Seek partial absolution in the small
Though welcome chance that this was just a lapse
Of discipline, or else try to forestall
Our nagging conscience with the thought that chaps
Like that have their own backs against the wall
In hotspots missing from the moral maps
Drawn up for those, like us, who find it all
Too much and hope they’ll keep it under wraps
Rather than let such brutal truths appal
Our tender consciences. If something snaps
In them from time to time, or what they call
“Enhanced interrogation technique” taps
Into some vein that otherwise we’d call
Downright barbaric, then it’s just those gaps
In our quiet lives that keep us lot in thrall
(Or so we tell ourselves) to value-schemes
Or moral codes that may be just the thing
For bien-pensant couch liberals whose dreams
Of pure, uncomplicated justice cling
To past ideals and balk at any themes
From a nightmarish present. Yet the sting
In such an attitude (although it seems
At least a half-way decent ruse to bring
Relief from those soul-harrowing extremes)
Is how it tempts our consciences to string
Along with what the water-boarding teams
Took as their ready-made excuse to wring
Truth out of him as if the end redeems
The chosen means by any trick to swing
The calculus in ways that brute regimes
Have always found most conscience-quieting
Should doubts arise. Then comes the screwball bit
That made the headlines: how his one desire—
When word came through that now they’d better quit
The rough stuff lest their prisoner expire—
Was that his torturers provide the kit
That Khalid Sheik Mohammed would require,
Should time and straitened circumstance permit,
In order to design what any buyer
Of top-class vacuum-cleaners might think fit
For purpose. So as further to inspire
His wished-for change of heart the guards would sit
Around, serve tea and biscuits, and enquire
Respectfully what special features it
Might have, or whether they could one day hire
The thing, or: cleaners are a piece of shit,
So why not give the world a new spin-drier?
Still it’s worth asking what might lie behind
His choice if not (as most reporters found
It prudent to suppose) signs of a mind
Either unhinged by guilt or losing ground
To distant memories of tasks assigned
Way back when his grad student skills were crowned
With worldly recompense. This homely kind
Of moral saw may strikingly resound
With vox pop and yet leave us apt to find
Its leaky vessel running hard aground
On shallow sentiments we’re disinclined
To take on board whoever may propound
Them, whether pious editorials signed
By lying hacks or journalists renowned
For having their high principles defined
By loyalty to the biggest crook around.
So let’s admit the issue’s not just one
Of blood-crazed lunatics, though this may suit
The purposes of Daily Mail or Sun
Reporters as a handy substitute
For truthful headlines editors won’t run
When jobs are on the line or suchlike brute
Realities obtrude. One tale not spun
By them concerns that episode en route
To 9/11 when he’d first begun
The plan to cleanse all things that might pollute
His soul despite its fixed resolve to shun
Each speck of dust like the forbidden fruit
That, soon as tasted, left that soul undone
And mocked its one vocation: to refute
The infidel or show the world what’s won
Simply by staying true to the pursuit
Of spotless self-perfection. Then we might
Find time and fresh incentive to re-think
Those vacuum-sealed ideas of wrong and right
That vetoed all our vain attempts to sync
Two such brain-stunners: how Domestic Flight
175 could vanish in a blink
Of pure apocalypse, and how delight
In cleaning dust and dirt from every chink
In US homes could finally incite
Such righteous zeal as pushed him to the brink
Of mayhem and beyond. Thus black and white
As moral colour-scheme looks prone to shrink
The options down too far and leave it quite
Beyond us to work out the Hoover link
(Appliance, not J. Edgar). That’s the slight
Though vital tweak that might undo the kink
In our own moral wiring or the blight
Of planks concealing motes that lets us wink
At crimes near home yet turn the screws down tight
On those kept under till they’re kept in clink.
THE LINE OF DUTY (SESTINAS)
Of the 11 undercover police officers publicly identified, nine had intimate sexual relations with activists. Most were long-term, meaningful relationships with women who believed they were in a loving partnership.…Jenner, who had a wife, appears to have lived more or less permanently with Alison, rarely leaving their shared flat in London.…It was an arrangement that caused personal problems for the Jenners. At one stage, he is known to have attended counselling to repair his relationship with his wife. Bizarrely, at about the same time, he was also consulting a second relationship counsellor with Alison.
—The Guardian, March 1, 2013
I sometimes wonder, but it doesn’t do
To bring the topic up. In any case
He rings me every three days while he’s gone
And lets me know each time he’s coming back,
So I can tell the kids and count the days
And wonder where he went but never ask.
His wife and kids, I wonder if they ask.
I sometimes think about them, what they do
When he’s away from home, how all the days
And nights go by while he’s out on the case,
Although our team’s devised all sorts of back-
Up stories for the whole time he’s been gone.
This time it’s seemed an age that he’s been gone
But now he’s here again so let’s not ask
Him awkward questions. Nice to have him back,
Though my friends ask me: what does that guy do
In his months off? Suppose it’s just a case
Of needing other stuff to fill his days.
He seems to be away much more these days,
Although I checked the dates and he’s been gone
Less than a month this time. Still, just in case
He turns up suddenly, I thought I’d ask
The kids to maybe think what they could do,
The next time round, to welcome Daddy back.
Routine report: informant says he’s back
With her, the suspect, hanging out most days
With that lot while they’re planning what to do
For next week’s anti-fracking march. We’ve gone
Out of our way so as not to have to ask
How she fits in. Still it’s a dodgy case.
I’ve come to the conclusion he’s a case
Of chronic itchy feet. This time he’s back
And beating all about the bush to ask
If he can hang out for the next few days
With my lot
. Better now than if he’d gone
When there was that “who snitched on us?” to-do.
No word for weeks now, and I find most days
I know it’s just the case he’s upped and gone,
Rather than ask “come back” as some might do.
* * * * *
Feel a bit shitty, but it doesn’t do
To brood about it now that the whole case
Looks like collapsing. If the thing had gone
To plan and I’d brought all that info back,
Then cut loose just before the court-room days
No hack reporter would have thought to ask.
Funny, she seemed too politic to ask,
Or seemed to think the best thing she could do
To stifle doubt was occupy her days
With yet more eco-warrior stuff in case
Her nights brought all the missing details back
To frame the unasked question: where’s he gone?
Or did she maybe figure where I’d gone
And why, but play along because to ask
The question squarely when I next came back
Would have kicked off the kind of how-d’you-do
That meant me being booted off the case
And you left one guy short on demo days.
Won’t say I don’t have rotten-feeling days,
Now that it’s plain to see how things have gone
All pear-shaped with the prosecution case
As well as nearer home, or homes. Don’t ask
Me stupid questions like “What will you do
To make amends?” because I’ll bat them back.
And yet I have these dreams of going back
To her again, like on the magic days
When we two really clicked, and then I do
Some pretty stupid things. In one I’ve gone
Back to her (our) old bedroom and I ask:
Please take me back and then we’ll drop the case.
Still, sentiment aside, if it’s the case
That keeping my old job means going back
To under-cover work, they needn’t ask
Me twice. Truth is, most of my time these days
Is spent just wondering where the passion’s gone
And what those crazy friends of hers might do.
I watch him thinking, like he used to do,
Back then, about some case, but how it’s gone
With this one I’ve not dared to ask for days.
AN INTERMITTENCE
Three years apart, and yet it might as well
Have been three weeks, or days. Although the old
Adage applied, that only time would tell,
This time in truth the only truth it told
Was of time’s self-undoing. For we fell
Back into thoughts and word-ways put on hold
Through all that time, and so conjured a spell
That freed us, old lags suddenly paroled,
To take the tale up just where I’d cut short
Its proper term. I grant you, some stuff went
On happening, we have it by report,
And there’s some evidence that we two spent
Those six years doing all the usual sort
Of real-time filling things. Still no event
From that blank interim’s the kind to thwart
My time-sense like these signs of time’s intent
To tweak our chronotope and so excise
That merely clock-watch interval of vie
Quotidienne. This might perchance advise
Some love-struck onlooker, like Donne’s, that we
Could perfectly embody his surmise
As touching that atemporal ecstasy
Of two that some few thirds may recognize
By kindred gift although the rest agree
With common sense in apperceiving small
Change outwardly (here quoting Donne again)
To mark where time’s hiatus might install
That lapse of years. The seven sleepers’ den
Is where the poet fancied it should fall
With love’s long slumber broken now and then
By waking dreams lest sleep too far enthrall
His soul and still the motions of his pen.
Long ways around I’ve gone so as not to dwell
Too closely on that border-zone patrolled
By time-lords every bit as keen to sell
Us back into time-slavery as scold
Time-wandering Proustians or threaten hell
For Platonists who’d force time to their mold.
Why, then, this temporizing last resort
To theory-talk when really all I meant
Was to convey how time-scales may distort
In life-redemptive ways? Yet that’s the bent
That launched me on this replay of Freud’s fort/
Da game, and speculation may have lent
The thing some real truth-content in the guise
Of thoughts more abstract only in degree
Than chunks of homely wisdom like “time flies,”
Though with this complication: that to see
The point, what you’d most need to analyse
Was how time lacked or lost a master-key.
Our vows said we were in for the long haul
And if, though apostate, I say amen
To that it’s not a prayer that should appall
The faithful. Else no figuring how when,
Six years on, chance contrived this curtain-call
It looped our time-line like Proust’s madeleine.
EPITHALAMION: FOR JENNY AND DAVE
(Santorini, July 2015)
Well, Jen, it’s time things went from good to bad,
Or (if you’re dreading this) from bad to worse:
Time for your big-occasion-wrecking Dad
To do his father-of-the-bride in verse.
How better celebrate the great event
That brings your friends, your family and these
Well-wishers here to bless the time they’ve spent
With you and Dave as happy invitees
To a match made in some place that’s as near
Heaven as makes no difference. And you look
So lyrical in all your wedding-gear
(Not the best phrase, I know) that any book
Of great epithalamia wouldn’t get
Top marks unless it gave you pride of place,
The two of you, and by so doing let
The world know how things ought to be in case
The world forgets.
To Santorini we’ve
Now come and it’s a knockout, just the spot
For future hopes that aren’t just make-believe
But tried and proved already through a lot
Of shared life-history. Such a friendly bunch
They are, these local people, though they’ve had
To put up with a full-scale credit-crunch
And economic ruin through a bad
Conspiracy of nations they might well
Have blamed on us. Then we’d seem just the kind
Of visitors who turn up for a spell
In paradise or great chance to unwind,
Especially since exchange-rates make the whole
Greek wedding-package currently a snip
For bargain-seekers happy in the role
Of roving creditors who’d asset-strip
The glory that was Greece. Though that’s as far
As could be from our wedding-plan, it speaks
Well of these folk that nothing’s come to mar
The entente cordiale between Brits and Greeks
So that—whatever cynics say—one gets
The feeling everyone’s somehow a part
Of our rejoicing and the culture lets
No shade of the economist’s black art
Fall on our nuptials. Let’s not press too hard
> On this but life’s hard locally, and there’s
A sense I have that Jen and Dave regard
Their choosing this place as a choice that bears
As much on facing life with all the strength
Their partnership affords as on the dream-
World recollections that will last the length
Of all their years together. It’s a theme
Quite suitable for verse, I thought, and then,
Why let so perfect an occasion go
Unsung?, and anyway, good-hearted Jen
Won’t mind if I come on and spoil the show.
Of course it’s famously a time to dig
Around for family anecdotes that make
The speech sound like some chronic stand-up gig
With brother-in-law stories (sorry Jake!)
And tales of—let me pluck one from the air,
Just one of many—how on the Sealink
Ferry a bunch of stray kids asked us “Where
Can we find Jenny Power?,” which made us think
That maybe you were destined for great things.
And so you were, and so I’m here to say
In due course, once this speech of mine takes wings,
Though first more anecdotes to clear the way
For take-off.
Jen, you always got my jokes
Way back from early childhood, which struck me
As a great virtue, since I’m one who pokes
Fun when he can and dearly likes to see
The point picked up at once, as on so many
Occasions when some jest or other drew
A welcome sign it wasn’t lost on Jenny,
Or other times—I treasure them—when you
Perceived the comic side of things that we’d
All failed to grasp. That’s why no qualm deters
For the Tempus-Fugitives Page 8