27 JULY 1985, Page 28

Drunk, but not too drunk (Grand Buveur)

Grain is slaughtered by pounding it Musically to obtain its spirit, which Will show you everything. The spirits in music Are more than audible. Death?

The eggshell chiming like a glass belt To the blows of the chick-beak then The jagged sky falls away On the starfeathered bosoms beyond.

There are blind dreams and sighted dreams And who shall say which is the wiser?

The baby slides out like a calm at sea, A mark on the water like the hull of a ghost-ship; In the hedge are the remnants of tattered webs Like torn letters of the alphabet, Silken nets for golden flies, the music, Sliding from trombones like bewitched butter, Music peering into the eyes of all the people Caught in the blind dream. Butter: How amazing that is!

Bewitched mud!

By all the grass-roots and the cows bewitched.

Peter Redgrove