"The space before the period" [boomerang]

[Simon Pettet] was actually born in the U.K., tho the only evidence for it you might find in his work is a tendency to set a number of works into palpably European settings – which is not so different, say, from a Harry Matthews – and a willingness on occasion to rhyme, tho only in spots. Viz:

Pastoral

It all passes
Ah, but the lasses
These bodies
shall decompose

All’s grey
inside and outside
The bird in the bush is
hush,

the mad piper,
silent

as are
The cows in the field .

Part of what makes me trust this poem as much as I do is the space between the final word & the period, a gap that captures the unhurried aspect of pastoral, a literary device one associates with Paul Blackburn & which is not much in use today.

        -- Ron Silliman

The space before the period
the basis of trust there hovers
the words (though few or myriad)
are epiphenomenal covers
tho food might pile on platters
where void of salt one's werièd
no score without bullseye batters
the caesura before the period !