!DOCTYPE html> html> head lang=”en-US”> title>Meeting by A. S. J. Tessimond/title> /div> h1 class=”pageTitle”>Meeting/h1> div class=”entry-content clearfix”> h2 class=”author”>by A. S. J. Tessimond/h2> div id=”content”> p>Dogs take new friends abruptly and by smell,br /> Cats’ meetings are neat, tactual, caressive.br /> Monkeys exchange their fleas before they speak.br /> Snakes, no doubt, coil by coil reach mutual knowledge./p> p>We then, at first encounter, should be silent;br /> Not court the cortex but the epidermis;br /> Not work from inside out but outside in;br /> Discover each other’s flesh, its scent and texture;br /> Familiarize the sinews and the nerve-ends,br /> The hands, the hair; before the inept lips open./p> p>Instead of which we are resonant, explicit.br /> Our words like windows intercept our meaning.br /> Our four eyes fence and flinch and awkwardlybr /> Wince into shadow, slide oblique to ambush.br /> Hands stir, retract. The pulse is insulated.br /> Blood is turned inwards, lonely; skin unhappy …br /> While always under all, but interrupted,br /> Antennae stretch … waver … and almost … touch./p>/div> p>br /> br> /body> /html>
Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (1902 -1962) was an English poet. He had a tumultuous childhood, ran from boarding school, went to work, somehow attended the University of Liverpool, avoided service in WWI and then discovered that he is unfit for military service after he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which in those days was known as manic depression. A.S. Tessimond is a wonderful poet though maybe somewhat underappreciated poet. He died from in 1962 from a brain haemorrhage.