Collected Poems, page 25
of a kiss – like this, thou –
and to say, after, I love,
thou, I love, thou I love, not
I love you.
Because I so do –
as we say now – I want to say
thee, I adore, I adore thee,
and to know in my lips
the syntax of love resides,
and to gaze in thine eyes.
Love’s language starts, stops, starts;
the right words flowing or clotting in the heart.
Snow
You come back,
after my three-month night,
as I knew you would, like light, light.
And though it is summer’s height,
sexy with thunder, rainy heat,
you talk of snow.
It is gathering now,
packing the freight of itself
into cold, faraway clouds,
miles out at sea,
crying upwards into the black sky;
each flake unique, that will fall on us, as we kiss,
or I tell you the poem by Louis MacNeice.
The room was suddenly rich . . .
Your Move
Now you’ve moved
to my neck of the woods,
let me show you around.
The name scarred
on all of the trees
is your own.
The blood poised,
red rain on the thorn
of a rose, mine.
The goblin, crouched
under that dripping bush,
your servant, ma’am.
The lightning,
frantic to touch,
means you no harm.
The thunder,
tendering huge words,
is spelling a charm.
The local news
starting as prose
ends in a rhyme.
The inns and taverns
are dusting off
their finest of wines,
and the air we breathe,
I say to myself,
is the same, the same.
Epiphany
Not close my eyes to the light
when the light
is in my head,
or sleep
when only your, only thy warm skin
is my bed,
or live, when days, nights,
sightless of you, sightless of thee,
are hours with the dead,
or talk sense
when words, when words,
are the cauls of the unsaid,
or believe when belief
is a light gone out yet burning, gold, red.
The Love Poem
Till love exhausts itself, longs
for the sleep of words –
my mistress’ eyes –
to lie on a white sheet, at rest
in the language –
let me count the ways –
or shrink to a phrase like an epitaph –
come live
with me –
or fall from its own high cloud as syllables
in a pool of verse –
one hour with thee.
Till love gives in and speaks
in the whisper of art –
dear heart,
how like you this? –
love’s lips pursed to quotation marks
kissing a line –
look in thy heart
and write –
love’s light fading, darkening,
black as ink on a page –
there is a garden
in her face.
Till love is all in the mind –
O my America!
my new-found land –
or all in the pen
in the writer’s hand –
behold, thou art fair –
not there, except in a poem,
known by heart like a prayer,
both near and far,
near and far –
the desire of the moth
for the star.
Art
Only art now – our bodies, brushstroke, pigment, motif;
our story, figment, suspension of disbelief;
the thrum of our blood, percussion;
chords, minor, for the music of our grief.
Art, the chiselled, chilling marble of our kiss;
locked into soundless stone, our promises,
or fizzled into poems; page print
for the dried flowers of our voice.
No choice for love but art’s long illness, death,
huge theatres for the echoes that we left,
applause, then utter dark;
grand opera for the passion of our breath;
and the Oscar-winning movie in your heart;
and where my soul sang, croaking art.
Unloving
Learn from the winter trees, the way
they kiss and throw away their leaves,
then hold their stricken faces in their hands
and turn to ice;
or from the clocks,
looking away, unloving light, the short days
running out of things to say; a church
a ghost ship on a sea of dusk.
Learn from a stone, its heart-shape meaningless,
perfect with relentless cold; or from the bigger moon,
implacably dissolving in the sky, or from the stars,
lifeless as Latin verbs.
Learn from the river,
flowing always somewhere else, even its name,
change, change; learn from a rope
hung from a branch like a noose, a crow cursing,
a dead heron mourned by a congregation of flies.
Learn from the dumbstruck garden, summer’s grave,
where nothing grows, not a Beast’s rose;
from the torn veil of a web;
from our daily bread:
perpetual rain, nothing like tears, unloving clouds;
language unloving love; even this stale air
unloving all the spaces where you were.
Over
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
ROBERT BROWNING
I wake to a dark hour out of time, go to the window.
No stars in this black sky, no moon to speak of, no name
or number to the hour, no skelf of light. I let in air.
The garden’s sudden scent’s an open grave.
What do I have
to help me, without spell or prayer,
endure this hour, endless, heartless, anonymous,
the death of love? Only the other hours –
the air made famous where you stood,
the grand hotel, flushing with light, which blazed us
on the night,
the hour it took for you
to make a ring of grass and marry me. I say your name
again. It is a key, unlocking all the dark,
so death swings open on its hinge.
I hear a bird begin its song,
piercing the hour, to bring first light this Christmas dawn,
a gift, the blush of memory.
Bees
Here are my bees,
brazen, blurs on paper,
besotted; buzzwords, dancing
their flawless, airy maps.
Been deep, my poet bees,
in the parts of flowers,
in daffodil, thistle, rose, even
the golden lotus; so glide,
gilded, glad, golden, thus –
wise – and know of us:
how your scent pervades
my shadowed, busy heart,
and honey is art.
Last Post
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud . . .
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home –
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce – No – Decorum – No – Pro patria mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too –
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert –
and light a cigarette.
There’s coffee in the square,
warm French bread,
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queueing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.
Echo
I think I was searching for treasures or stones
in the clearest of pools
when your face . . .
when your face,
like the moon in a well
where I might wish . . .
might well wish
for the iced fire of your kiss;
only on water my lips, where your face . . .
where your face was reflected, lovely,
not really there when I turned
to look behind at the emptying air . . .
the emptying air.
Scheherazade
Dumb was as good as dead;
better to utter.
Inside a bottle, a genie.
Abracadabra.
Words were a silver thread
stitching the night.
The first story I said
led to the light.
Fact was in black and white;
fiction was colour.
Inside a dragon, a jewel.
Abracadabra.
A magic carpet took flight,
bearing a girl.
The hand of a Queen shut tight
over a pearl.
Imagination was world;
clever to chatter.
Inside a she-mule, a princess.
Abracadabra.
A golden sword was hurled
into a cloud.
A dead woman unfurled
out of a shroud.
A fable spoken aloud
kindled another.
Inside a virgin, a lover.
Abracadabra.
Forty thieves in a crowd,
bearded and bold.
A lamp rubbed by a lad
turning to gold.
Talking lips don’t grow cold;
babble and jabber.
Inside a beehive, a fortune.
Abracadabra.
What was lost was held
inside a tale.
The tall stories I told
utterly real.
Inside a marriage, a gaol;
better to vanish.
Inside a mirror, an ogre;
better to banish.
A thousand and one tales;
weeping and laughter.
Only the silent fail.
Abracadabra.
Big Ask
What was it Sisyphus pushed up the hill?
I wouldn’t call it a rock.
Will you solemnly swear on the Bible?
I couldn’t swear on a book.
With which piece did you capture the castle?
I shouldn’t hazard a rook.
When did the President give you the date?
Nothing to do with Barack!
Were 1200 targets marked on a chart?
Nothing was circled in black.
On what was the prisoner stripped and stretched?
Nothing resembling a rack.
Guantanamo Bay – how many detained?
How many grains in a sack?
Extraordinary Rendition – give me some names.
How many cards in a pack?
Sexing the Dossier – name of the game?
Poker. Gin Rummy. Blackjack.
Who planned the deployment of shock and awe?
I didn’t back the attack.
Inside the Mosque, please describe what you saw.
I couldn’t see through the smoke.
Your estimate of the cost of the War?
I had no brief to keep track.
Where was Saddam when they found him at last?
Maybe holed under a shack.
What happened to him once they’d kicked his ass?
Maybe he swung from the neck.
The WMD . . . you found the stash?
Well, maybe not in Iraq.
Ariel
Where the bee sucks,
neonicotinoid insecticides
in a cowslip’s bell lie,
in fields purple with lavender,
yellow with rape,
and on the sunflower’s upturned face;
on land monotonous with cereals and grain,
merrily,
merrily;
sour in the soil,
sheathing the seed, systemic
in the plants and crops,
the million acres to be ploughed,
seething in the orchards now,
under the blossom
that hangs
on the bough.
Politics
How it makes your face a stone
that aches to weep, your heart a fist,
clenched or thumping, your tongue
an iron latch with no door; your right hand
a gauntlet, a glove-puppet the left, your laugh
a dry leaf twitching in the wind, your desert island discs
hiss hiss hiss, the words on your lips dice
that throw no six.
How it takes the breath
away, the piss, your kiss a dropped pound coin,
your promises latin, feedback, static, gibberish,
your hair a wig, your gait a plankwalk. How it says
politics – to your education, fairness, health; shouts
Politics! – to your industry, investment, wealth; roars, to your
conscience, moral compass, truth, POLITICS POLITICS.
The Falling Soldier
after the photograph by Robert Capa
A flop back for a kip in the sun,
dropping the gun,
or a trip on a stone to send you
arse over tip
with a yelp and a curse?
No; worse. The shadow you cast
as you fall
is the start of a shallow grave.
They give medals, though,
to the grieving partners, mothers, daughters,
sons of the brave.
A breakdance to amuse your mates,
give them a laugh,
a rock’n’roll mime, Elvis time,
pretending the rifle’s
just a guitar?
Worse by far. The shadow you shed
as you fall
is, brother, your soul.
They wrap you up in the flag, though,
blow a tune on a bugle before they lower you
into the hole.
A slide down a hill, your head thrown back,
daft as a boy,
and the rifle chucked away to the side
in a moment of joy,
an outburst?
Much worse. The shadow you throw
as you fall
is the shadow of death.
The camera, though,
has caught you forever and captured forever
your final breath.
Mrs Schofield’s GCSE
You must prepare your bosom for his knife,
said Portia to Antonio in which
of Shakespeare’s Comedies? Who killed his wife,
insane with jealousy? And which Scots witch
knew Something wicked this way comes? Who said
Is this a dagger which I see? Which Tragedy?
Whose blade was drawn which led to Tybalt’s death?
To whom did dying Caesar say Et tu? And why?
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark – do you
know what this means? Explain how poetry
pursues the human like the smitten moon
above the weeping, laughing earth; how we
make prayers of it. Nothing will come of nothing:
speak again. Said by which King? You may begin.
Poetry
I couldn’t see Guinness
and not envisage a nun;
a gun, a finger and thumb;
midges, blether, scribble, scrum.
A crescent moon, boomerang, smirk,
bone; or full, a shield, a stalker,
a stone. I couldn’t see woods
for the names of trees – sycamore,
yew, birch, beech –
or bees
without imagining music scored
on the air – nor pass a nun
without calling to mind a pint of one, stout,
untouched, on a bar at the Angelus.
Achilles
Myth’s river – where his mother dipped him,
fished him, a slippery golden boy –
flowed on, his name on its lips.
Without him, it was prophesied,
they would not take Troy.
Women hid him, concealed him in girls’ sarongs;
days of sweetmeats, spices, silver song . . .
but when Odysseus came,
with an athlete’s build, a sword and a shield,
he followed him to the battlefield,
the crowd’s roar,
and it was sport, not war,
his charmed foot on the ball . . .
but then his heel, his heel, his heel . . .
The Shirt
Afterwards, I found him alone at the bar
and asked him what went wrong. It’s the shirt,
he said. When I pull it on it hangs on my back
like a shroud, or a poisoned jerkin from Grimm
seeping its curse onto my skin, the worst tattoo.
I shower and shave before I shrug on the shirt,
