Collected Poems

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Collected Poems Page 42

by Peter Redgrove

Widower, The, 65

  Will of November, The, 283

  Winter Oat-Flies, 157

  Without Eyes, 20

  Wood, The, 180

  Wooden Pipes, 334

  Wooden Wheat, 292

  Young and Pregnant Spiritualist, The, 294

  Young Women with the Hair of Witches and No Modesty, 100

  Youthful Scientist Remembers, The, 102

  Zoe’s Thomas, 335

  INDEX OF FIRST LINES

  The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

  A bee in the library, 406

  A blackthorn winter. The trees lighter, 354

  A boggy wood as full of springs as trees, 103

  A coppice of strobing pillars and a young deer running, 382

  A dry brown bush feathered with mosquitoes, 144

  A floating green palace: the public park, 164

  A footprint in snow is not more impermanent, 3

  A ghost of a mouldy larder is one thing: whiskery bread, 31

  A great longhaired hog, glistening with the dew, 193

  A great white ear floating in the sky listening. I say, 237

  A Guinness erect on the bar, 449

  A horse dips his nose into dry shadow, 309

  A is for ash, which is primary trash, 148

  A large transparent baby like a skeleton in a red tree, 179

  A moth settled on the side of a bottle, 264

  A neat sunlit room, 384

  A pocket Moonbible by the lacy shore, 231

  A scarecrow, enlaced in bridals, 46

  A scarecrow in the field, 320

  A shower of swords from the sword tree, 165

  A smile painted red, 407

  A smoky sunset. I dab my eyes, 61

  A spiderweb stretched between the trunks, 38

  A sudden rose-garden in the bedroom, 460

  A swan stretching, 428

  A valley full of doctor apples, 252

  A warm tawny street. Houses buried in trees, 90

  A water-sprinkler seen in the seaward meadow, 437

  A waterfall in a vaporous glade, 467

  A wineglass overflowing with thunderwater, 215

  A young leggy cat, so glossy black, 335

  Acres of the sky having, 434

  Actor robed for a bravura role, 154

  After a day’s clay my shoes drag like a snail’s skirt, 102

  Ah, I thought just as he opened the door, 55

  All the flies are reading microscopic books, 145

  An autumn bluebottle, 264

  An impure, 301

  Apple-trees coralled behind, 417

  Argus, in a pulse of waves, 380

  As the ear of the wheat, the cone, 292

  At Mrs Tyson’s farmhouse, the electricity is pumped, 53

  At the climax of the illuminated, 379

  At work his arms wave like a windmill, 36

  Ate mackerel last night, 382

  Attend to the outer world, 58

  Because of Falmouth, 403

  Black cat sitting in the scotch mist, 285

  Blackening the white garments, 459

  Born with a little cap of slime, his caul, 183

  Bride and doll, 151

  Buzz-saw cry of the gannet, 478

  By mere breathing, she sees her own shape, 294

  Carriages sealed, and marked ‘reserved’, 246

  Caught in a fold of living hills he failed, 14

  Cloth woven on a loom whose spindle-weights, 190

  Clouds and mountains were invited, both the conscious, 275

  Coat over arm I step off the moss-silenced stairs, 30

  Darkness is a power. She haunts with power, 124

  Dawn, his first day, 131

  Dearly beloved. I should say, Friends, 70

  Death as pure loss, or immutability, 277

  Dipping into the Tate, 315

  Down the small path to the winding marsh, 299

  Dreaming of a dog, whose nostrils, 243

  Eating on the edge of death, 450

  Elderly and most, 435

  Even the bicycle-oil smelt of daffodils, 215

  Father led me behind some mail-bags, 388

  Final things walk home with me through Chiswick Park, 37

  Fluid pianism. It was as if, 476

  For a moment take into your two hands, 380

  Frog-leap plops into the sandy water, 184

  Generations of black snowflakes, frail and durable, 157

  God says ‘Death’ in a gentle voice, 187

  Grown-up idiot, see the slow-motion of him, 68

  Hard rubber in its silk sheath like a nightie, 312

  Having immured his new bride, 83

  He is very impressive. I am very impressed by him, 133

  He knew a clergyman he could say anything to, 398

  He stands under a bright sky, 227

  He switched on the electric light and laughed, 100

  He was a good husband to his family, 4

  He was eight when he started earning, 232

  He was hounded from one bride-chamber, 373

  He was lean, fast-moving, 470

  Her bronze hair beaten into a bearded face looking backwards, 209

  Her dress rushed and glistened as she went, 183

  Her great thoroughfare, 359

  Her menstruation has a most beautiful, 333

  He’s been somewhere far away for ten minutes, 47

  His dead-white face, 316

  His name translated meant, 463

  Humming water holds the high stars, 109

  I am a gardener, 74

  ‘I am afraid for the meat’, 107

  I am frightened. It makes velvet feel too tall, 109

  I chuck my Bible in the parlour fire, 241

  I don’t want to play, 17

  I feared the miracle, 440

  I feel emptied by the thunderstorm. She, 406

  I have always loved water, and praised it, 100

  I know a curious moth, that haunts old buildings, 142

  I lay in an agony of imagination as the wind, 11

  I love the cold: it agrees with me, 45

  I must raise a teashop in this place with my own two hands, 195

  I poured the dry sand, 454

  I rainwalked to Annalee in Lower Lodestone, 375

  I regard the wet brown eyes in the stubbled mask, 185

  I see a man and that man is myself, 53

  I sent her into the wine-glass to listen, 121

  I shift my shape into a shirt, and that, 348

  I sit in the hot room and I sweat, 63

  I throw a pebble in the lake, 438

  I toast Browning, 417

  I walk on the waste-ground for no good reason, 27

  I want a dew-keen scythe, 60

  I want it not to go wrong. I want nothing to go wrong, 106

  I was putting a bandage of cobweb on the sudden cut, 181

  In the bellies of the soft bronze flies, 333

  In the bright light which is the sun’s excrement, 201

  In the deep of the sea, a dandruff of plankton, 204

  In the Hall of Saurians, the light worked the bones, 310

  In the house of the Reverend Earth and Dr Waters, 105

  In the month called Bride, 146

  In the rainshower, 477

  In those glad days when I had hair, 274

  Is like the bow window, 452

  It is like living in a transistor with all this radio, 319

  It is the garden, 302

  It is the terrible Jesus, 163

  Jabez Dog felt very rich. Smells among the gorse, 179

  Leaves on their wooden shelves, 265

  Lights in the mist branching across the water, 279

  My father at the bonfire, 444

  My friend was gone. The sob wouldn’t come, 101

  My grey-ba
rked trees wave me in, 30

  My parents went down to the river to drink, 46

  My soapy meditation in my still-colliding bathtub, 186

  My teeth are very bad, but I am not to be blamed for that, 91

  My uncle Sam Lines always seemed, 136

  Neither the house nor the rooms, 35

  None of the visitors from teeming London streets, 216

  Now here I am, drinking in the tall old house, alone, 57

  Now, the spires of a privet fork from the hedge, 32

  ‘Now, we’re quite private in here’, 39

  On the stoneware platter, a peach of bloom, 204

  On the twentieth of this November, 471

  One who goes to and fro in summer, 357

  Orpheus’ swimming torn-off head, 373

  Palpitations – the moth-beats, 395

  People sailing down the river, 228

  Pepper and salt stubble, little, 459

  Rain marks cold coins in the water, 292

  Rapid brothy whispers in the bed, 97

  Rising above the fringe of silvering leaves, 33

  Sea, great sleepy, 322

  Seagull, glittering particle, climbing, 195

  See shells only as seawater twining back, 270

  See! the Woman is coming, 218

  Several hot days, 280

  Sex as solid prayers, 451

  She believes she has died, 283

  She has six-dimensional laughter, 127

  She is in love with the canoe-faces of horses, 409

  She offered the liqueur glass of Grenadine, 205

  She serves me my round plate of porridge, 410

  Shiny waterbeetles, 475

  Shirokov reported, 429

  Shut away here in Cornwall, 245

  Since the flamen dialis was not supposed, 347

  Sleep-feather, the sleep-feather, 268

  Slow-working in the slaughterhouse, 411

  Slut, her muddy fingers leave a track, 62

  So I take one of those thin plates, 17

  So it leaps from your taps like a fish, 386

  Somebody rolls a great window open, 165

  Splinters of information, stones of information, 96

  Stamped with authority, a scholar, 3

  Suddenly in this dream I was printer’s ink, 60

  Suddenly, it is autumn, 220

  Talonheaded with obsidian glances, 167

  That bird upon the birch branch stirs my ear, 12

  That day in the Interpreter’s house, in one of his Significant Rooms, 95

  That is a human skeleton under the cataract, 385

  The aerodynamics of the hold of the house, 287

  The artillery-men wait upon the big gun, 238

  ‘The Avenue of the Giants,’ he said calmly, 168

  The beefarm on her sloping meadows, the sweet, 372

  The birds can’t soar because all the breath, 353

  The birds squabbled and fell silent, 327

  The blind girl points at a star, 267

  The brown light of God all around, 360

  The butterflies pause to sip at nectar, 376

  The central heating buzzes, 337

  The change of life in her, 338

  The clouds of luminous mist from the sea, 334

  The cool seriousness, 399

  The cool tankard engraved in wriggle-work, 207

  The courtesan with a taper guides, 288

  The dainty skeletals of feet, 421

  The death of my mother, it, 343

  The dentist-conjurers, 442

  The dew, the healing dew, that appears, 284

  The dog must see your corpse. The last thing that you feel, 141

  The Duke of Burgundy, who represents, 300

  The dynamite doctors, 337

  The ferns, they dip and spread their fronds, 56

  The fishmonger staring at the brass band, 314

  The fly is yellowed by the sun, 29

  The grass-sipping Harvestmen, smelling, 206

  The grave of the careless lady who swallowed pips, 189

  The great batholith under the soil, 311

  The great reservoir, 469

  The greatest possible touch, to bathe, 329

  The hands in the womb, 334

  The iron ships come in with hellish music, 309

  The King’s Head, chopped off, 418

  The late houses are built over the early caves, 251

  The legibility of the evening, 303

  The lightning flashes, 331

  The little Christmas tree asserts, 468

  The little girl riding the fallen tree like a spindly horse, 208

  The lobster leans, and taps on the glass, 152

  The long esparto of the nether world, 249

  The long grass searches the wind, 14

  The lovely shimmering skins of water, 182

  The millionth leaf blowing along the path, 283

  The moon is the mansion of the mighty mother, 188

  The Mothers elect to keep their hair, 282

  The mountainous sand-dunes with their gulls, 99

  The Old Woman resembles a fairy-tale princess, 358

  The Parrot of Warlock’s Wood, 321

  The pornographic archives guarded by bees, 192

  The pug-nosed bluebottle butts my window, 184

  The Quiet Woman; the pub where men sat suckling, 304

  The reservoir great as the weight, 354

  The river green as its trees that stand, 259

  The roads are long metallic, 452

  The rouged fruits in, 234

  The Saint has multiplied her limbs, 462

  The scent in pulses blowing off her beds, 59

  The secret that was her marvellous beauty, 248

  The serpent was more naked than any beast, 347

  The shell the skeleton of all the waves, 396

  The shipwright’s beauty, who butchers the forest, 263

  The shower withheld matures to thunder, 317

  The sire of branches and air, 222

  The skin-of-the-earth-shining, 473

  The skull formed in bliss, judging by its grin, 151

  The sky is dead. The sky is dead. The sky is dead, 56

  The small wind of a fly’s wing stirs my thumb, 13

  The soft modelling for hours, 289

  The spider combs her beard, 340

  The spider creaking in its rain-coloured harness, 217

  The spider in her draughty great halls, 427

  The spider of the wainscot, 336

  The stone church whitewashed for navigation, 136

  The summer before last I saw my vision, 134

  The summer mice are fat as butter, 328

  The terrace is said to be haunted, 27

  The tidal wave, 434

  The tide of my death came whispering like this, 10

  The train’s brakes lowing like a herd of cattle at sunset, 191

  The trees were dark as bears, and moved disturbingly, 397

  The two suns, 403

  The unclean and desperate interlopers, 420

  The vast brown shallows planted with seaweed, 203

  The Virgin Mary gave birth to Dionysus, who said, 132

  The warship glides in like a malicious buffet of cutlery, 222

  The water-psychiatrist: the plumber, 272

  The waves break on the shore with a scent, 278

  The weather, opening and closing, 355

  The wet wings of birds into the air, 63

  The whirling pole bound up in linen, 235

  The white pillar of water throws itself, 188

  The wind blows furiously through the laurel grove, 202

  The woman in the besmutched dress, 143

  The wood ticking like a water-clock, 180

  The wooden desks, the wooden stools, 353

  The young spiritualist giving birth, 349

  Their bodies all uncanny slime and light, 239

  There are windows, little sliding traps, 145

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sp; There is a churchy rock, 225

  There is a door opening on, 121

  There is a fragrant and spiky small tree, 396

  There is dead wood in this author, 126

  There was a siege of dreams, 404

  These are the huge old, 440

  They are not sheep on our hills, but rain-bringers, 125

  They come flickering down the lane, 412

  They do not need the moon for ghostliness, 28

  They have smoothed their mounds down, 224

  They tell of thunder picked up on the teeth, 383

  Thigh-deep in black ringlets, 158

  This is an impossible event, 318

  Thunder over lake, a beating, 411

  To endeavour by drinking to condense, 304

  To pass by a pondbrink, 29

  Today, to begin with, she will do without eyes, 20

  Touching my tongue, 476

  Two barmaids play by squirting beer, 300

  Two photographs stand on the dresser, 16

  Warming his buttocks on the hot stone at his master’s threshold, 34

  Water is bad for him, much too exciting, 229

  Water makes her way, accustomed, 219

  We are glad to have birds in our roof, 9

  We cannot hear the voice, 472

  We had a fine place to come, 28

  Well, in good time you came and gave it, God, 65

  What a child fears most, 371

  What are you doing?, 21

  When he was dug up his bones were found covered, 185

  When I stroke her arms, 339

  Where did the voice come from? I hunted through the rooms, 15

  Where we have come to now, pausing on our walk, 10

  While eating a crisp ice-cold lettuce at Pod’s Kitchen, 194

  With a supple action, 371

  Working in a little tent, 443

  Yawning, yawning with grief all the time, 65

  Your moon ties a dark, 166

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781448130177

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Jonathan Cape 2012

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  Copyright © Peter Redgrove 2012

  Peter Redgrove has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  Neil Roberts has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of the Introduction and Notes

 

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