Collected Poems, page 6
No, don’t. Imagine. One thump did it, then I was on her,
giving her everything I had. Jack the Lad, Ladies’ Man.
Easier to say Yes. Easier to stay a child, wide-eyed
at the top of the helter-skelter. You get one chance in this life
and if you screw it you’re done for, uncle, no mistake.
She lost a tooth. I picked her up, dead slim, and slid her in.
A girl like that should have a paid-up solitaire and high hopes,
but she asked for it. A right-well knackered outragement.
My reflection sucks a sour Woodbine and buys me a drink. Here’s
looking at you. Deep down I’m talented. She found out. Don’t mess
with me, angel, I’m no nutter. Over in the corner, a dead ringer
for Ruth Ellis smears a farewell kiss on the lip of a gin-and-lime.
The barman calls Time. Bang in the centre of my skull,
there’s a strange coolness. I could almost fly. Tomorrow
will find me elsewhere, with a loss of memory. Drink up son,
the world’s your fucking oyster. Awopbopaloobop alopbimbam.
Every Good Boy
I put this breve down, knowing in my head
the sound it makes before I play a note.
C sharp is D flat, changing if I place it here,
or here, or there. Listen. I mostly use a minor key.
These days, the world lacks harmony. The inner cities
riot in my inner ear. Discord, say the critics,
but that is what I hear; even in this quiet room
where I deploy blatant consecutive fifths, a hooligan.
That time I was mugged, I came back here
and sat for hours in silence. I have only ever wanted
to compose. The world strikes me and I make
my sound. I make no claim to greatness.
If they were caught, I would like half an hour
together, to show how this phrase, here, excites;
how the smash of broken glass is turned
into a new motif. I would like to share that with them.
Yes, Officer
It was about the time of day you mention, yes.
I remember noticing the quality of light
beyond the bridge. I lit a cigarette.
I saw some birds. I knew the words for them
and their collective noun. A skein of geese. This cell
is further away from anywhere I’ve ever been. Perhaps.
I was in love. For God’s sake, don’t.
Fear is the first taste of blood in a dry mouth.
I have no alibi. Yes, I used to have a beard.
No, no. I wouldn’t use that phrase. The more you ask
the less I have to say. There was a woman crying
on the towpath, dressed in grey. Please. Sir.
Without my own language, I am a blind man
in the wrong house. Here come the fists, the boots.
I curl in a corner, uttering empty vowels until
they have their truth. That is my full name.
With my good arm I sign a forgery. Yes, Officer,
I did. I did and these, your words, admit it.
Statement
It happened like this. I shall never forget. Da
was drunk again, came in from the yard
with his clenched face like a big fist, leaving
the back door open . . . that low moon, full
and dangerous, at the end of the close. Jesus Christ,
he said, I’d be better dead, picked up the old clock
from the mantelpiece and flung it on the fire.
It burned till morning came. He kept her up
all night, shouting the bad bits over again
till she put her head in her hands and wept.
Her apron was a map of Ireland. He jabbed
his finger to the North, bruising her breast, yelled
There! There! God’s truth, she tried to kiss him,
though Tom’s near 21 and that was the last time.
Then she starts . . . In the warfare against the devil,
the world, and the flesh, on whom must we depend? . . .
and he’s ripped the floorboard up. No chance. Her face
was at the window when they got him, watching him
dance for the Queen’s men, sweating blood
doing it. I came running down, said Mammy,
Mammy, and she turned with her arms like the crucifix.
Money Talks
I am the authentic language of suffering. My cold, gold eye
does not blink. Mister, you want nice time? No problem.
I say Screw You. I buy and sell the world. I got
Midas touch, turn bread to hard cash. My million tills
sing through the night, my shining mad machines.
I stink and accumulate. Do you fancy me, lady? Really?
See me pass through the eye of a needle! Whoopee,
I cut Time dead with my sleek facelift. I travel
faster than $-sound. Don’t give me away; after all, no one
can eat me. Honey, I’m a jealous God, $-stammering
my one commandment on the calculator. Love me.
Under your fingernails I smile up with my black grin.
Don’t let my oily manner bother you, Sir, I’ll get you
a taxi, get you a limousine. I know a place
where it’s raining dollar bills. I got any currency
you want, women and gigolos, metal tuxedos. The party
is one long gold-toothed scream. Have a good day. I am
the big bombs, sighing in their thick lead sheaths OK.
Selling Manhattan
All yours, Injun, twenty-four bucks’ worth of glass beads,
gaudy cloth. I got myself a bargain. I brandish
fire-arms and fire-water. Praise the Lord.
Now get your red ass out of here.
I wonder if the ground has anything to say.
You have made me drunk, drowned out
the world’s slow truth with rapid lies.
But today I hear again and plainly see. Wherever
you have touched the earth, the earth is sore.
I wonder if the spirit of the water has anything
to say. That you will poison it. That you
can no more own the rivers and the grass than own
the air. I sing with true love for the land;
dawn chant, the song of sunset, starlight psalm.
Trust your dreams. No good will come of this.
My heart is on the ground, as when my loved one
fell back in my arms and died. I have learned
the solemn laws of joy and sorrow, in the distance
between morning’s frost and firefly’s flash at night.
Man who fears death, how many acres do you need
to lengthen your shadow under the endless sky?
Last time, this moment, now, a boy feels his freedom
vanish, like the salmon going mysteriously
out to sea. Loss holds the silence of great stones.
I will live in the ghost of grasshopper and buffalo.
The evening trembles and is sad.
A little shadow runs across the grass
and disappears into the darkening pines.
Politico
Corner of Thistle Street, two slack shillings jangled
in his pocket. Wee Frank. Politico. A word in the right
got things moving. A free beer for they dockers
and the guns will come through in the morning. No bother.
Bread rolls and Heavy came up the rope to the window
where he and McShane were making a stand. Someone
sent up a megaphone, for Christ’s sake. Occupation.
Aye. And the soldiers below just biding their time.
Blacklisted. Bar L. That scunner, Churchill. The Clyde
where men cheered theirselves out of work as champagne
butted a new ship. Spikes at the back of the toilet seat.
Alls I’m doing is fighting for wur dignity. Away.
Smoke-filled rooms? Wait till I tell you . . . Listen,
I’m ten years dead and turning in my urn. Socialism?
These days? There’s the tree that never grew. Och,
a shower of shites. There’s the bird that never flew.
Scraps
That Thursday, it seemed they were part of the rain,
a drizzling chain,
men and women, colourless,
stretching down Renshaw Street.
This was a B movie,
grainy black-and-white,
with Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime
thin on the soundtrack.
Breeze from the river
scuffed litter round their shoes,
one scrap an old pound note
no one could spend.
A cat pissed on the steps of Renshaw Hall.
Scraps. Scraps. Scraps of language
mashed in a scum
above the sluggish drains.
There’s nothing down for us.
Enough to make you be a bloody copper.
What’s the time?
UB40. Giro.
Words had died a death.
DHSS.
Under the dripping phone wires
under the slumping clouds
a stunted man went down the line.
Help on a rusty harmonica
snagged by the wind.
And overhead
the seagulls
calling their bleak farewells to the old ships.
Nowhere to go, nothing to do
but circle the city’s black grooves,
repeating its past like a scratched LP.
Nobody’s famous
here and now.
The cracks in the cathedral widen.
Kids chase dragons through the drab estates,
accomplished fire-eaters.
All My Loving. Three feet from the ground
his faced peered up.
You must be joking, pal.
Everybody’s breath fumed in the air.
Cats and dogs.
The line moved on.
A woman threw a silver shilling at a dwarf.
Stealing
The most unusual thing I ever stole? A snowman.
Midnight. He looked magnificent; a tall, white mute
beneath the winter moon. I wanted him, a mate
with a mind as cold as the slice of ice
within my own brain. I started with the head.
Better off dead than giving in, not taking
what you want. He weighed a ton; his torso,
frozen stiff, hugged to my chest, a fierce chill
piercing my gut. Part of the thrill was knowing
that children would cry in the morning. Life’s tough.
Sometimes I steal things I don’t need. I joy-ride cars
to nowhere, break into houses just to have a look.
I’m a mucky ghost, leave a mess, maybe pinch a camera.
I watch my gloved hand twisting the doorknob.
A stranger’s bedroom. Mirrors. I sigh like this – Aah.
It took some time. Reassembled in the yard,
he didn’t look the same. I took a run
and booted him. Again. Again. My breath ripped out
in rags. It seems daft now. Then I was standing
alone amongst lumps of snow, sick of the world.
Boredom. Mostly I’m so bored I could eat myself.
One time, I stole a guitar and thought I might
learn to play. I nicked a bust of Shakespeare once,
flogged it, but the snowman was strangest.
You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?
Translation
All writing is garbage – Artaud
She wore gloves, red to the elbow, sipped
at a dry martini, dry-eyed, said I have come
to confess. Do you want my love? The old cathedral
exploded into bells, scattering gulls at the sky
like confetti. But no wedding. Then? The hunchback
swung on the one-armed bandit, slack eyes following
bright uneatable fruit, cranking Bugger bugger bugger
from stale breath. Later she held a dun root
on a scarlet palm, real satin, her lover’s eyes
dark as a bell-tower, mouth bruising O O on the night.
When he pushed into her it was the gambler, crippled,
she invented. Lick me from the navel outwards
darkly in damp circles tell me strange half-truths
from your strange mind babe babe baby.
Colours by Someone Else
Sweetheart, this evening your smell is all around
down by the fishing-boats, the sky trembling
above the pier. Your tears have dried on my palms.
Darling, we should never have done that.
You made me your own, painted my face
into smithereens. Who can say where my tongue
has been in your dark boudoir? Soft heelprints
on my shoulder, sound of the hummingbird breathing its last.
Regret is in the air. Dante Gabriel Rossetti
saved his poems from her worms. Long hours
turning the rain to whisky. Weeping spectacles.
The landlord sees me mime Sinatra at the bar.
Sweetheart, are you listening? Pay heed
for I am insane on the underground, burning
the crossword with my eyes. I owe money
to a bowler hat, keep a brick from London Bridge
under the bed. We are drowning twice nightly
in rivers of silk. This is the Year of the Tiger.
Hush. There is no end to my love for you, for I
have eaten the owl’s egg, endured the sharpening of spoons.
When you see me in my uniform, act unconcerned.
The pin and pomegranate will suffice to show
the workings of my mind. I am up to my eyes
in onions. Sweetheart. Undress and read this.
Three Paintings
1 The One-Eyed Flautist Plays for the Prince
Minims have one eye, crotchets, breves . . . quavers wink
with a quick wit. My one eye sees this, my good eye
can shape the invisible from inked-in rosaries.
For the glory of God’s blind angels, liquid pearls.
So. You find me difficult. Your gaze drops
to the floor, you fumble awkwardly. I pause, staring,
notice your mistress, Highness, edge from the scene,
though her own ghost rustles on my darker side.
Stuff your discomfiture. I cover my flute’s six eyes
till they fill with dreams beyond this brief audition.
I am only a moment away from bliss, the note
which almost bestows a kiss you cannot imagine.
As for the rest, call it unfortunate. Her punishment
was worse, whose sweet face then is locked forever
in my inner eye. I would suffer as much today
to see her see me whole. Now let me play.
2 The Virgin Punishing the Infant
He spoke early. Not the goo goo goo of infancy,
but I am God. Joseph kept away, carving himself
a silent Pinocchio out in the workshed. He said
he was a simple man and hadn’t dreamed of this.
She grew anxious in that second year, would stare
at stars saying Gabriel? Gabriel? Your guess.
The village gossiped in the sun. The child was solitary,
his wide and solemn eyes could fill your head.
After he walked, our normal children crawled. Our wives
were first resentful, then superior. Mary’s child
would bring her sorrow . . . better far to have a son
who gurgled nonsense at your breast. Googoo. Googoo.
But I am God. We heard him through the window,
heard the smacks which made us peep. What we saw
was commonplace enough. But afterwards, we wondered
why the infant did not cry. And why the Mother did.
3 Jane Avril Dancing
What you staring at? Buy me a bleeding drink! Jane Avril
yelled in rough red French for more wine, her mind
in a pool on the table. She had seen better days.
Me, I thought her lovely still. I am a man susceptible
to beauty. Sometimes she sang to her own reflection.
Some love song. Even her dress seemed grubbily sad.
. . . sweetest lips, I want to taste you,
something la la la embrace you . . .
But I had my own problems, that winter of absinthe,
impotence, Paris empty and the bitch off with Dufy.
I loved her almost as much as she thought I did.
Jane was a pale motif on darker shades, and I
a shadow of my former self, when she returned.
She gave me a flower and whispered Love me. Darling.
What is joy? I keep the petals. She promised everything
that afternoon, though what I remember now is the look
which only she could throw and la la la Jane Avril, dancing.
Mouth, with Soap
She didn’t shit, she soiled or had a soil
and didn’t piss, passed water. Saturday night,
when the neighbours were fucking, she submitted
to intercourse and, though she didn’t sweat cobs then,
later she perspired. Jesus wept. Bloody Nora. Language!
She was a deadly assassin as far as
words went. Slit-eyed, thin-lipped, she
bleached and boiled the world. No Fs or Cs,
Ps and Qs minded, oh aye. She did not bleed,
had Women’s Trouble locked in the small room, mutely.
In the beginning was The Word and, close behind,
The Censor, clacking a wooden tongue. Watch out
for the tight vocabulary of living death. Wash out
your mouth with soap. She hoovered on Sundays, always,
a constant drizzle in her heart; below it The Big C, growing.
Big Sue and Now, Voyager
Her face is a perfect miniature on wide, smooth flesh,
a tiny fossil in a slab of stone. Most evenings
Big Sue is Bette Davis. Alone. The curtains drawn.
