Wolf Tongue

by Barry MacSweeney

  Cavalry At Calvary

  (for Maggie O’Kane)

  All aboard, it’s party time, with

  my averring slut receptionist.

  In the land of panty punishment,

  she’s king.

  I traipsed around in belting sleet

  the glades and glens

  searching my ghost of Pearl.

  Pearl in borage by the tadpole pool.

  Pearl on the law, hair lashed backward,

  facing the great west wind

  from Alston and Nenthead.

  Pearl on Noble’s trailer, squinting into the sun,

  lambing done for the day.

  Then I lost my mind in Sarajevo: twice, every night.

  I was all hitched up with a dying beauty, Irma Hadzimuratovic,

  across four columns, 12 cems deep, final edition. She was stable

  at the time

  but I could not stop dreaming of Pearl,

  her bare feet driving the brown trout mad.

  We were Herculesed out of Sarajevo, terrifically

  muscular, Spielberg almost, and

  everyone spoke of us in harried whispers,

  7, 9, or 10 o’clock tones, we were moved around

  like pit pony adverts, double column change please, page nine.

  Panic over, the doctor said.

  Irma, I know the surgeons have rebuilt your bowels and your back.

  Irma, in the agony of the night, in the filthy bombshell bombhell,

  under the nostrils of the TV cameras, freak show

  brilliance, foaming at the mouth

  for the worldwide page of the Shields Gazette, baby. Irma,

  dying on your little side, arm the colour of fresh milk.

  Irma, page one if there’s nowt better, pet,

  for this edition only,

  I love you today as much as Pearl.

  From The Land Of Tumblestones

  O the rare gold

  under the tips of the trees.

  October the long shadows, new jobs with the power station

  over the law, strange restlessness of winter, ovens

  long closed down the dale.

  The cold-blooded couriers of planned unemployment

  were not then in full station.

  Again I woke at four, sky tar-black, then the bull

  over Africa, and heard him go, quarter-ironed,

  thunder-heeled to the west, to Penrith and Appleby, Olympia

  hammering out chrysanthemum and leek show results.

  Long time over the law he was back, longing

  for my saliva-gushing tongue, my path spittle,

  my bright-eyed, brown-eyed face, my grip fingers

  when berry collecting, red or blue, in our

  upland empire.

  I moved my hands in little mitts as best I could.

  We strode together daily

  over sullen ghosts of lead,

  the boom of collapsed shafts,

  no longer mastered by men. Cold ovens.

  Borage groves sawn down by Jack

  in the night.

  Eventually I would write, not say,

  I loved you, special consonants and vowels

  recorded on paper up here

  in the high country: white water,

  foaming tumblestones, wet and grey days, or

  brilliant Aprils and Septembers, shine, shine, shine,

  I loved you absolutely all of the time.

  Dark Was The Night And Cold Was The Ground

  Pearl: beautiful lustre, highly prized gem,

  precious one, finest example of its kind,

  dewdrop, tear of Mary, reduced by attrition

  to small-rounded grains.

  Pearl in the Borage up to her waist.

  Pearl in the wildmint.

  Pearl in the wind-spilled water.

  Pearl flecked in the sunlight, one

  foot here, one there, knuckles on hips

  on the stile, all angles and charms.

  Pearl adrift in the rain through the whispering burn.

  So much sighing at her own distress: a-a-a-a-a-a-.

  Pearl looks in the mirror of the molten water,

  sticks out her tongue and all you get

  is a splash on the path.

  I looked into her face and was humbled once again.

  Lipstick, she said, on a slate in the rain,

  is a complete nobody to me.

  I’d like a square meal daily

  for me and my mam.

  Pearl And Barry Pick Rosehips For The Good Of The Country

  Hammers and pinions, sockets, fatal faces

  and broken bones. That was after Pearl.

  All mornings the sapphire sky, judge wig clouds, here

  to Dunbar, made especially gentle because

  turned left towards Ireland and soft rain, air delicious

  with scent of borage and thyme, dreaming, dreaming,

  dreaming and dreaming of Pearl. She gripped her Co-op coat

  and she gripped me, bonds not lost in azure eternity.

  When yearning for correct connections

  of consonants and vowels, verbal vagaries not excluded,

  taking into addition

  my often gobsmacked face, when I did not tug

  fast enough pointing to the dipper’s nest.

  We went to pick rosehips in the upland raw, above

  the whitewater and the falling tumblestones.

  Blue days raced by like a Hexham builder’s van

  late for lunch. We crushed a heady brew

  of grass and fern, and loved the slate grey rain.

  Surge, surge, I feel today, in the law drizzle, after

  tugging my Bar, but my tongue won’t move.

  I am just a strange beak, purring with my fruit.

  Open my mouth and water fountains down.

  I am responsible for the pool on the path.

  She had the most amazing eyes in history.

  Those Sandmartin Tails

  (for Holly Hunter)

  I could never speak.

  What good was I to anyone?

  I have, I learned later, the emotions

  of literate people: joyed when it shined, sun

  so fierce in the molten white water it took my breath away.

  I washed my hair beneath the ice-cold tumblestones.

  At night the wide-awake dream – waterproof

  lace-up Dunlop boots.

  We stretched our limbs in sheets of rain

  on the Killhope or Cushat, thumbing and fingering

  rain off our west-facing faces.

  Donegal sleet spoke to our faces uniquely,

  eyes a furnace of hazel and blue.

  Pearl I was and am, standing alone

  in the October spokeshadows of the hospital trees.

  Pearl I was and am, firm fingered with nails

  well cut, red mittens and bright smiles, alone

  in the streambed, feldspar and quartz, no words available.

  Deftly-ladled ankles, thanks to God, opal

  in the law light, toes wetted in the berylmintbed.

  Frost on the earth stiffens my clicking backdoor tongue,

  and despite the joy of a surging stream

  it is late and my soul is dark.

  Woe, Woe, Woe

  (for Jim Greenhalf)

  All of you with consonants and vowels

  and particular arrangement of phrases and sentences

  spoken and written, should have seen my eyebrows

  move around, my hands and arms go crazy.

  Not least you saw me lick the drizzle

  from the aching door post I leaned against,

  thinking it would lubricate my poorly-engineered tongue.

  Many of you shied away

  but it was really me who had the hurt

  as the argent rising moon looked in.

  I had a little Woolworth blackboard

  and the heathens want to tax my ABC
.

  I move my outstretched fingers gently, natural

  in a long-grassed, wind-moved world

  under this cobalt sky: O what delight

  to hear the dippers up the road

  drinking in an April morning.

  Yes, yes, it is true: I am always worried,

  fretting by the gate at the turn in the lane.

  All of that law rain soaking my face

  upturned to heaven. Once more a prayer unsaid.

  I can be fierce nonetheless

  to help hug against the many sores.

  Hands, palms, right and left, hardened

  by bucket-filling, bucket-fetching,

  bringing spring water for mam, slopping out beast clarts.

  Sick of it sometimes in the hard dark mornings

  and unable to adequately say so

  I throw the pails helter-skelter into the stinking drain hole,

  smiling quietly for you only.

  Blizzard: So Much Bad Fortune

  (for Jackie Litherland)

  I tear apart the smart brochures

  in my fit, my ABC war.

  Wind heaving tonight in the red berries and branches.

  Lit windows suddenly revealed in their stone shoulders.

  Halt I am with alphabet arrest, up

  a height in the snow my croaking throat soaked.

  Argent water hurled against the shifting tumblestones.

  Fierce bidding for space between me and the gale.

  Idiot, the wall said. Person so deficient in mind

  as to be permanently incapable of rational conduct;

  colloquial: stupid person.

  My tongue abandoned with unmade key.

  In my brain a terrible country, violent and wild.

  All those unspaced paving stones,

  all those untravelled distances,

  all of those sentences frozen in time.

  I can say less than a dog.

  Hailstones from Ireland and America thrown in my face,

  a duly convicted human full stop.

  In fragrant marigold heaven

  then I am not so fierce, so tongue-blind, dreaming

  of telling dales tales to who will listen,

  hands in the borage, toes in the watermint.

  The curlew’s cry my daily ode to beauty and delight.

  Is not the peewit’s high-up heather song all poetry to me?

  Lost Pearl

  My hands are in the clouds again, thumping the sun.

  And then I would be a wild, not mild, child,

  stamping my feet and cry, cry, cry,

  looking up at the mesmeric flicker of adult mouths

  as they said A and E and I and U and O, all joined up

  in terrible tresses, looking down at me,

  not quite forgiving mam my swollen grave inconsequence.

  I held myself in a corner laughing

  when they moved around their pretty vowels and consonants.

  Outside, are they blisters of hurt on the moon?

  Or the rims of craters before you fall defeated

  with the dogs on your blood?

  Will I return forty years from now – 1998 –

  to find the chalkboard frozen, nibs

  broken, inkwell shards scattered to four walls

  by Irish gales, through shattered windows, and

  no one ready to pick up a pen to say this:

  sentences are not for prisoners only.

  Now I will circle and uncircle

  my index fingers forever alone

  in the pools, spelling and unspelling

  our tragic consequences, smiling

  then not smiling, sunshine on

  borage and the restless waves of bees,

  rain and the silenced creak of the

  stile gate, because of the mixture

  of oil, dripped in the hinges

  from the emerald painted neck

  of the spoon-armed, thin nozzled

  drip-drop oil can – Castrol – and, yes, my dear,

  thank you for helping me over.

  We walked there and nearby always so very kindly.

  Pearl’s Poem Of Joy And Treasure

  Spout, pout, spout. Put my spittle all about.

  Bare feet pressing down wet upon the glamorous

  deciduous rugs of gold. Otherwise

  needles and cones, sheep bones, crisps

  and ox-cheek for tea.

  Dark despair around benights me.

  Above the burn I listen for the turn

  of the water over tumblestones,

  wag my tongue like a wand

  in the law wind. Fierce light

  invades my eyes and shut face, closed for the night.

  Unable to sleep, despite the hardness of the day,

  I cluck and purr.

  Why am I ashamed of my permanent silence?

  In the brilliant heather, shin deep, I am

  a good lass, purring and foaming, friend of green breasted

  plover, keen listener to the wind in the wires; all

  the bees and beasts understand

  my milky fingers and palms.

  I whet my whistle in the same pools –

  at one with the world.

  This white water upland empire, hidden

  moss grows in the cracks.

  I felt my way there when climbing

  the bank, press my head there, soft emerald cushions,

  when summer sleep takes on.

  The wind runs and roars from the west, from the ferry landings

  of Ireland; I listen for the freshly falling tumblestones,

  long and long until tears almost drown me

  for consonants and vowels, sentences of good measure,

  for an understanding of the very word syntax, brought

  to my cavernous mouth, practising the words Appleby, Penrith, Shap.

  Rosehip plucker, mitts needing repair,

  here mam, on the sideboard, longing

  for the words capital letter, Ordnance Survey map, to

  read the true height of the law, emphasise my longing.

  Twine my tongue and ease its itch.

  Make the sky so borage blue.

  Let the argent stars shine upon my upturned smiling face

  and furnish me with hope.

  I need all the love I can hold.

  Pearl At 4 a.m.

  Moon afloat, drunken opal shuggy boat

  in an ocean of planets and stars.

  Fierce clouds gather over me

  like a plaid shawl.

  Gone, gone, click of quarter irons

  to Nenthead, Alston and beyond.

  I moved my mouth in the darkness of the kitchen,

  spittle poured wrongfully into the pan fat.

  Snow once more

  in my broken face, reduced

  to licking the swollen door post. Just a gargoyle.

  Death upon us like a stalking foot-soldier, high

  and mighty on the law, bayonet

  fixed. A sudden glint there, and that’s it.

  Spluttering lard

  and strange sparks

  ignite my mind, for I am in love

  with something I do not know.

  It is the brusque wind,

  the nearest falling tumblestones

  dislodged by the spate, the finest

  snowdrops under heaven.

  Pearl’s Final Say-So

  Fusillade of the sun’s eye-piercing darts.

  Then sky from Dunbar and the long curve strands

  arrives laden with rain: O these winds which move

  my golden hair and heart and the fierce tips

  of my beloved whispering trees.

  The damage has been done with moon-kissed me, running

  and racing downhill, flung beside myself

  with silence or groans into clart-filled ditches and drains.

  Where is my fierce-eyed word warrior today? Slap with violence

 
all you wish night and day, my language Lancelot – left hand

  margin Olympia 5022813 – ABC impossible – and

  I struggle and struggle but mean to win my way in

  (cat, sat, bat, mat!): only the peewit,

  the puffed lark – look at him rise ardent-breasted

  as the tractor comes by – and chough with poetry

  in the grass-turning, wind-burning morning. Say Nowt.

  Sun and rain, wild perfume in my poor clothes

  from heather and bilberry and the faint remaining

  smell of sheep-dip on my neatly-sewn hem by mam, all wild

  as anything on the Cushat. Then as the great winds sweep

  across my frozen tongue I lean and lie and weep

  for want of proper placing of full stops and all other means

  of regular punctuation; I draw them in the grass

  but the wind just drives them away from me. Wet-footed

  I tread home alone as the beasts are put in and the byres closed.

  Lance, lance, Lancelot, let me practise that, index fingers

  working the keys, corporal acting as sergeant: yes, leave

  your argent blade inside my aching brain, its light

  will help me find the way towards the proper letters of my ABC –

  for I am Pearl, idiot by ford and stile, stile which does

  not squeak now, idiot awash beneath the tumblestones,

  receiver and glad conjuror of hailstones from the law

  whose inevitable forwarding address is my face and knuckles

  and who will forever be the agents which cool my blood.

  And mam has let the stove die – not like her – so it is cold tonight.

  Typewriter he taught me down the dale – mitts on – Red mittens –

  and the sun’s last lances lingering lovingly in Penrith

  & Kirkby Stephen, where clatter of brief-legged ponies

  hammered in my heart, but mossbank stones pillowed my spirit:

  before the awesome black velvet went over my eyes

  up a height in the last wilderness on the frozen law.

  Those faraway jewels and halo brooches rived from darkness:

  Stars!

  THE BOOK OF DEMONS

  (1997)

  for Jackie Litherland

  beloved comrade and warrior queen

  Ode To Beauty Strength And Joy