Collected Poems, page 3
She turned away. I stabbed. I felt this heat
burn through my skull until reason had died.
I’d slogged my guts out for her, but she lied
when I knew different. She used to meet
some prick after work. She stank of deceit.
I loved her. When I accused her, she cried
and denied it. Straight up, she tore me apart.
On the Monday, I found the other bloke
had bought her a chain with a silver heart.
When I think about her now, I near choke
with grief. My baby. She wasn’t a tart
or nothing. I wouldn’t harm a fly, no joke.
Dreaming of Somewhere Else
Those strange stone birds are smashed
on heroin. It’s like the ballroom
of the frigging Titanic up here. Our friend
says nothing will happen there, ever; drinks
steadily as mortgaged dust piles up.
His cat is off its cake. Know what I mean like?
Long dark streets of black eternal rain
leading to nowhere. Paris of the North this.
Everyone’s had everyone else, at least
twice. Lethal cocktails brim with revelation
and gossip. I am here to tell you
that the Cathedrals are lucky to be alive.
Behave yourself. The glass shattered, pierced
just above his eye. Laugh? He was in
stitches. Even the river is too pissed
to go anywhere; it stares upwards at stars
reflecting a hungover moon for doomed lovers.
Et in Arcadia Ego and in the Philharmonic.
Nerves of steel you need in this game
as the wind screams up from the Pier Head
dragging desolation, memory; as the orchestra
plays on for the last dancers bouncing off the walls.
Somewhere else another universe takes light years
to be seen even though it went out already. You wha’?
Before You Jump
for Mister Berryman
Tell us what these tough words have done
to you.
I demand Love and Attention now
with my little fists, with the muscles
of a poem. These songs
are not meant to be understood, you understand.
They are meant only to terrify & comfort.
Let light come daily where I grapple with
my tiny tasks. The golden beehive
brims with honey as the bees collapse.
That much for little sweetness, yet they
fondle sculpture like a pound of flesh.
Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani.
And who shall love properly?
You must
or we die. Walk through the churchyard
past the crocuses. They won’t last long.
My guardian angel has abandoned me but soon
we’ll fly upon the curve of earth.
A miracle is all I ask. Not much.
The red wet mouth cries out that jealousy
was ruin of them all. Save me.
Or manage with a flab of language
breaking back for fitness. And alone. If in the evening
someone wanders in with open arms
we will be blessed. If one says Yes.
I mean always what I say. Listen.
Do you mean what you say?
In slow motion he is falling, spinning
down forever. Pray for us now.
Unless there was one voice. Faithfulness.
Unless that were possible. Patience.
There must be only me. For this
I’ll give myself, even my breath.
But say we are not lost. Darling.
A man crimson with need and getting nothing.
The tongue licks in and out and Look
what I can do. Fame and Money better never
than too late. Let this cup pass me by.
They’re killing me; the images, the sounds
of what is in this world. You turn away
repeatedly. You always turn away.
From jewels and garbage I have fashioned
marvellous machines, but am of little matter
in the end. No more to say. I disbelieve
in everything whilst nothing speaks.
Climb down from there and come into the warm.
Forever come into the warm. Unless there was
one voice. Unless I thought it possible there was.
A Provincial Party, 1956
A chemical inside you secretes the ingredients of fear.
Is it fear? You know for sure you feel
uneasy on that black, plastic sofa, even though
the ice melts in a long tumbler behind red triangles.
You don’t find it sexy, your first blue movie
in a stranger’s flat, but you watch it anyway.
Embarrassment crackles like three petticoats. You never
imagined, married two years and all. A woman
cackles a joke you don’t understand, but you laugh anyway.
On one stocking, you have halted a ladder
with clear varnish. There are things going on
on the screen which would turn your Mam to salt.
Suddenly, the whole room is breathing. Someone hums
Magic Moments and then desists, moist lips apart.
Two men in the film are up to no good. Christ.
You could die with the shame. The chrome ashtray
is filled with fag-ends, lipstick-rimmed. Your suspenders
pinch you spitefully, like kids nipping spoilsports.
You daren’t look, but something is happening
on the Cyril Lord. Part of you tells yourself it’s only
shaving-cream. You and him do it with the light off.
This will give him ideas. It is fear. You nudge
and nudge till your husband squirms away from you and smiles
at the young, male host with film-star eyes.
Dear Norman
I have turned the newspaper boy into a diver
for pearls. I can do this. In my night
there is no moon, and if it happens that I speak
of stars it’s by mistake. Or if it happens
that I mention these things, it’s by design.
His body is brown, breaking through waves. Such white teeth.
Beneath the water he searches for the perfect shell.
He does not know that, as he posts the Mirror
through the door, he is equal with dolphins.
I shall name him Pablo, because I can.
Pablo laughs and shakes the seaweed from his hair.
Translucent on his palm a pearl appears. He is reminded.
Cuerpo de mujer, blancas Colinas, muslos blancos.
I find this difficult, and then again easy,
as I watch him push his bike off in the rain.
As I watch him push his bike off in the rain
I trace his name upon the window-pane.
There is little to communicate, but I have re-arranged
the order of the words. Pablo says You want for me
to dive again? I want for you to dive.
Tomorrow I shall deal with the dustman.
Talent
This is the word tightrope. Now imagine
a man, inching across it in the space
between our thoughts. He holds our breath.
There is no word net.
You want him to fall, don’t you?
I guessed as much; he teeters but succeeds.
The word applause is written all over him.
$
A one a two a one two three four –
boogie woogie chou chou cha cha chatta
noogie. Woogie wop a loo bop a wop
bim bam. Da doo ron a doo ron oo wop a
sha na? Na na hey hey doo wah did.
Urn, didy ay didy shala lala lala lala,
boogie woogie choo choo cha cha bop.
(A woogie wop a loo bam) yeah yeah yeah.
Liverpool Echo
Pat Hodges kissed you once, although quite shy,
in sixty-two. Small crowds in Matthew Street
endure rain for the echo of a beat,
as if nostalgia means you did not die.
Inside phone-booths loveless ladies cry
on Merseyside. Their faces show defeat.
An ancient jukebox blares out Ain’t She Sweet
in Liverpool, which cannot say goodbye.
Here everybody has an anecdote
of how they met you, were the best of mates.
The seagulls circle round a ferry-boat
out on the river, where it’s getting late.
Like litter on the water, people float
outside the Cavern in the rain. And wait.
Back Desk
I am Franz Schubert of Dresden. It was not easy.
Quite soon I realised my prowess on the violin
was mediocre, but we had to eat.
The piece I wrote (The Bee, you may remember it)
paid for that winter’s clothing, little else.
The children danced in their new clogs
till the strings snapped on the highest note.
I saw him once in Heidelberg, the other Franz.
He was older than I, seemed younger.
Smaller than I, looked taller.
Standing Female Nude
Six hours like this for a few francs.
Belly nipple arse in the window light,
he drains the colour from me. Further to the right,
Madame. And do try to be still.
I shall be represented analytically and hung
in great museums. The bourgeoisie will coo
at such an image of a river-whore. They call it Art.
Maybe. He is concerned with volume, space.
I with the next meal. You’re getting thin,
Madame, this is not good. My breasts hang
slightly low, the studio is cold. In the tea-leaves
I can see the Queen of England gazing
on my shape. Magnificent, she murmurs
moving on. It makes me laugh. His name
is Georges. They tell me he’s a genius.
There are times he does not concentrate
and stiffens for my warmth.
He possesses me on canvas as he dips the brush
repeatedly into the paint. Little man,
you’ve not the money for the arts I sell.
Both poor, we make our living how we can.
I ask him Why do you do this? Because
I have to. There’s no choice. Don’t talk.
My smile confuses him. These artists
take themselves too seriously. At night I fill myself
with wine and dance around the bars. When it’s finished
he shows me proudly, lights a cigarette. I say
Twelve francs and get my shawl. It does not look like me.
Poem in Oils
What I have learnt I have learnt from the air,
from infinite varieties of light. Muted colours
alter gradually as clouds stir shape, till purple rain
or violet thunderstorm shudders in the corner of my eye.
Here, on this other coast, the motifs multiply.
I hesitate before the love the waves bear
to the earth. Is this what I see?
No, but this is the process of seeing.
Believe me, soundless shadows fall from trees
like brushstrokes. A painter stands
upon a cliff and turns doubt into certainty where,
far below, the ocean fills itself with sky.
I was here to do this. And was curious.
Oppenheim’s Cup and Saucer
She asked me to luncheon in fur. Far from
the loud laughter of men, our secret life stirred.
I remember her eyes, the slim rope of her spine.
This is your cup, she whispered, and this mine.
We drank the sweet hot liquid and talked dirty.
As she undressed me, her breasts were a mirror
and there were mirrors in the bed. She said Place
your legs around my neck, that’s right. Yes.
Ink on Paper
COMPOSITION 1
The heart is placid. The wireless makes
a slow movement to shape the invisible.
On the table, apples imitate an old motif;
beyond them, through the window, gulls applaud
the trees. Something has happened. Clouds
move away, superior and bored. A cigarette
fumes in a brown clay ashtray, ignored.
COMPOSITION 2
A dark red armchair with no one in it
waits patiently. Empty wet wellingtons
warm ghost-legs at the gas fire. There is
the sound of a woman’s voice crying
on the other side of the door and the smell
of onions frying. Beneath the chair, an umbrella
half-exists. Behind the curtains, glass, rain.
COMPOSITION 3
This bowl of fruit obstinately refuses
to speak the language. Pink vain peaches
remain aloof in late light. The grapefruit
will only be yellow as long as anyone looks.
In the other bowl, two goldfish try harder.
Unwatched, the man watches the cat, watching.
An orange is more still than the near-silence.
Woman Seated in the Underground, 1941
after the drawing by Henry Moore
I forget. I have looked at the other faces and found
no memory, no love. Christ, she’s a rum one.
Their laughter fills the tunnel, but it does not
comfort me. There was a bang and then
I was running with the rest through smoke. Thick, grey
smoke has covered thirty years at least.
I know I am pregnant, but I do not know my name.
Now they are singing. Underneath the lantern
by the barrack gate. But waiting for whom?
Did I? I have no wedding ring, no handbag, nothing.
I want a fag. I have either lost my ring or I am
a loose woman. No. Someone has loved me. Someone
is looking for me even now. I live somewhere.
I sing the word darling and it yields nothing.
Nothing. A child is crying. Mine doesn’t show yet.
Baby. My hands mime the memory of knitting.
Purl. Plain. I know how to do these things, yet my mind
has unravelled into thin threads that lead nowhere.
In a moment, I shall stand up and scream until
somebody helps me. The skies were filled with sirens, planes,
fire, bombs, and I lost myself in the crowd. Dear God.
War Photographer
In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.
Something is happening. A stranger’s features
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.
A hundred agonies in black-and-white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick
with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns his living and they do not care.
What Price?
These were his diaries. Through the writing we may find
the man and whether he has been misjudged.
Admit it, even now, most people secretly resent
the Jews. We have all evening to peruse
the truth. Outside the window summer blossom falls.
It takes me back. I always saw some sense
in what he tried to do. This country should be strong.
I’ll put some Wagner on the gramophone
then we can settle down. On nights like this
it makes one glad to be alive. My own Lili Marlene.
Of course, one had to fight. I had a wife.
But somewhere here I think you’ll find
that he’d have joined with us. More wine?
I know the Sons of David died, some say atrociously,
but that’s all past. The roses are in bloom.
Look at the way we claimed the islands back.
My grandchildren are young and pink
and make me proud. She has the right idea.
These journals will be his chance to explain,
I’m certainly convinced that they are real.
Not that he didn’t make mistakes, but we can learn
from him. See by the larch tree how the sun goes down.
And notice all the interest from newspapers, so soon!
I admit that it was hell to be a Jew, but how much
do you think they’ll fetch? One million? Two?
Missile
The cat is itself.
Let us consider the cauliflower,
it means no harm.
Grass is grass grows grass.
Spider spins spider. Is a rose.
Everything’s only itself. Grows.
Except you, Daddy.
Birds are simple.
Wings flap fly being birds.
Feathers in the sky saying bird.
Flickers in the sea saying fish.
Bird fish stone chant name,
we show no difference, we’re the same.
Except you, Daddy.
Daffodil yellow with flower
stains light. Light leaks from sun
