A lorry-load of stuff
It was the green lorry with its greasy curtain
like a leather apron,
backing into the lane behind the terrace
for a lorry-load of stuff.
Cardboard boxes of books from the last move,
not opened since. That’s thirteen years
where A Beginner’s Guide to Birdsong
and Marxism Matters have not been wanted.
Two plastic caterpillars, clattering
like tongues. They were new once,
expensive enough to keep for no purpose.
The boxes exist, though they don’t fit.
A turquoise baby-bath, impregnated
with the white-knuckle grip of one baby
and the fat relaxed fist of the other.
One afternoon it served as a sledge
before the proper sledge, this one
(which we also don’t want). Remember those woods,
and our stopped breath that headlong
downhill with both boys crammed in front.
A proper lorry-load of stuff
needs bits of wood, likely shapes
that finally won’t hold shelves up.
It needs a toddler’s bike
hand-painted silver by a nine-year-old
then torn apart to make a go-kart.
If there is old food (lentils,
tins with rust-spots, onion sets
that never got planted, or could be gladioli)
so much the better. In a climate too cold
for cockroaches, you can afford to be careless
of larder shelves. And your lorry-load
is incomplete without the photographs
you kept taking, badly, from duty,
interrupting the happiest moments
as you saw them. The booty
of time, it was going to be. Lose them
to the panting of the lorry’s engine
impatient now, throbbing, and to the man
parting the curtain, chucking stuff in.
Virgin with Two Cardigans
There’s a stone set in the car-park wall
down at knee-level
which commends her.
There are these relics: a scrap of wool,
a lost button, an unfollowed pattern.
There is her stone, set in the car-park wall
its flinty lettering so bright cut
it would blind her.
Here, on this path, slowly, leaning
on two sticks, she still comes.
Trying to know all the new faces
she looks about her, tortoise-sweet.
How patiently she wants God to unbutton
her two cardigans,
but he is slow.
Here, buttoning her cardigans
with lumpy fingers she bungles
in the lee of a breeze-block wall.
Virgin with Pineapple
Virgin with the Globe as a Golden Ball
Virgin with Two Cardigans
pushing a pearl button
into the gnarl of its hole.
Ice coming
(after Doris Lessing)
First, the retreat of bees
lifting, heavy with the final
pollen of gorse and garden,
lugging the weight of it, like coal sacks
heaped on lorry-backs
in the ice-cream clamour of August.
The retreat of bees, lifting
all at once from city gardens –
suddenly the roses are scentless
as cold probes like a tongue,
crawling through the warm crevices
of Kew and Stepney. The ice comes
slowly, slowly, not to frighten anyone.
Not to frighten anyone. But the Snowdon
valleys are muffled with avalanche,
the Thames freezes, the Promenade des Anglais
clinks with a thousand icicles, where palms
died in a night, and the sea
of Greece stares back like stone
at the ice-Gorgon, white as a sheet.
Ice squeaks and whines. Snow slams
like a door miles off, exploding a forest
to shards and matchsticks. The glacier
is strangest, grey as an elephant,
too big to be heard. Big-foot, Gorgon –
a little mythology
rustles before it is stilled.
So it goes. Ivy, mahonia, viburnum
lift their fossilised flowers
under six feet of ice, for the bees
that are gone. As for being human
it worked once, but for now
and the foreseeable future
the conditions are wrong.
Cyclamen, blood-red
Cyclamen, blood-red, fly into winter
against the grey grain of concrete
eight floors up.
Winged, poised, intricate,
tough as old boots
flying the kite
of pure colour
season to season
under a laurel leaf
they make rebellion.
Piers Plowman
The Crucifixion & Harrowing of Hell
(from the C text)
‘It is finished,’ said Christ. Blood ebbed from his face.
He was wan and pitiful as a dying prisoner.
The lord of light closed his eyes to the light,
day shrank back, the sun darkened in terror;
The temple walls collapsed into rubble
solid rock split, and it seemed black night.
Earth shivered like living flesh,
the dead heard, and emerged
rising up from their deep-dug graves
to tell the world why this storm was wrenching it.
‘For a bitter battle,’ said one dead man walking,
‘Life and Death are wrestling in the darkness
and no one knows who shall be the winner
until Sunday, when the sun rises,’
that said, he sank down
a dead man, into deep earth again.
Some said it was God’s own son who died so well.
Truly this was the son of God,
Some said he was a sorcerer, and practised witchcraft,
‘Let’s try him, find out if he’s really dead
or still alive, before they take down the body.’
There were two thieves that suffered death
on the cross beside Christ. An officer came
and broke their bones, the arms and legs on each man.
But all shrank from laying hands on Christ.
He was King and knight himself, his nature God-given,
and none had the boldness to touch him in his dying.
Only a blind knight stepped out, holding his spear
that was ground keen and sharp as a razor.
He was named Longinus, and had been blind for long years.
Despite his protests, they pushed him forward
to joust with Jesus, this blind Jew Longinus.
No one else dared, of all those standing there,
to touch Jesus or take him down for burial,
only the blind man, who struck his lance through Christ’s heart.
Blood leaped down the shaft and melted the darkness
that sealed the knight’s eyes. As the light shone
he knelt and cried to Christ to forgive him
‘It was against my will that I wounded you,
I bleed to think of what I have done to you.
I yield to your mercy. Do what you like with me.
Take my land and my life, they belong to you.’
For a while in my dream I withdrew into the shadows
as if I would sink down into hell’s darkness.
There my sight cleared, there this was revealed:
out of the west a young woman came hurrying
gentle, benign, sweet-spoken,
compassion itself shining. Mercy was her name
and as she came she stared into hell’s mouth.
From the east, as it seemed in my vision,
her sister appeared, lightly stepping westward:
she was virgin, pristine, inviolable Truth,
wrapped in such virtue that she feared nothing.
When they met, Mercy and Truth together,
they asked each other about these signs and wonders
the din and darkness, and how the day dawned
and how a glow and glory lay at hell’s mouth.
‘I am dumbfounded, dazzled,’ said Truth,
‘I must go and make sense out of these mysteries.’
‘No mystery,’ said Mercy, ‘but signs of bliss.
A virgin named Mary became a mother
though no man touched her. She conceived by the word
and touch of the holy spirit, grew great, gave birth.
Without labour or loss she brought her child into the world.
God is my witness that my tale is true
and thirty winters have passed since that child was born
who suffered and died today, about mid-day;
it is his death which has darkened the sun
and made the bright world lightless, but this eclipse has meaning:
like the sun, man shall be released from shadow
when the light of life blinds the eyes of Lucifer.
The prophets and patriarchs have preached to us
that what was lost by a tree should be won back through a tree,
and what death felled, shall be death’s downfall.’
‘What friend of a friend told you that?’ asked Truth.
‘Listen to me. This is Truth speaking.
Adam and Eve, Abraham,
all their companions, all that are human,
all those prophets and patriarchs that suffer hell’s pains –
that light will never be allowed to lift them up
and have them out of hell – Mercy, stop mouthing
and hold your tongue, for I am Truth
and I tell this truth, that hell holds them.
Read Job, and let him put you right by his ruling
that hell allows no redemption.’
Mercy, unruffled, answered her sister.
‘I have grounds for hope, hope for salvation.
Poison drives out poison, the cycle is broken
Adam and Even shall find their redemption.
Of all venoms the worst is the scorpion’s.
No doctor’s skill can heal the site of his sting,
until the scorpion dies, and, held to the wound
drives out its own poison, turns sting to balm.
I would lay a bet with my life as stake
that this death will undo the deathly devilment
done to Eve in the earliest days.
And as the serpent seduced and beguiled,
so grace, which made all things, will mend all things,
and trick the tricksters by holy sleight of hand.’
‘Let’s stop all this,’ said Truth, ‘I see, not far off,
Righteousness running out of the north
from the cut of the cold. Let’s argue no more
for she’s the eldest of us, and knows most.’
‘True,’ said Mercy, ‘and look, from the south
Peace dressed in Patience, dancing towards us.
Love has longed for her so long, I think it must be that Love
himself has written to her. His love-letter
will enlighten us all. We’ll soon know the meaning
of this light that hangs over hell.’
When Peace, clothed in Patience, came up to them,
Righteousness curtsied to Peace in her rich clothing
and begged her to say which way she was going,
and whose hearts she would lift by the loveliness of her dress.
‘I am filled with longing to welcome them all,’
said Peace, ‘all those who have been hidden from me
by the pollution of sin and hell’s darkness,
Adam and Eve and a crowd of others,
Moses and more than I can name. Mercy shall sing
while I dance to her music: do so, dear sister!
For Jesus fought well for them, and this is joy’s dawning.
Love, who is my lover, has sent me a warrant
which declares that Mercy and Peace bring freedom
to release the human race from its prison,
for Christ has changed the nature of justice
into peace and forgiveness, through his grace.
Here’s the warrant,’ said Peace, ‘in peace I will both lay me down –
and to prove it is binding – and rest secure.’
‘Are you out of your mind,’ asked Righteousness,
or have you been drinking?
Do you really think that light there
has power to unlock hell?
Do you really believe it can save human souls?
When the world began, God gave his judgement
that Adam and Eve and their descendants
should die, and go down to everlasting darkness
for touching the tree and its sweet fruit.
Adam broke the law of our lord and denied his love,
by eating the fruit he gave up both love and law,
followed evil and fought against reason.
– by the letter of the law it is all over,
they must suffer for ever, no prayer,
no intercession can come near them.
They chose the fruit, let them chew on it.
And as for us, sisters, let’s not complain of it.
That apple bite was a landslip
which changed their landscape for ever.’
‘But I shall pray for them,’ Peace said, ‘for the end of their pain.
Joy and suffering are twined together so tightly
that one cannot be known without the other.
Hunger means nothing to full stomachs.
If all the world were like a swan’s breast,
who would know what white was?
If night never came, what would day mean,
and if God’s own tongue had not tasted death
how would he tell if was sweet or sour?
A rich man, living in health and ease
would never suffer, but for the death
that comes to all, equally, inescapably.
So God, who struck the light that began life
chose to be born human, to save mankind,
and be sold into death to feel the pain of dying,
which unknits all cares and ends suffering.
*
God placed Adam in peace and plenty,
God gave him freedom to sin and to suffer
to learn through this what his happiness was.
and God challenged himself to take on Adam’s nature
and know human fate in his own flesh.
He came from heaven, lived on earth, and now
will go down to hell, and discover
the depth of suffering. The dark world
opens to Christ, who lived in heaven’s light.
Christ will take the human race with him
on the same journey. Their descent into evil
will lead them to know where love is.’
‘Listen,’ said Truth, ‘I see and hear it happening.
A spirit speaks to hell and bids it unbar the gates.
‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates…’
A voice blazed from the light at Lucifer,
‘Prince of this place, tear these gates open
for the crowned King of Glory to enter them.’
Then Satan shuddered and said to hell
‘A light like this took Lazarus from us.
This is the moment of our undoing.
If this king enters, he will take mankind from us
and lead it where Lazarus has gone, and seize me.
Patriarchs and prophets warned of this
that such a lord and such a light would lead them.
Get up, Ragamoffyn, reach me those bars
from your Grandad Belial’s wife-battering
and I’ll stop this lord and his light.
Before this brightness blinds us, let’s bar the gates,
check his course, chain our doors, stop up the chinks
so no light leaps in at the loop holes or louvers.
Ashtaroth, get the lads moving, the whole gang of them,
to defend mankind. They’re ours, we’ll keep them.
Hurl down the brimstone, blazing and boiling
to flay the flesh of those who come near our kingdom.
Set the crossbows and the brass cannon
and blind his troops with our ammunition.’
‘Listen,’ said Lucifer, ‘I know this lord,
this lord and this light. From long ago I knew him.
No death can snuff out this lord, hell cannot cheat him.
Where he wishes, there he goes. But let him look out.
If he tears them away from me, he does it by force, not right.
For by right and reason, they belong to me
body and soul, the good and the evil.
For the lord of heaven himself promised it:
Adam and Eve and all their descendants
should suffer death and come to me for ever
if they touched the tree or picked the apple.
It was this same lord of light who gave the judgement,
and since he is truth itself, he must keep to it,
not tear from us what is ours, damned by justice.
We have had them with us for seven thousand winters,
legally ours, with no one arguing it.
Will he be untrue, who is truth itself?’
‘True,’ said Satan, ‘but all the same…
You trapped them and tricked them, trampled down his Eden.
Against his law and desire you slunk onto his land
Out of the Blue: Poems 1975-2001 Page 2