on
glass
flowers hushed in their cold
the scent of clo sing .
WHAT IT IS
for J. W.
It’s the poise of evening the til
ting of a hand to distinguish
itself
the matter of course, repetition of
things that be come less precise :
the image of a stone breaking the
water’s hold more than one cir
cle at a time —
these words, even as I speak
and the way you'ii hear their
sounds.
MORE
If night could be one star greater
my joy would break .
TWO STORYIED
Winter, cold
your breath hung in the air
warming itself —
There’s a difference in two storyied
houses,
they were made to fit .
RECLINING NUDE
Her voice and eyes the outer cir
cumstance translated as light
or jewels
strung to that perfect sense.
FORMS/ EXTENSIONS
A basket of fruit
the smells ripen
thinking of the curve of your
shoulder
a bird pruning the air
eclipsing
it.
ANOTHER WAY TO SEE
You have another way to see
a boy and his gassed balloon mea
suring the sky
the sun exposes you.
SHARP
It’s not as if
because of considering that
A wire must be bent. Light comes.
Thoughts crack sharp.
SPACE
There’s a space of this page.
You can smell it in the mountains
when the snow’s kept cold.
Here, I sit in this room
between what I think and where you are
there’s a space
too .
FOR RAPHAEL
You came into the world with a
memory
looking out of win dows wanting to
find what you’d lost. You knew
before you knew that you knew.
We don’t.
THROUGH HIS HANDS
He would want to sit with a book
in his hand
the shades would be closed
night concealed in its place
as he thought passing through his
hands the flashed image from the
train ( trans parent) to its
cause turning the page, now and
then from one sound to the next .
DEAD REALLY DEAD ?
You tell me the dead are really
dead, it’s final, over. But each
summer I think him so because with
out even thinking I expect him
and he comes. Nothing dies un
less we do.
ONLY WHEN THE RAIN IS HERE
What is it we know only when the rain
is here ?
I remember the sea was silent,
we were under the last impression
of stars.
TONE
Music touches sound
the fingers that were heard feeling to
their place
of the keys turned
to where the reflection of thought
is
I see you so, distinct as if only the
light could be
this appearance of sound,
the key, and where your fingers
touched.
CHANGES
It’s your choice, of words.
Whatever you say changes it.
If you close a curtain the room is darker
you touch yourself
the world is myth if you think
it so.
It can’t be seen.
The streaks of water jet from ice
the sun’s just as cold as I thought
The afternoon wears its same
shadows
only the air immaterial presence
I breathe in its softness, wait
for the mel ting of touch .
THE HALF OF A CIRCLE
Because I look at the vase for
three and a half
minutes its han die’s curved
a classical com-bine god and fish
sceptered water for a throne
it’s even round if you follow
it behind
the window and
can wait without breaking your poise.
Almost dark a bird reaching for
song
( to describe its flight,
its place on the tree,
the tone)
I notice how the night is, ab
sorbs.
We never come, that way.
CAUSE
You say
the leaves blow in
late September.
I listen to the waves
pulled up from the surface
and wonder if I could hear
your voice when they do.
CROCUS
Flowers, didn’t even ask
I change the month to spring
put on
a lighter coat.
OF
It’s your way of
even trying to be another way to
Do you think
the trees can breathe
without wind
just stop and wait.
TOWARDS A NATURAL VIEW OF THEOLOGY
Like a fish blowing its bubble
puckered its lips and then let go
gazing to the surface You can make sound
from glass
but he, he doesn’t try to
imagine what he can — he
simply aims.
JUST ONCE
If I tell you again it won’t
be true. Just
once I bought you orchids,
inbetween colors.
LESS
I am less now.
The clouds shift
but their sha dows don’t cross
quite so,
not the same in
me. I listen to what you say
become aware of the shades of
your voice
which I knew, with
out seeing, before.
AT LEAST 4 TIMES
You can’t tell me when you come
in the house and look in the
mirror at least 4 times,
fixing your hair —
I know
that you simply want to find
out.
ESSENCE
The conformity of fact synonym for
presence, event, articulation of the
word to this sense, wood stripped of its
bark ( the fire’s wrath ) .
LATE NOVEMBER
It’s late into Nov ember birds in
sist on their shadows crossing o
ver sound the winds won’t
still the leaves hang, tight as
they can
snap when they break as a sudden light put out to tell
me the print of words you press
to your lips tense at the edge
time’s past, it breaks in your
hands.
CONTRADICTION
If you have it both ways
there’s a knife cut through the
middle.
SUSPENDED
The air
covered with snow
smoke extending it self in time
a wire strung, tight to two
points I think exactly the same
place.
FICTIVE
After the rain
the trees were fic tive
that’s a word for slender
perhaps because it was March.
INTRODUCTION WITHOUT A FUGUE
It’s only what I see.
You stepped in place
smiling as if it should be so,
prepared.
I heard
but you forgot to step, back.
KNEW
When I saw I thought that you
knew.
The looking game’s not what runs
us together the fingers con
necting pulse.
There was a pause in your
face
a waiting to see
that I look and knew.
COUNTED PLEASURES
The truth of a kiss, lighted thoughts
tendernesses of touch between hands, fin
gers or such,
the form of a world but closed
disposed to the counted pleasures.
This mid- October still decline of light
the receding slope from the hill
wreathed flowers, the scent that’s kept
in stone.
THE WHOLE OF A CIRCLE
Sun describes the afternoon.
It draws a circle from the sky
The arc of time when it shines clearing
itself
The blue and direction of
Water over stone
moving to time
the push of sound and my lips
not wanting, words.
STUDY IN TONALITY
At first a bird sang in
to the silence
morning’s first light appeared ;
the sun wa vered as if bro
ken of its tone
became whole, again.
THAT WAY
If it could be less, what I
see
stone lightened by touch just
turned that way.
AS THIS
The shape of the hill
coming down
the leaves in spring, wind —
I take your hand but we can’t
be as
soft as this .
One would have wanted a word then,
something about the sadness of time
For winds brushed through the leaves
and left us all un quiet.
WHY
You asked, why as if I
knew what you wanted to
say a ques
tion between your self.
LAKE
The water moves I look in a cir
cle closing the sides
sound begins here over the surface
continuing what I see.
In Nomine Domini

This edition of THE HALF OF A CIRCLE designed by Martino Mardersteig is limited to 400 copies printed from Centaur type on Magnani rag paper by Stamperia Valdonega
VERONA MCMLXXVII
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