Collected Poems (1958-2015)

by Clive James

  Their pillow talk has not been much recorded,

  But there have been some transcripts:

  ‘Baweeng bok eeng,’ he sings, and she:

  ‘Baweeng chock. Eeng bawok eeng chunk.’

  Some experts think that ‘eeng’ must mean ‘again’:

  She asks for more of what he always gives.

  Well, that would fit, as his impressive member

  Lodges in her blancmange-lined sleeping bag.

  There are no blue whale marriage guidance counsellors

  Except perhaps one, seen alone near Cape Town.

  She sang ‘eeng’, always with a plangent cadence.

  She sang ‘eeng’ only. ‘Eeng eeng. Eeng eeng eeng.’

  Publisher’s Party

  for Posy Simmonds

  Young ladies beautiful as novelists

  Were handing out the nibbles and the drinks.

  Butch writers with bald heads and hairy wrists

  Exchanged raised eyebrows, nudges, knowing winks,

  Hints broader than their beams.

  The tall dark knockout who prowled like a lynx

  With the chicken satay cooled the optimists –

  Her polite smile said as if and in your dreams.

  One writer never sought her violet eyes.

  He concentrated on the parquet floor.

  Ungainly yet of no impressive size,

  Lacking in social skills, licensed to bore,

  He was the kind of bloke

  A girl like her would normally ignore,

  Unless, of course, he’d won the Booker Prize.

  Alas, he had. I can’t think of a joke –

  Only of how she lingered there until

  He woke up to the full force of her looks;

  Of how we rippled with a jealous thrill,

  All those of us who’d also written books

  Out of an inner need;

  And now a panel-game of hacks and crooks

  Had staked him out for her to stalk and kill –

  As if the man could write, and she could read.

  They live in Docklands now: a top-floor flat

  They can see France from. Yes, they live there, too:

  A house in the Dordogne. Stuff like that

  I honestly don’t care about, do you?

  But then I see her face

  Beside his in the papers. Strange, but true –

  Blind chance that picked his fame out of a hat

  Had perfect vision when it gave him grace.

  My new book’s hopeless and I’m getting fat.

  Literary Lunch

  Reciting poetry by those you prize –

  Auden, MacNeice, Yeats, Stevens, Charlotte Mew –

  I trust my memory and watch your eyes

  To see if you know I am wooing you

  With all these stolen goods. Of course you do.

  Across the table, you know every line

  Does service for a kiss or a caress.

  Words taken out of other mouths, in mine

  Are a laying on of hands in formal dress,

  And your awareness measures my success

  While marking out its limits. You may smile

  For pleasure, confident my love is pure:

  What would have been an exercise in guile

  When I was young and strong, is now for sure

  Raised safely to the plane of literature,

  Where you may take it as a compliment

  Unmixed with any claims to more delight

  Than your attention. Such was my intent

  This morning, as I planned what to recite

  Just so you might remember me tonight,

  When you are with the man who has no need

  Of any words but his, or even those:

  The only poem that he cares to read

  Is open there before him. How it flows

  He feels, and how it starts and ends he knows.

  At School with Reg Gasnier

  Gasnier had soft hands that the ball stuck to

  And a body swerve off either foot

  That just happened, you couldn’t see him think.

  He wasn’t really knock-kneed

  But he looked that way when he ran,

  With his studded ankles flailing sideways

  Like the hubcaps of a war chariot.

  At tackling practice we went at him in despair

  And either missed or fell stunned,

  Our foreheads dotted with bleeding sprig-marks.

  So glorious were his deeds

  That the testimonials at school assembly

  On the day after the match

  Went on like passages from Homer.

  He put Sydney Tech on the football map.

  There were whole GPS teams he went through

  Like a bat through a dark cave.

  Sydney High, with backs the size of forwards,

  Only barely stopped him,

  And they practically used land mines.

  Wanting to be him, I so conspicuously wasn’t

  That I would brood for hours in the library,

  One kid from Kogarah utterly wiped out

  By the lustre of another.

  Later on, as a pro, he won national fame.

  His shining story followed me to England:

  I couldn’t get away from the bastard.

  By the time I got a slice of fame myself –

  And we’re talking about the echo of a whisper –

  His nephew Mark was playing:

  Clear proof that the gift was in the blood.

  Reg is retired now

  And not writing as many poems as I am,

  But give me my life again and I would still rather

  Be worshipped in the school playground

  By those who saw him score the winning try,

  A human dodgem snaking through a bunch of blokes

  All flying the wrong way like literary critics –

  Or at least I think so,

  Now that I can’t sleep without socks on.

  At Ian Hamilton’s Funeral

  Another black-tie invitation comes:

  And once again, the black tie is the long

  Thin one and not the bow. No muffled drums

  Or stuff like that, but still it would be wrong

  To flout the solemn forms. Fingers and thumbs

  Adjust the knot as I recall the song

  About the gang that sang ‘Heart of My Heart’.

  Death brings together what time pulled apart.

  In Wimbledon, a cold bright New Year’s Eve

  Shines on the faces that you used to know

  But only lights the depth to which they grieve

  Or are beginning to. The body-blow

  You dealt us when you left we will believe

  When it sinks in. We haven’t let you go

  As yet. Outside the church, you’re here with us.

  Whatever’s said, it’s you that we discuss.

  We speak of other things, but what we mean

  Is you, and who you were, not where you are.

  No one would call the centre of the scene

  That little box inside the big black car.

  Two things we wish were true: you made a clean

  Getaway, and you have not gone far.

  One thing we’re sure of: now the breath is fled

  You aren’t in there, you’re somewhere else instead –

  Safe in a general memory. We file

  Inside. The London literati take

  Their places pew to pew and aisle to aisle

  At murmured random. Nothing is at stake

  Except the recollection of your smile.

  All earned it. Who most often? For your sake

  Men wrote all night, and as for women, well,

  How many of them loved you none can tell.

  Those who are here among us wear the years

  With ease, as fine-boned beauty tends to do.

  It wasn’t just your lo
oks that won the tears

  They spill today when they remember you.

  Most of us had our minds on our careers.

  You were our conscience, and your women knew

  Just by our deference the man in black

  Who said least was the leader of the pack.

  Dressed all your life for mourning, you made no

  Display. Although your prose was eloquent,

  Your poetry fought shy of outward show.

  Pain and regret said no more than they meant.

  Love sued for peace but had nowhere to go.

  Joy was a book advance already spent,

  And yet by day, free from the soul’s midnight,

  Your conversation was a sheer delight.

  Thirsty for more of it, we came to drink

  In Soho. While you read his manuscript

  You gave its perpetrator time to think

  Of taking up another trade. White-lipped

  He watched you sneer. But sometimes you would blink

  Or nod or even chuckle while you sipped

  Your Scotch, and then came the acceptance fee:

  The wit, the gossip, the hilarity.

  You paid us from your only source of wealth.

  Your finances were always in a mess.

  We told each other we did good by stealth.

  In private we took pride in a success:

  Knowing the way of life that wrecked your health

  Was death-defying faith, not fecklessness,

  We preened to feel your hard-won lack of guile

  Rub off on us for just a little while.

  For lyric truth, such suffering is the cost –

  So the equation goes you incarnated.

  The rest of us must ponder what we lost

  When we so prudently equivocated.

  But you yourself had time for Robert Frost –

  His folksy pomp and circumstance you hated,

  Yet loved his moments of that pure expression

  You made your own sole aim if not obsession.

  Our quarrel about that’s not over yet,

  But here today we have to let it rest.

  The disagreements we could not forget

  In life, will fade now and it’s for the best.

  Your work was a sad trumpet at sunset.

  My sideshow razzmatazz you rarely blessed

  Except with the reluctant grin I treasured

  The most of all the ways my stuff was measured.

  Laughter in life, and dark, unsmiling art:

  There lay, or seemed to lie, the paradox.

  Which was the spirit, which the mortal part?

  As if in answer, borne aloft, the box

  Goes by one slow step at a time. The heart

  At last heaves and the reservoir unlocks

  Of sorrow. That was you, and you are gone:

  First to the altar, then to oblivion.

  The rest is ceremony, and well said.

  Your brother speaks what you would blush to hear

  Were you alive and standing with bowed head.

  But you lie straight and hidden, very near

  Yet just as far off as the other dead

  Each of us knows will never reappear.

  You were the governor, the chief, the squire,

  And now what’s left of you leaves for the fire.

  Ashes will breed no phoenix, you were sure

  Of that, but not right. You should hear your friends

  Who rise to follow, and outside the door

  Agree this is a sad day yet it ends

  In something that was not so clear before:

  The awareness of love, how it defends

  Itself against forgetfulness, and gives

  Through death the best assurance that it lives.

  Press Release from Plato

  Delayed until the sacred ship got back

  From Delos, the last hour of Socrates

  Unfolded smoothly. His time-honoured knack

  For putting everybody at their ease

  Was still there even while the numbness spread

  Up from his feet. All present in the cell

  Were much moved by the way he kept his head

  As he spoke less, but never less than well.

  Poor Crito and Apollodorus wept

  Like Xanthippe, but not one tear was his

  From start to finish. Dignity was kept.

  If that much isn’t certain, nothing is.

  I only wish I could have been there too.

  When, later on, I wrote down every word,

  I double-checked – the least that I could do –

  To make it sound as if I’d overheard.

  But let’s face facts. He lives because of me.

  That simple-seeming man and what he meant

  To politics and to philosophy –

  These things have not survived by accident.

  Deals to be done and details to discuss

  Called me elsewhere. I’m sorry for that still.

  He owed a cock to Aesculapius.

  Socratic question: guess who paid the bill?

  Ramifications of Pure Beauty

  Passing the line-up of the narrow-boats

  The swans proceed downriver. As they go

  They sometimes dip and lift an inch or so.

  A swan is not a stick that merely floats

  With the current. Currents might prove too slow

  Or contrary. Therefore the feet deploy:

  Trailed in the glide, they dig deep for the thrust

  That makes the body bob. Though we don’t see

  The leg swing forward and extend, it must

  Do so. Such a deduction can’t destroy

  Our sense-impression of serenity,

  But does taint what we feel with what we know.

  Bounced from up-sun by Focke-Wulf ‘Long Nose’

  Ta-152s, Pierre Clostermann

  Noted their bodies ‘fined down by the speed’:

  And so they were, to his eyes. Glider wings,

  Long legs and close-cowled engine made the pose

  Of that plane poised when stock-still. In the air,

  High up and flat out, it looked fleet indeed.

  What pulled it through the sky was left implied:

  You had to know the turning blades were there,

  Like the guns, the ammo and the man inside

  Who might have thought your Tempest pretty too –

  But not enough to stop him killing you.

  The crowds for Titian cope with the appeal

  Of flayed Actaeon. Horror made sublime:

  We see that. Having seen it, we relax

  With supine ladies. Pin-ups of their time,

  Surely they have no hinterland of crime?

  Corruption would show up like needle-tracks.

  No, they are clean, as he was. All he knew

  Of sin was painting them with not much on.

  Even to fill a Spanish contract, he

  Fleshed out the abstract with the sumptuous real –

  Brought on the girls and called it poetry.

  Philip II felt the same. Why think

  At this late date about the mortal stink

  Of the war galley, graceful as a swan?

  The Serpent Beguiled Me

  Following Eve, you look for apple cores

  Along the riverbank, tossed in the mud.

  Following Adam down long corridors,

  You swing your torch to look for spit and blood.

  He got his chest condition when he learned

  Contentment made her curious. He thought

  He was enough for her, and what he earned

  Would keep her pinned while he played covert sport.

  Alas, not so. She claimed that privilege too,

  And even, under wraps, nursed the same pride

  In taking satiation as her due –

  A cue to call herself dissatisfied.

  That rate of change was coded by
the tree

  Into the fruit. The instant thrill of sin

  Turned sweet release to bitter urgency:

  His fig leaf was flicked off, and hers sucked in.

  From that day forth, the syrup she gave down

  Smacked of the knowledge that she felt no shame.

  The modesty for which she won renown

  Was feigned to keep her freedom free of blame.

  There was a time when, if he had not worn

  Her out, she would have lain awake and wept.

  Why was the truth, we ask, so slow to dawn?

  He should have guessed it from how well she slept.

  And when she turned to him, as she did still,

  Though the old compulsion was no longer there,

  The readiness with which she drank her fill

  Told him in vain her fancy lay elsewhere.

  He never faced the fact until she went.

  He tracked her down and asked her what was wrong.

  For once she said exactly what she meant:

  ‘It was perfect. It just went on too long.’

  State Funeral

  In memory of Shirley Strickland de la Hunty

  Famous for overcoming obstacles

  She finally finds one that checks her flight.

  Hit by the leading foot, a hurdle falls:

  Except when, set in concrete, it sits tight.

  Not that she hit too many. Most she cleared,

  Her trailing leg laid effortlessly flat.

  As in repose, at full tilt she appeared

  Blessed with a supple grace. On top of that

  She studied physics, took a good degree,

  Had several languages to read and speak.

  Alone, she wasn’t short of company:

  In company she shone. She was unique

  Even among our girl Olympians

  For bringing the mind’s power and body’s poise

  To perfect balance. Ancient Greeks had plans

  Along those lines, but strictly for the boys.

  Her seven medals in three separate Games

  Should have been eight, but she retired content.

  In time she sold the lot to feed the flames