New Poetry From David McLean

It gives (ii)

It gives that which we make
ourselves out of a memory
today that lives a past we
touch now, and reach

as easily as these fingers this tree
beside me, and it is the real man
your father was, and not an imaged
he, you meet in a dream

with the mind’s cold arrow like
Husserls’ tower, and objects known
It gives to us on trust
that words may hold them

before the knowing soul,
all that It has shown,
under elision,
before all this discussion

elided the very giving
of the now, and we forget that It
just gives, no “It” is given, not a
God nor even the

Thrones that sing him
and the gravity of His
presentified sitting, It gives today
that tomorrow be true -

It always (gives) me you


It gives (iii)

It gives, just, not justly
It gives it is not the gift
or the giving, “It gives”
is always under this

allusive elision, It “is” not but
“It gives” is all the singing
It is not a Being
or a being but

“It gives” is the gift of
Beyng beyond the
lighted sun and behind
time. this that “It gives”

lies not but lies beyond
and is the exoteric life
of the epekeina tes ousias
that baulks at the Platonic logos

that poets seldom seem
to know, for children
are not given to thinking.
yet still It gives

and children always know
enough to listen and hold
what It shows in their clumsy
fingers. It gives the Nothing

that is given in the song
and gives the singing


David McLean was born in Wales and has lived in Sweden since 1987. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Parameter , Zygote in My Coffee, Erbacce, Sein und Werden, Venereal Kittens, Clockwise Cat, Mad Swirl, Lit Circus, Gold Dust, The Smoking Poet, Haggard and Halloo, BlazeVOX and previously in Zone. More information about Mr McLean is available on MySpace and at the Hecale portal.