Lynette Roberts: Collected Poems
Page 10
WHETHER GERMAN. BRITISH. RUSSIAN. OR HIDE
FROM SOME OTHER FOREIGN FIELD: REMEMBER AGAIN
BLOOD IS HUMAN. BORN AT COST. REMEMBER THIS
ESPECIALLY YOU TAWDRY LAIRDS AND JUGGLERS OF MINT.
So double hurt was hard to console. Heart hatched
Shrived nerves each day in valley clove. Stretched
Mind tight into scarlet umbrella. Slatched
Nowhere the deflated ropes of blood. Wrenched
Harbouring heartbreak that is a crack grailed.
O where was my consoler. Where O where
You double beast down. Callous Cymru.
O love beaten. By loss humiliated.
Stretched out in muslin distress. Bound
By an iron wreath scattered with coloured beads.
O my people immeasurably alone.
No ringfinger: with the tips of my nails glazed
With sorrow with solemn gravity. Crown tipped sideways;
Ears blown back like lilac; with set face
And dry lids, waiting for Love’s Arcade.
O LOVE was there no barddoniaeth?
No billing birds to be – coinheritor?
The night sky is braille in a rock of frost.
Why wail ribbon head. Crystallised cherubic
Cluster of stars. Why weep spilling splints to
Steelgraze the sky. Why shrillcold cerulean
Flesh with identity tacked hot on your wing.
Why dribble prick-ears, scintillating in an up
And down nailmourn. Tumbling to earth an icy precision
Of pins, distilling flies and peacock fins,
Tears in flames on fire, scorching air as they
Splash into heavier spills of quavering
Silver, drops, seels resinate woe, chills hedge and
Chilblain glades. Grisaille freezes the sense; crines
The gills into a drill motion; stills-shrills
The singing birds to kill; Drips rills
From envelopes, pustule eyes and hat. With
Urinal taint instils mind with a perilled dampness;
Fells skilled discipline to halls of humidity
Engraving clothes to trail balustrades without
Flesh; to a wilderness of pavements blue crayoned
With telegrams, where by a trick of air, owners
And cats remain, trying in mid-air to force riseup
Their own smashed brick. These men have brothers,
Are wived. And in dredging buckets of steam
Through stable-showers, men sway with the slush,
Dreamwhile teeming out cables and rope
Stretch barb wire tight across the crimped moon.
Wringing out moisture from mind and mouth,
Pulverising a haze to gauze their contorted feature,
Inebriate mouths cratered: others with lime fresh
On briared cheeks cut Easter Island shadows, elongating
Into weathered struts that strain all clouds for height.
On the lowering of the Dandelion Sun brail umbrage
For their pall: for those hovering above us tall as a
Siren’s wail… pocked and pale as pumice stone…
Mother-shrivelled with tansy tears: and those from
Accumulators, with eyes vacant as motor horns
Who shutter out the bleakness and blink in their
Own way. In quiet corners men yawn out death.
Commiserately sodden. Here rain contravariant:
Here in discord and disobedience:
Probable mutiny and desertion: night splashes up
Mullions in heavy hayloads: lights up shiny
Pailettes on rawset faces: spits up frogs
And tins to fidget their bowels. Dodging
Pillars of rain; pails overbrimming swishswashing;
Drenching rifty suits, their steel shoulders subscribing
Thin laminations of grief. O my people here
With labour illused and minds deranged…
Through rivets of light; Here are your Heroes.
While high up, swallowsoft…
Marine butterflies flood out the whole estuary.
PART V
… mi a glywais lais y pedwerydd anifail yn dywedyd, Tyred, a gwêl. Ac mi a edrychais; ac wele farch gwelw-las: ac enw yr hwn oedd yn eistedd arno oedd Marwolaeth: ac yr oedd Uffern yn canlyn gyd âg ef. A rhoddwyd iddynt awdurdod ar y bedwaredd ran o’r ddaear, i ladd â chleddyf, ac â newyn, ac â marwolaeth, ac â bwystfilod y ddaear.
A phan agorodd efe y bummed sêl, mi a welais dan yr allor eneidiau y rhai a laddesid am air Duw, ac am y dystiolaeth oedd ganddynt.
A hwy a lefasant â llef uchel, gan ddywedyd, Pa hyd, Arglwydd, sanctaidd a chywir, nad ydwyt yn barnu ac yn dïal ein gwaed ni ar y rhai sydd yn trigo ar y ddaear?
A gynau gwynion a roed i bob un o honynt;
DATGUDDIAD. PENNOD VI
ARGUMENT
The same bay plated with ice. Industrial war progressing and the anxiety for after-war commerce and competitive airlines. The soldiers recognising this futility, but also, not without some faith in social and economic changes. The gunner returned, and faithful to his girl, they rise through the strata of the sky to seek peace and solace from the sun. Their love in harmony on cloud in fourth dimensional state. But memory bringing with it a consciousness of war – responsibility – they work towards this end. Fail. For the world demands their return, and down through the lower strata of the earth they travel, to the wounded bay where no human contact is found, only pylons, telegraph wires, and a monstrous placard which reads: ‘Mental Home for Poets’. The gunner interned under pressure, resolves to free the dragon, and take fate in his own hands. The symbol having been already introduced in Part I of this poem when the woodpecker seen as a ‘dragon of wings’ introduced the gunner’s identity. He walks meekly into the Mental Home. The girl turns away: towards a hard and new chemical dawn breaking up the traditional skyline.
Air white with cold. Cycloid wind prevails.
On ichnolithic plain where no step stirs
And winter hardens into plate of ice:
Shoots an anthracite glitter of death
From their eyes, – these men shine darkly.
With stiff betrayal; dark suns on pillows
Of snow. But not eclipsed, for out of cauterised
Craters, a conclave of architects with
Ichnographic plans, shall bridge stronger
Ventricles of faith. They know also
Etonic vows: the abstractions which may arise:
That magnates out of prefabricated
Glass, may build Chromium Cenotaphs –
Work and pay for all! Contract aerodromes
To lift planes where ships once crawled, over
Baleful continents to the Caribbean Crane,
Down, to the Southern Christ of Palms.
Back on red competitive lines: chasing
Chinese blocks of uranium: above pack-ice
Snapping like wolves on Siberian shores.
Over wails of boracic and tundra torn wounds,
Darkening ‘peaked’ Fuji-yama, clearing
Cambrian caves where xylophone reeds hide
Menhir glaciers and appointed feet.
Out of this hard. Out of this sheet of zinc.
We by centrifugal force… rose softly…
Faded from bloodsight. We, he and I ran
On to a steel escalator, the white
Electric sun drilling down on the cubed ice;
Our cyanite flesh chilled on aluminium
Rail. Growing taller, our demon diminishing
With steep incline. Climbed at gradient
42°; on to a trauma stratus
Where a multitude of birds, each wing
A sunset against sheet of ice, dipped
And flew throughout our cloth piercing folds
Of pain and fear. Higher through moist
And luminous dust: up breathless to a jungle of
Sight on to a far outer belt muscling-in
The Earth’s curve. In such spirals of air
Sailed ketch and kestrel, fighting propeller,
Swastika wings and grey rubber rafts: this strange
Evidence reconciliating as
Tide and shape floated by on swift moving layer.
Out of it. Out of it. To a ceiling and clarity
Of Peace. Sweet white air varied as syllables.
Spray of air fresh, fragrant as beehive glossed
Over with beech. So quiet a terrace to tune-in-to
With Catena shine round each cell of light
To laze carelessly in the Crown of the Sky;
But timeless minds held us victims
To the sour truth. War and responsibility.
He, of Bethlehem treading a campaign
Of clouds the fleecy cade purring at his side:
Sun, serene sense, tinting page of his face roan.
Bent over wooden table and glazed chart
And with compass and astronomical calculations
He, again at my side, pricked lines and projected
Latitudes so that we stood we cared not
How, upside down over South American canes.
Boots proved cumbersome at the height. Bleak battledress
Irritating as old salvaged reed collar;
Black and gravel wings pinned to his heart,
A grief already told. In such radium
Activity – white starlings – suspended
On string like Calder ‘stills’ – shivered
Like morning stars in fresh open sky
I contented in this fourth dimensional state
Past through, him and the table, pursued
My own work slightly below him. In
Sandals and sunsuit lungs naked to the light,
Sitting on chair of glass with no fixed frame
Leaned to the swift machine threading over twill:
‘Singer’s’ perfect model scrolled with gold,
Chromium wheel and black structure, firm on
Mahogany plinth. Nails varnished with
Chanel shocking! Ears jewelled: light hand
Tipped with dorcas’ silver thimble tracing thin
Aertex edge: trimmings, and metal buttons
Stitched by hand. Slim needle and strong sharp
Thread. Coats’ cotton-twist No. 48. Excelling always as
Soldier shirt finished floated down to earth.
But cold at night. We wrapt our own mystery
Around us; trailed in cerulean mosquito nets
As kale canopy lifted from cooler zones below.
Pack of stars in full cry icing the heavens
As we were compelled to descend. Disendowed,
By the State. By will of those hankering
After pig standards of gold. The fall was heavy,
Too sudden for our laughter so that we
Took it with us; dragged it slowly down through
Waled skylanes. Shocked Capricorn and Cancer who
Winked to control us like Belisha beacons.
Tacked out of our course into opaline dusk.
A huge silence ashiver. Huge Witness dwells.
In Celestial Study to right and left lucid
Eyes pay tribute, angel secretaries with
Paper wings – and paper so scarce – dyed mauvescarlet
With chemical rings; speech blue behind aniline minds.
Away from this. Flattery. God-Hypocrisy.
Not even a whisper escaped our lips as we
Continued in sharp descent, like old minesweepers
Creaking through boisterous storms, our own God
Within us. Down into xerophilous air clarion snow
Percolating, oölite flakes warm as
Owl tufts or deciduous leaves. Falling on
Flesh with the lightness of moths. Without breath
Or bell of joy lurched slipped-slid into icy
Vacuums. Fell out of frozen cylinders. Flew
Earthwards like arctic terns the spangled
Mirrors still on our wings. Colder. Continuous as newsreel,
Quadrillion cells spotting the air, stinging
The face like a swarm of bees. Lower. A vitreous green
Paperweight – the sky is greenglaze with snow flying
Upwards zionwards. Such iconic sky bears promise.
Dredging slowly down, veiling shield of sky hard.
Cold. Austere. Tumbled over each other lurched
Into the dark penumbra: then, through a
Rift as suddenly, the solid stone of earth
Rushed up; hit us hotly as household iron.
Over this maimed cadaverous globe, the wind
Had streaked each ridge with piercing prongs
Of a curry comb, leaving here and there
A thin sheet of aluminium which shone from out
Of the Earth’s crust. Over set currents
Of ice, emerald streams and blue electric lakes
Worked simultaneously to purify the
World… down driving down… following the thin
Strokes of mapping pens stretching page of
Music over vast terrain. This, and stronger
Network of rails: pylons and steel installations
The only landmarks of our territory…
Down, to this bleak telegraphic planet and its solid
Pyramids of canvas. Down, gunner and black
Madonna with heart of tin; surrounded
By fluttering greed of ravens, their
Beaks of bone breaking up the wounds of winter;
Croak; a mad voice sunk down a sink. The attendant
Curlews at the forage edge wearing motheaten
Shawls; shagreen legs brittle as ember twigs.
Pipe plaintive descants that sharpen the shale.
From ascending stirrups steps to the sun, down,
Dragged-down we descended the slimerot ladders,
Rats withdrawing each foot: rust worn where other
Boots had rung. To the Bay known before,
The warm and stagnant air raising wellshafts
Of putrid flesh sunk deep in desert sands. Stepped out onto
Blue blaze of snow. Barbed wire. No man of bone.
A placard to the right which concerned us:
Mental Home For Poets. He alone on this
Isotonic plain: against a jingle of Generals
And Cabinet Directors determined
A stand. Declared a Faith. Entered ‘Foreign
Field’ like a Plantagenet King: his spirit
Gorsefierce: hands like perfect quatrains.
Green spindle tears seep out of closed lids…
Mourn murmuring… remembering my brother.
His Cathedral mind in Bedlam. Sign and
Lettering-black grail of quavering curves.
Distrained… mallowfrail… turned to where.
But today which is tomorrow.
Salt spring from frosted sea filters palea light
Raising tangerine and hard line of rind on the
Astringent sky. Catoptric on waterice he of deep love
Frees dragon from the glacier glade
Sights death fading into chilblain ears.
Notes
Inscription
Hast thou heard what Avaon sung,
The son of Taliesin of just lay?
The cheek will not conceal the anguish of the heart.
A crow sang a fable on the top
Of an oak, above the junction of two rivers.
Understanding is more powerful than strength.
Make the best on all occasions
Of what you already possess:
Better than nothing is the shelter of a rush.
CATTWG THE WISE SANG IT (5TH CENTURY)
Part I
And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meane
th this?
Others mocking, said, These men are full of new wine.
ACTS II, CHAPTER II
Quotation: from the Bible of William Morgan, the Bishop of St Asaph’s translation 1588: later amended and revised by Richard Parry and John Davies, 1620. Here the English translation is incorrect as the original Greek word implies sweet wine. John Kitto, DD, FSA, has pointed this out. The Welsh rendering is Gwin (the G a mutation), win meaning wine, melus: sweet.
Saint Cadoc: saint of the fifth century. Spelt in many ways including Cattwg (see Inscription, p. [42]). His festival is commemorated in early spring. To him are attributed many miracles, triads, and fables. The last being incorrect, as they belong to a Cadoc of a later period. He is one of the too many Cambro-British Saints (we gave some to Ireland!), Bernacus (Bernach), Beuno, Cadoc, Carantocus (Carannog), David (Dewi), Gundleus (Cynlais), Iltutus (Illtyd), Kebius (Cybi), Paternus (Padarn), and Winifred (Gwenfrewi), see Lives of Cambro-British Saints in translation from Ancient Welsh and Latin MSS in the British Museum, by the Rev. W.J. Rees, MA, FSA and the more recent translation by the Rev. A.W. Wade Evans.
Homeric hills: Geraldus Cambrensis wrote in 1180 in his Itinerary Through Wales: ‘Maenor Pyrr… that is, the Mansions of Pyrrus, who also possessed the Island of Chaldey, which the Welsh call Inys Pyrr, or the Island of Pyrrus… distant about three miles from Pembroch.’ There are historians who believe the Trojans came and settled on this coast. In years to come archaeologists may discover both the Temples and City as Sir Arthur Evans and Schliemann discovered Knossos and Troy – by studying the legends in the locality.
Woolglints: I had the image of iridescent bits of dust which float about in the sunbeams like pieces of flock. As the estuary is covered with sheep, and the atmosphere I wanted to create, a supernatural one, I felt that there was bound to be some density – a stifling quality in the air. I therefore imagined these woolglints, which were bound to float about from the backs of the sheep, and the minute weeds – almost-green invisible cells – hovering over the quagmires.
Ligustrum: botanical name for privet. One of the sacred trees mentioned in Taliesin’s Battle of the Trees, see reference in The White Goddess by Robert Graves. Ash and lilac also belong to the Oleaceae family.
Orcadian birds: whimbrel: Numenius phaepus phaepus (Linn.), small curlew which arrives on our shore with the third stream of migration from the Shetlands and Orkneys, and is usually seen in early spring.
Cattraeth: ‘The Gododdin, the subject of which is the disastrous battle of Cattraeth, contains upwards of nine hundred lines, and is the oldest Welsh poem extant, it was written in the earlier part of the sixth century.’ Of the three hundred who took part, only three returned. Aneirin who wrote this Ancient Epic was one of the survivors.