Collected Poems

by Peter Redgrove

  One morning was awake, in Cornwall, by the estuary,

  In the tangy pearl-light, tangy tin-light,

  And the stones were awake, these ounce-chips,

  Had begun to think, in the place they came out of.

  Tissues of the earth, in their proper place,

  Quartz tinged with the rose, the deep quick,

  Scrap of tissue of the slow heart of the earth,

  Throbbing the light I look at it with,

  Pumps slowly, most slowly, the deep organ of the earth;

  And galena too, snow-silvery, its chipped sample

  Shines like sun on peaks, it plays and thinks with the mineral light,

  It sends back its good conclusions, it is exposed,

  It sends back the light silked and silvered,

  And talc, and kaolin, why they are purged, laundered,

  As I see the white sand of some seamless beaches here

  Is laundered and purged like the whole world’s mud

  Quite cleansed to its very crystal; talc a white matt,

  Kaolin, the white wife of Cornwall

  Glistening with inclusions, clearly its conclusions

  Considered and laid down, the stone-look

  Of its thoughts and opinions of flowers

  And turf riding and seeding above it in the wind,

  Thoughts gathered for millennia as they blossomed in millions

  Above its then kaolin-station within the moor,

  The place of foaming white streams and smoking blanched mountains.

  Asbestos had found this bright morning

  Its linear plan of fibres, its simple style,

  Lay there, declaring, like the others;

  Granite, the great rock, the rock of rocks,

  At home now, flecked green, heavily contented in its box,

  Riding with me high above its general body,

  The great massif, while its fellows, the hills of it

  Rise high around us; nor was lava silent

  Now it remembered by glistening in this light

  Boiling, and was swart with great content

  Having seen God walking over the burning marl, having seen

  A Someone thrusting his finger into the mountainside

  To make it boil – here is the issue of this divine intrusion,

  I am the issue of this divine intrusion,

  My heart beats deep and fast, my teeth

  Glisten over the swiftness of my breath,

  My thoughts hurry like lightning, my voice

  Is a squeak buried among the rending of mountains,

  I am a mist passing through the crevices of these great seniors

  Enclosed by me in a box, now free of the light, conversing

  Of all the issue this homecoming has awakened in the stone mind

  The mines like frozen bolts of black lightning deep in the land

  Saying, and the edge of their imaginings cuts across my mind:

  We are where we were taken from, and so we show ourselves

  Ringing with changes and calls of fellowship

  That call to us ton to ounce across Cornish valleys.

  The valleys throng with the ghosts of stone so I may scarcely pass,

  Their loving might crush, they cry out at their clumsiness,

  Move away, death-dealing hardnesses, in love.

  The house is full of a sound of running water,

  The night is a black honey, crystals wink at the brim,

  A wind blows through the clock, the black mud outside

  Lies curled up in haunches like a sleeping cat.

  SHADOW-SILK

  Rapid brothy whispers in the bed.

  It was like silk splitting in me.

  The house is full of the sound of running water.

  A wind blows through the clock.

  It is like a frail leaf-skeleton

  Shivering in a casket.

  We are heels over ears in love.

  The window-frame blackens.

  Below, the trees flood darkly,

  The wind butts in the curtain

  A doddering forehead.

  We have a one candle.

  Your hair is like a weir,

  Or fields of posture,

  In terrace upon terrace

  Rising forest murmur,

  And across the garden

  Frothily flows the ghost.

  The night is black honey,

  Presses hard on the glass.

  A sudden set! The stars are out.

  This is too much; adventuring nectars

  Wink with packed crystals

  That hang depth upon depth

  Age clotting the frame.

  I must close this picture-book.

  I must wade through these shadows.

  Black springs from the corners

  Brim the quartz-crystals

  Engorge the ewers

  Flood from the cupboards

  Soaking the dresses

  Pile under the bed

  In black satin cushions.

  That candle is unsnuffable!

  We are afloat!

  But the ring on your finger

  Spins without stirring,

  I pad through the undertow

  Reach out and close

  That heavenly almanac.

  Our wonder still lingers

  Over the covers

  As within the pages

  All the stars glitter.

  A wind blows through the clock

  And across the garden

  Frothily flows the ghost.

  THE MOON DISPOSES21

  Perranporth Beach

  The mountainous sand-dunes with their gulls

  Are all the same wind’s moveables,

  The wind’s legs climb, recline,

  Sit up gigantic, we wade

  Such slithering pockets our legs are half the size,

  There is an entrance pinched, a plain laid out,

  An overshadowing of pleated forts.

  We cannot see the sea, the sea-wind stings with sand,

  We cannot see the moon that swims the wind,

  The setting wave that started on the wind, pulls back.

  Another slithering rim, we tumble whirling

  A flying step to bed, better than harmless,

  Here is someone’s hoofprint on her hills

  A broken ring with sheltering sides

  She printed in the sand. A broken ring. We peer from play.

  Hours late we walk among the strewn dead

  Of this tide’s sacrifice. There are strangled mussels:

  The moon pulls back the lid, the wind unhinges them,

  They choke on fans, they are bunched blue, black band.

  The dead are beautiful, and give us life.

  The setting wave recoils

  In flocculence of blood-in-crystal,

  It is medusa parched to hoofprints, broken bands,

  Which are beautiful, and give us life.

  The moon has stranded and the moon’s air strangled

  And the beauty of her dead dunes sent us up there

  Which gave us life. Out at sea

  Waves flee up the face of a far sea-rock, it is a pure white door

  Flashing in the cliff-face opposite,

  Great door, opening, closing, rumbling open, moonlike

  Flying open on its close.

  INTIMATE SUPPER

  He switched on the electric light and laughed,

  He let light shine in the firmament of his ceiling,

  He saw the great light shine around and it was good,

  The great light that rilled through its crystalline pendentives,

  And marvelled at its round collection in a cheval glass,

  And twirled the scattered crystal rays in his champagne glass.

  He spun the great winds through his new hoover

  And let light be in the kitchen and that was good too

  For he raised up the lid of the stock-pot

  And dip
ped a deep spoon in the savours that were rich

  And swarming, and felt the flavours live in his mouth

  Astream with waters. He danced to the fire and raked it and created red heat

  And skipped to the bathroom and spun the shining taps

  Dividing air from the deep, and the water, good creature,

  Gave clouds to his firmament for he had raked the bowels

  Of the seamy coal that came from the deep earth.

  And he created him Leviathan and wallowed there,

  Rose, and made his own image in the steamy mirrors

  Having brooded over them, wiping them free

  Again from steamy chaos and the mist that rose from the deep,

  But the good sight faded

  For there was no help, no help meet for him at all,

  And he set his table with two stars pointed on wax

  And with many stars in the cutlery and clear crystal

  And he set thereon fruits of the earth, and thin clean bowls

  For the clear waters of the creatures of earth that love to be cooked,

  And until the time came that he had appointed

  Walked in his garden in the cool of the evening, waited.

  YOUNG WOMEN WITH THE HAIR OF WITCHES AND NO MODESTY22

  ‘I loved Ophelia!’

  I have always loved water, and praised it.

  I have often wished water would hold still.

  Changes and glints bemuse a man terribly:

  There is champagne and glimmer of mists;

  Torrents, the distaffs of themselves, exalted, confused;

  And snow splintering silently, skilfully, indifferently.

  I have often wished water would hold still.

  Now it does so, or ripples so, skilfully

  In cross and doublecross, surcross and countercross.

  A person lives in the darkness of it, watching gravely;

  I used to see her straight and cool, considering the pond,

  And as I approached she would turn gracefully

  In her hair, its waves betraying her origin.

  I told her that her thoughts issued in hair like consideration of water,

  And if she laughed, that they would rain like spasms of weeping,

  Or if she wept, then solemnly they held still,

  And in the rain, the perfumes of it, and the blowing of it,

  Confused, like hosts of people all shouting.

  In such a world the bride walks through dressed as a waterfall,

  And ripe grapes fall and splash smooth snow with jagged purple,

  Young girls grow brown as acorns in their rainy climb towards oakhood,

  And brown moths settle low down among ivories wet with love.

  But she loosened her hair in a sudden tangle of contradictions,

  In cross and doublecross, surcross and countercross,

  And I was a shadow in the twilight of her late displeasure

  I asked water to stand still, now nothing else holds.

  A SMALL DEATH

  My friend was gone. The sob wouldn’t come.

  They blow as they please. I owed her a sob.

  It sank back into ashes. I tried again

  It sank parching in vain. My friend was gone.

  She wouldn’t end. I couldn’t begin.

  I sealed my eyes shut. There photos awoke

  Where she nodded and talked along a green walk,

  Eloquent bee-hives, my rose pinned to her dress,

  A shadowy face under a wide straw hat,

  A sundial of sandstone warm with its time-telling.

  The sob began, I fostered, obeyed it,

  It reamed in my throat as she nodded and talked

  Then turned under me gasping.

  Seed brawled in my groin as she turned to me gasping;

  My groin stung alight; the filament faded.

  I woke from this stillness into a stillness,

  Aching godseed of stars, a vase of black flowers, an empty armchair,

  A night-laden window. I was emptied, quite emptied

  Of a small distress. I looked down: one tear

  Hung on a lash. It stretched to my cheek,

  Snapped, sparkled and sank.

  The sob wouldn’t come. I owed her a sob.

  My friend was gone. But she wouldn’t end

  I couldn’t begin

  THE YOUTHFUL SCIENTIST REMEMBERS23

  After a day’s clay my shoes drag like a snail’s skirt

  And hurt as much on gravel. You have mud on your jersey,

  This pleases me, I cannot say why. Summer-yolk

  Hangs heavy in the sky, ready to rupture in slow swirls,

  Immense custard: like the curious wobbly heart

  Struggling inside my pink shirt. Spring is pink, predominately,

  And frothy, thriving, the glorious forgotten sound of healing,

  And cheering, all shouting and cheering. With what inwardness

  The shadows of autumn open, brown and mobile as cognac,

  And the whole of my beer comes reeling up to me in one great amber rafter

  Like a beam of the purest sun, well-aged; as it travels the grass

  The dead smile an immense toothy underground, kindly.

  I cannot explain why. You pointed out that the lily

  Was somebody’s red tail inside their white nightie

  So much so

  That I am still sober and amazed at the starlight glittering in the mud,

  I am amazed at the stars, and the greatest wonder of them all

  Is that their black is as full as their white, the black

  Impends with the white, packing between the white,

  And under the hives of silence there are swarms of light,

  And padded between black comb, struggling white.

  I cannot explain this, with the black as full as the bright,

  The mud as full as the sunlight. I had envisaged

  Some library of chemistry and music

  With lean lithe scores padding the long pine shelves,

  Plumage of crystal vials clothing strong deal tables;

  Had thought that the stars would only tug at me slightly,

  Or sprinkle thin clear visions about me for study –

  Instead you point at that flower, your dress fits like a clove.

  THE IDEA OF ENTROPY AT MAENPORTH BEACH24

  ‘C’est elle! Noire et pourtant lumineuse.’

  To John Layard

  A boggy wood as full of springs as trees.

  Slowly she slipped into the muck.

  It was a white dress, she said, and that was not right.

  Leathery polished mud, that stank as it split.

  It is a smooth white body, she said, and that is not right,

  Not quite right; I’ll have a smoother,

  Slicker body, and my golden hair

  Will sprinkle rich goodness everywhere.

  So slowly she backed into the mud.

  If it were a white dress, she said, with some little black,

  Dressed with a little flaw, a smut, some swart

  Twinge of ancestry, or if it were all black

  Since I am white, but – it’s my mistake.

  So slowly she slunk, all pleated, into the muck.

  The mud spatters with rich seed and ranging pollens.

  Black darts up the pleats, black pleats

  Lance along the white ones, and she stops

  Swaying, cut in half. Is it right, she sobs

  As the fat, juicy, incredibly tart muck rises

  Round her throat and dims the diamond there?

  It is right, so she stretches her white neck back

  And takes a deep breath once and a one step back.

  Some golden strands afloat pull after her.

  The mud recoils, lies heavy, queasy, swart.

  But then this soft blubber stirs, and quickly she comes up

  Dressed like a mound of lickerish earth,

  Swiftly ascending in a
streaming pat

  That grows tall, smooths brimming hips, and steps out

  On flowing pillars, darkly draped.

  And then the blackness breaks open with blue eyes

  Of this black Venus rising helmeted in night

  Who as she glides grins brilliantly, and drops

  Swatches superb as molasses on her path.

  Who is that negress running on the beach

  Laughing excitedly with teeth as white

  As the white waves kneeling, dazzled, to the sands?

  Clapping excitedly the black rooks rise,

  Running delightedly in slapping rags

  She sprinkles substance, and the small life flies!

  She laughs aloud, and bares her teeth again, and cries:

  Now that I am all black, and running in my richness

  And knowing it a little, I have learnt

  It is quite wrong to be all white always;

  And knowing it a little, I shall take great care

  To keep a little black about me somewhere.

  A snotty nostril, a mourning nail will do.

  Mud is a good dress, but not the best.

  Ah, watch, she runs into the sea. She walks

  In streaky white on dazzling sands that stretch

  Like the whole world’s pursy mud quite purged.

  The black rooks coo like doves, new suns beam

  From every droplet of the shattering waves,

  From every crystal of the shattered rock.

  Drenched in the mud, pure white rejoiced,

  From this collision were new colours born,

  And in their slithering passage to the sea

  The shrugged-up riches of deep darkness sang.

  THE HOUSE OF TAPS25

  To P. D.S.

  In the house of the Reverend Earth and Dr Waters

  Moonlight strikes from the taps.

  In the daytime, it is sunlight, full clear beams of it!

  When they give water, these faucets, it is holy water,

  Or river water, with green shadows of great ship-hulls gliding in it.

  There are some also that bundle out exceptional ripe golden cornsheaves

  And blackberries also, and pineapples and nightshade and innumerable other kinds of berries.

  There is a large curved one like morning glory full of strong birdsong

  And the smell of woodsmoke mixed with wet nettles.

  Others I would not turn on again, not if you paid me, there are some

  That throw out glittering lead, or rushes of fire,

  And these are all made of wood, so that they smoke and scorch as they run,