POETRY
Two collections of Terence's poetry (Waiting for the Rainbow and Bills of Mortality) have recently been published in the Critical Quarterly journal, Volume 66, Issue 1 Special Issue (April 2024). This publication launched the careers of British poets Philip Larkin and Sylvia Plath, so Terence is in good company. The poems will also be included in the forthcoming re-issue of Terence's novel Hallelujah Now!, which will be published towards the end of 2025 to mark Terence's 80th birthday.
Passing Time
By Terence Davies, written on 30 October 2019
There is a place called silence
Where no hope or harm can be
It lies below some far horizon
A Bali Hi for you and me.
Its place is still and hushed
Its walls of tender care
Where all our hearts find refuge
But none of us can take you there.
For we must go alone and cold
Before we know its tender care
None can be companion now
None can take you by the hand nor share…
…Except on summer nights
Or walking through the park
Or when some stranger laughs
That will pierce one and every heart –
- For silence like an up-turned bowl
Covers all but doesn’t stop
The heartache at the edge of time
Or stop the ever-ticking clock.
For passing bells need to be rung
But memories inflict such sore
That in your now and twilight world
Our thoughts are nothing more
Than time recaptured of the years gone by
But fierce is their will to live
Old times again – with swaddled love
That drenched the world in liquid gold.
When all the years yet to come
Were squandered in the here and now
And what remains is sequestered in a shuttered room
Amongst the dust, amidst the gloom.
So if you let me know you’re there
In silence’s embrace
Breathe a sigh and tell me so
For you are gone and not replaced.
But echoes of your lovely self
Will bear us through life’s cruel stream
And if I am to join you there
Oh what joy your face will bring!
Oh tell me now!
Oh tell me all!
For my poor heart with tears is ringed.