I was well into Dylan Thomas, Walt Whitman and others. Rimbaud, War poets, then I found the source, Gerard Manley Hopkins. What follows is my attempt to do a Gerard.
The curling paper, lifted, life-liked ; limped away,
Fed flowing by the wind,
Weak-willed, floats, flees ; _ flown.
I fled; danced swirling twirling, downed my
life, 'low ; low life.
Skipped to the sea-waved air, away,
Away from the silent shapes ; sentinels ;
That guard, grudge, and master, the tiny things,
Which flit, ant-like, black crawling flat clinging,
here and there.
Hobbled by fears, afraid to think; to blink their
eyes,
Lest all be gone, in a dream of someone else.
The sponge-like night; soaks light from
cast-iron trees,
Quick shadows flashing through,
Fuse with the night-flood, in my dream.