Calling cattle from celandine and clover to mood,
Song of joy I sing.
Ecliptic Blue
In the cold when sea-mews flake the sky
With their curmurring fight for the eye
Of food on water blue, I think of snow.
I think alone.
I think of the sea its tall high waves
Of the eyes that it seeks, of the lives
That say the waves seek dead, it is not so
They are not dead.
For sea gives more than it takes and spreads
No stain of death on life of man, but treads
The dead for further flight, as sea-mews know,
As sea-mews go.
Poem
We must uprise O my people. Though
Secretly trenched in sorrel, we must
Upshine outshine the day’s sun: and day
Intensified by the falling prism
Of rain shall curve our smile with straw.
Bring plimsole plover to the tensile sand
And with cuprite crest and petulant feet
Distil our notes into febrile reeds
Crisply starched at the water-rail of tides.
On gault and greensand a gramophone stands:
In zebrine stripes strike out the pilotless
Age: from saxophone towns brass out the dead:
Disinter futility, that we entombing men
Might bridle our runaway hearts.
On tamarisk, on seafield pools shivering
With watercats, ring out the square slate notes.
Shape the birdbox trees with neumes. Wind sound
Singular into cool and simple corners,
Round pale bittern grass, and all unseen
Unknown places of sheltered rubble
Where whimbrels, redshanks, sandpipers ripple
For the wing of living. Under tin of earth
And wooden boles where owls break music:
From this killing world against humanity,
Uprise against, outshine the day’s sun.
Woodpecker
In elm no bird of jade
Shall creep with cold grey toes
For where I am when the spray
Of green sunlocks the bay
Married to song, mocks the day
In town no bird.
In town no bird alloy
Shall graze my heart’s shy grace,
For here at the lathe when the ring
Of steel threads the spring
For a chromium plane, I sing
In town no bird.
In town no bird, O greenscarlet
Fate on a white-eyed quest,
A black stave quavers the brain
Drills and derides the reign
Of shells with laughter’s bane,
In town no bird.
In town no bird, too late
To shrive with hot house tears,
For now with jazz in sky alone
Among the purr of metal wings
A coloured band resounds my grief
In town no bird.
Curlew
A curlew hovers and haunts the room.
On bare boards creak its filleted feet:
For freedom intones four notes of doom,
Crept, slept, wept, kept, under aerial gloom:
With Europe restless in hís wing beat,
A curlew hovers and haunts the room:
Fouls wire, pierces the upholstery bloom,
Strikes window pane with shagreen bleat,
Flicking scarlet tongue to a frenzied fume
Splints hís curved beak on square glass tomb:
Runs to and fro seeking mudsilt retreat;
Captured, explodes a chill sky croon
Wail-íng… pal-íng… a desolate phantom
At the bath rim purring burbling trilling soft sweet
Syllables of sinuous sound to a liquid moon
Till window, wide, frees thin mails of plume,
Fluting voice and shade through cloud���s moist sleet:
A curlew hovers and haunts the room.
Moorhen
That this, so common an event
In so deplorable a State
Should draw a wreath of joy
From our pale reeded hearts:
That she, without interference
Or compound political tags,
Can, so easily, paddle out
Her freshest brood of sleek black hens:
Stealing the water’s shine with elm—
Webbed stretch, the ribbons of sun
Winding around their necks:
Timely jerks purling through
Grisailles of rain – shocking the air
With scarlet bill and garter.
A bank rat sharpening his teeth
Might up on his haunches to listen:
A wise owl with rabbit ears
Could hardly frown at all this fuss.
Seagulls
Seagulls’ easy glide
Drifting fearlessly as voyagers’ tears:
Quay and ship move as imperceptively,
Without knowing we weep.
Cry gulls who recall
An ocean of uncertainty;
Greed of rowing men
Mere flies at the ship’s sides.
Last bargains roped and reached:
And as imperceptively regretted,
Tears of fury and stupidity
Reel down the runnels of those cheeks.
Fifth of the Strata
And the sea will insist
Persuade a path to follow,
Longs eagerly to cover
The green valley pastures:
To flow forward along
The sunken ribbed coomb
And dry river-bed… endlessly.
And it will succeed
Tomorrow follow
All gravel roads
And rise slowly around
The Dragon’s scaled Fort;
To leave nothing of Wales
But white island shining
The crest of Snowdon
Glittering with dark wintry-ice.
Find no woe in this:
For this is tomorrow.
And before tomorrow
England will be
For thousands of years
Lying below us
A submerged village
Like weeping Halkin;
When other and better banks
Dry from ocean beds,
Built of crystalline rock
And sharp shell and shale
Will arise for our freedom
For our feet to follow:
And this shall be always,
As it is never.
Thursday September the Tenth
So that magnetism pierces each blight
And shallow ring: sends a scaffold of light
Through suspended hills, drinks truculent sight
And water-silk of day, floating splashing
Eyelashes on about air, swilling
Swallows clean against Sunday, clearing
Breasts whiter than butterflies low over sill;
Who glazed this day? Fetched labourers to spill
About soil, spading like hairpins to till
Of earth. Who gently lifts a strawberry set,
Opens row to shine streamlets of violet sweat,
Sun concentrating on circlet of dust a banquet
Of warmth: tends garden twine unravelled on path,
Liquid gleam round each raceme of grass, an aftermath
That quavers like parakeet fresh out of its bath.
Who polished this day? String of mackerel and glue
Sized and scoured sky to its finest grain of blue:
Flashed motor spirit through each splint of wing: drew
And transfixed man at his most monstrous art of war:
Picked out world mildew and muddled indifference; saw
Heart, pressure of steel, culled into a sh
adowed claw
Sharpen infinity, and all trees of branched iron,
Leaves elliptical pinnate sprayed thinly over rinsed apron
Of space, their metallic hue so starkly crisp, enamel legion
Of the partial eclipse: darkening nature
Finding a ferret of lines in each feature:
Who clipped this white-eyed splendour? Barbed-wire-fixture.
Meat cover on slab of slate prosecuting inkstand
Cold basin and porcelain plate. Day’s bristol shine: a band
Of empty beer bottles, wine jars green for thirst. So reprimand
And commemorate, for this day will come again, war and day,
Imprisoning each other with shylock glint: betray
Clashing bayonets, hold up of sunny sideboard and pay.
Who ran with the sun sandpapered the way? You
Under arcade of bracelet blue: or was it the view
That clarified thursday, September nineteen forty-two.
House of Commons
When rose-hips red as braziers shine from the hedge
And spring with natural grace over quick snapping sill,
I suggest to you, is fear the backbone of a pledge,
The spine-cord of tradition, frail people on edge:
Those, who sit upstairs and make old promises with skill,
When rose-hips red as braziers shine from the hedge
And are taut and jumpy to catch from the ledge
So that to fill a promise means leaping the water-mill,
I suggest to you, is fear the backbone of a pledge;
That they do not hasten the experiment, but hedge
And let a brandy hen with its vermilion gill,
When rose-hips red as braziers shine from the hedge
Outshine them both, do what they would not with courage
Cross the wet mill and find the rare Dusky Crane’s Bill.
I suggest to you, is fear the backbone of a pledge
That people mild as ducks seem put out by the sedge,
By things so natural, preferring drudge and privilege.
When rose-hips red as braziers shine from the hedge
I suggest to you, is fear the backbone of a pledge?
Crossed and Uncrossed
Heard the steam rising from the chill blue bricks,
Heard the books sob and the buildings huge groan
As the hard crackle of flames leapt on firemen
and paled the red walls.
Bled their hands in anguish to check the fury
Knowing fire had raged for week and a day:
Clung to buildings like swallows flat and exhausted
under the storm.
Fled the sky: fragments of the Law, kettles and glass:
Lamb’s ghost screamed: Pegasus melted and fell
Meteor of shining light on to a stone court
and only wing grave.
Round Church built in a Round Age, cold with grief,
Coloured Saints of glass lie buried at your feet:
Crusaders uncross limbs by the green light of flares,
burn into Tang shapes.
Over firedrake floors the ‘Smith’ organ pealed
Roared into flames when you proud widow
Ran undaunted: the lead roof dripping red tears
curving to crash.
Treasure was saved. Your loyalty broke all sight,
Revived the creed of the Templars of old;
Long lost. Others of the Inn escaped duty
in black hats.
Furniture out, slates ripped off, yet persistently
Hoovering the remaining carpet, living as we all do
Blanketed each night, with torch, keys, emergency basket
close by your side.
From paper window we gaze at the catacomb of books,
You, unflinching, stern of spirit, ready to
Gather charred sticks to fight no gas where gas was
everywhere escaping.
Through thin library walls where ‘Valley’ still grows,
From Pump Court to dry bank of rubble, titanic monsters
Roll up from the Thames, to drown the ‘storm’ should it
dare come again.
Still water silences death: fills night with curious light,
Brings green peace and birds to top of Plane tree
Fills Magnolia with grail thoughts: while you of King’s Bench
Walk, cherish those you most love.
The Seasons
Spring which has its appeal in ghosts,
Youth, resurrection, cleansing of the soil,
And in dormant roots already considered,
Stirs, with the sharpening of branches
Challenges heart to do that which it cannot,
Sustain overwork, overthought, overlove.
It clears a path for hope: reinstates
Faith, which we had too easily omitted
With death, in the caustic months of the year.
Summer proclaims joy, laughter before its
Arrival: and deceives us into malice
With its non appearance. It suggests
A romance that we have not received
Sunny balconies in the mind: the seldom
Forgotten perfect island summer with its
Warm haze on flesh, flower, and hide:
The blossoming of their structure, fragrance
And appeal, from their own root recorded.
Autumn comes strutting in like a cockerel,
Red, blue, yellow and brown. It disintegrates
Our purpose of singular thought; destroys
Relationships: and cuts the sap of pride
Ruthlessly. Those who survive retain one heart
And voice. Yet autumn with contrawise motion
Shields the creative mind with covering of leaves,
Settles and matures dormant growth which will
Reappear, under the hard skies of spring.
Winter exceeds the year with impunity:
Devours us of all greed: and freezes
That residue. It upholds that which is not:
Which is, the blaze of summer biting
Into our nature for a future reappeal.
Winter intones loss of all things:
Is the next step to death which is loneliness:
Comfort and warmth to be found around our own
Heart and grate, within the steel ribs of this age.
Orarium
He whom my heart sings to
Is gone alone home;
And I am left,
Onela,
Alone in a wood of tears
In the woodlight
Alone.
Birds fly to no purpose
Birds cannot sing
When I am about,
For they dread the tale
Of old,
13 hundred years ago;
When man of God could
And would be saved by God,
Alone.
Over alluvial plains
Through brushwood keeps
And harrowed land,
There lay on pale sweet ground
A head of fire
Open to the wind,
Flaming to the skies
Hallowing the sun
From under the wind.
To desperate wings
And melting tide,
Soundmind lost;
Soundmind never
Accounted for.
Caedmon on the shell tip
Saw, back to Streanaeshalch
With his third eye set on the Abbess Hild,
Waiting for his death,
His telling of the tale,
The old tale,
Retold.
Not for all Heaven was he the loveliest
Lying in cold expectation;
Denying Kings his image in the last round.
His huge woolly head full of sparks and spires.
Not for all Heaven was he the ge
ntlest
Easy to acquire grace and hebankuningas,
Mounting pulpits, hands and mind to a wooded measure.
Not for all Heaven was he the bravest
Facing the last storm – alone on the shore,
Fevered with anxiety of another life
Tearing wild angels flitting among his brain,
Falling into precipice of mind and monastery.
Not for all Heaven was this to take place,
But for the good of man: for the simple things he loved:
The heart on green: beasts rising from the earth: for his herds:
For his dream to be retold for his sandcoloured nights
Clothed with the visions of the preceding monks
Chanting over hills; white with their powdered breath
Of pure song and intermediate praise.
Three grouped: stern walls: sky and hills moist:
These familiar sights alone held his brain,
Forced them to bitter images of life and death:
To the tale I tell of deeper times
When man of God could and would
Be saved by God alone. To the moment of darkness
Which fell with the moment of Greater Light:
To the Commanding Vision and Sensitive Mind of God:
To waterpeace and mist: this being the end of all.
This being the God-Head to which he returned,
With his flaming head and proud sorrel chest.
In Sickness and in Health
Convent of cold stream.
Convent of white ice stiff on each heart
Break boundary of death.
O strictly forget the accustomed torture.
Turn to fireflames ringing bells for sorrowing souls
Stretched damp out of green bone.
To warmth of blood affinity, dissolved in earth elemental,
Crisp crust of red.
To mauve muslin: flight of hovering flames:
Break fire diaphanous,
Use discipline to feed-guide its flame;
The hearth is yours,
She within it with you over the pain.
Turn solace addressed by care;
The icicle cannot pierce deeper than it has,
And it will dissolve invisibly
As miracles do into thin blue air:
Brush no eyes in passing,
But your own – to leave red rims free from torture.
Death shall not be.
The surrender to another:
The step straight – spare:
Concert of cold stream nursed by another’s wing
Who thaws and quenches pain whether hot or cold;
Stepping on clean stones through flood and mudsilt of war,
Sleeping on clear pillow – an angel heads the bed.
Blood and Scarlet Thorns
Who bends the plain to waist of night
And stems the bird to tree of flight,
Who stretches leagues to see a bone
Of bison cast as proud as stone,
Who lengthens maize and sweeps the light
Of grenadine right out of sight;
It is the hard and monstrous plight
Lynette Roberts: Collected Poems Page 6