New Collected Poems

by David Gascoyne

Once more familiar, like a rare

  And convoluted tune;

  And soon

  Will come the Twin

  For Ashes, Oats and Trees

  To come at last

  To their last Resting Place.

  An English man here says

  That English men are

  Liars: Is he reliable?

  That is the final, unexpected

  Intermitted question that makes this

  Still a surprising variation.

  If only LIA

  Had crept in earlier, we could

  Account for it. But no,

  Mere wordplay cannot lie.

  So let us say goodbye

  To ATO and ABC, and

  LOA and all

  Their variants, and end

  Not with a dying Fall, but with

  The Final, First and Tonic C,

  True ‘Art of Harmony’!

  w. 1969

  SPEECHLESSNESS

  A soldier at Mountbatten’s funeral

  To the interviewer from the BBC:

  ‘I don’t care what the poets will say,

  Our fine old mottos’s good enough for me …’

  I think he’s right, of course he is.

  ‘We loved him,’ said the Romsey paper’s editor,

  ‘But what does a word like love mean nowadays?’

  ‘Words, words, words’: Impatience or despair?

  Mere wornout husks, devalued coinage, ‘strain,

  Crack and sometimes break … ’

  ‘Decay with imprecision.’

  ‘What can one say?’ asks everyone.

  Some withering wreaths: Imperishable memories?

  Such is our ever-increasing impotence

  In this our more and more blood-reeking world.

  Is silence therefore really best?

  Even a poet can no longer say.

  w. 1979

  WHALES AND DOLPHINS

  A Poem for the Greenpeace Foundation

  We’re told that we must never anthropomorphize

  When we are writing about animals, or ‘creatures’

  as we’d prefer to say; nor are we now allowed,

  of course, to speak of ‘all God’s creatures’ either,

  since there are few today who can believe

  that He exists and once created them and us.

  To write a poem about whales or dolphins, then,

  presents a challenge to all those who see

  in the great whale the dread Leviathan

  which Scripture teaches man should look upon

  as the huge proof of the Creator’s mightiness,

  the ruler of the deeps, and in the guise

  of the White Whale of Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’

  a mighty symbol of both Death and Mystery;

  or who, as I do, see in the dolphin’s face

  the look both of the cherubim and of the unborn child

  safe in its mother’s womb, with the angelic, innocent

  smile worn by all the creatures of God’s Paradise.

  Many the myths about the dolphin. Dauphin means,

  or used to, dolphin and also ‘first-born’; and

  a boy upon a dolphin’s back is such an old

  image, it surely tells us men have always sensed

  some sort of kinship that the reason can’t explain

  between the amphibious being and our own.

  Then there’s the recent question or new myth

  about the dolphin’s sort of speech: a mystery

  indeed! Poets and thinkers are increasingly

  concerned with the great problems language sets.

  A poem should avoid abstraction and all forms

  of private declaration of belief; yet I must state

  that I’m convinced by what is called the Fall of Man.

  We’ve been turned out of Paradise; we’ve made the world

  into a shambles and a slaughter-house; we’ve lost

  the primal Urspräch which may once have been

  also an aid in our communion with the beasts

  we now exploit and prey upon. Polluted earth,

  polluted souls: Now finally, perhaps too late,

  we try to care, if not to pray, for some Salvation.

  A poet friend of mine1 wrote lately that: ‘We live

  in the mind of God, here, now and always, for there is

  no other place.’ And R. Buckminster Fuller wrote

  in Nineteen Sixty-three: ‘Stop “calling names”

  names that are meaningless; you can’t suppress God

  by killing off people which are, physically,

  only trans-ceiver mechanisms through which God

  is broadcasting.’ And too: ‘The more man becomes man,

  the more it will be needful for him to,

  and to know how to, worship: thus the Père

  Teilhard de Chardin. I do not digress.

  If you have faith you may not have it every day

  but somehow you believe that we shall not destroy

  ourselves and God’s creation; though we can

  ‘kill off people’ and, be it added, species like

  the direly menaced whales and dwindling dolphins.

  Now ‘the light of the public darkens everything.’2

  But still the animal kingdom and the world of nature can

  remind us of our long-lost innocence. All things shall be

  made new. Let chaos come. The mortal must first die.

  Yet even an atheist poet3 could write: ‘The rose

  tells that the aptitude to be regenerated has

  no limit’: and, ‘what selectivity there can occur,

  only just in time, and succeed in imposing its law

  in spite of everything. Man sees this pinion tremble

  which in every language is the first great letter of

  the word Resurrection.’ Redemption. Paradise Regained.

  God’s Kingdom here on earth. Absurd, discarded dreams?

  Not only fools can still believe and fight for faith

  and meaning: to preserve our innate, obstinate capacity

  for love, for wonder at the miracle of life:

  to speak out even if the words one’s forced to use

  seem worn nearly to death, and say: Yes, we can still

  do what we can to preserve not only such rare things

  as whales and dolphins, but the eternal Mystery of which

  they are both emblem and incarnate form.

  1 Kathleen Raine

  2 Martin Heidegger

  3 André Breton

  p. 1980

  PRELUDE TO A NEW FIN-DE-SIÈCLE

  Incessant urging, curt, peremptory:

  Write what you will, in verse, or otherwise,

  Intelligible, using simple metaphors.

  Address a reader not just hypothetical

  But flesh and blood in no need of harangues.

  The time has come. We’re on the very brink

  Of what? Can any prophet, true or false,

  Make himself heard above the mad uproar

  Of all the mingling and ambiguous,

  Self-righteous or dismayed denunciations,

  Warnings and dire predictions that assail us from

  All ‘informed sources’, media-debased and bent?

  – If this is a poem, where are the images?

  – What images suffice? Corpses and carrion,

  Ubiquitous bloodshed, bigger, more beastly bombs,

  Stockpiled atomic warheads, stanchless wounds,

  Ruins and rubble, manic messiahs and mobs.

  – But poets make beauty out of ghastliness

  – You think I want to? Think truth beautiful?

  – ‘A terrible beauty is born …’ – It is indeed.

  In youth I did in spite of everything

  Believe with Keats and Shelley such things as

  That poets can ‘legislate’ and prophesy;

  Or like Stravinsky
when he wrote ‘The Rite’

  Become transmitting vessels for new sounds

  From an inspiring, unknown world within.

  I’m over sixty now, my dubious gift has gone,

  I can but grope for unexpected similes.

  But now as in the ‘Thirties I can once again

  Feel passion and frustration and that sense

  Of expectation, imminence and pressing need

  To express something that just must be said.

  Mature awareness knows that poetry

  Today demands the essence and the minimum;

  That only Silence such as God’s could say the Whole.

  One stark vocabulary at least remains.

  The litany of lurid headline-names

  Merely to mention which can nag the nerves:

  Vietnam, Angola, Thailand and Pakistan,

  Chile, Cambodia, Iran, Afghanistan,

  Derry’s Bogside, Belfast and Crossmaglen;

  Up in Strathclyde or down on Porton Down,

  On Three Mile Island or in Seveso Italy

  Then there are Manson, Pol Pot and Amin,

  To name at random just three myth-monsters,

  Too many more to mention, all mass-murderers:–

  None of them need an adjective and though we’re sick

  Of being sickened by them they will stay engraved

  Or branded on even callous consciences.

  And yet I yearn to end by trying to evoke

  A summer dawn I saw when I was not yet eight,

  And having risen early watched for an hour or more

  A transcendental transformation of auroral clouds,

  Like a prophetic vision granted from on high.

  I cannot see much now. The dawn is always new

  As nature is, however much we blind ourselves and try

  To poison the Earth-Mother. But an ancient text

  Tells of what I believe may happen soon today:

  The raven disappears as night draws to its close,

  Then as the day approaches the bird flies without wings;

  It vomits forth the rainbow and its body becomes red,

  And on its back a condensation of pure water forms.

  For that which is above is still as that which is below

  For the perfecting of the One Thing, which is now

  As it shall ever be, World without End, D. V.

  w. 1980, p. 1980

  VARIATIONS ON A PHRASE

  ‘le lièvre fit sa prière à l’arc-en-ciel à travers la toile de l’araignée …’

  RIMBAUD

  The hare sent up his prayer to the rainbow

  Through the spider’s fine-spun filmy web,

  Despite the huntsmen tracking it below.

  The hunters set their snares, the Norns weave threads;

  Hephaestus’ net awaits all peccant pairs.

  A filament of light through heaven spreads.

  A shaft of sunshine transpierces the dust

  That rises as the shell’s target explodes,

  And glorifies it. Deep in mud we must

  Unseal our eyes through choking smoke to see

  How slaughter and compassion can combine

  To trace a liberating filigree.

  A hostage prisoned in a stinking cell

  For just an instant saw a glinting fly

  Above him as a sign from heaven not hell.

  In chthonic labyrinth where we now stray

  Do Thou in us make peace, O lightbringer.

  Submerged in darkness glows the serene day.

  While raw-scabbed refugees without end file

  Past numbed spectators, an aeon elsewhere

  Some insane sanity sustains its smile.

  Yet jackals howl across the wastes of thyme.

  The drunken boat speeds on. The skilled music

  Still needed by desire runs out of time.

  The Charleville boy ended up peddling guns

  In Ethiopia, amnesic of dream.

  We can end roasted by our man-made suns.

  p. 1982

  RARE OCCASIONAL POEM

  May 13th 1982

  The ‘Thought for Today’ that was broadcast this morning

  Told us that Crisis means Judgement. But who is the Judge?

  You may or you may not believe that one exists.

  Judgement can signify verdict, decision or

  Fate, among other things. Yesterday, Fatima:

  Priest tried to stab Pope. There was one more announcement

  That a new Incarnation of Christ will appear

  On TV before June has ended; by which time

  Perhaps the dense fog which just now envelops us

  May have somewhat dispersed, thus revealing at least

  Whether fervour for fatherland, freedom or force

  Have prevailed in the South Atlantic … or foresight.

  p. 1982

  DODECATRIBUTE TO MIRON GRINDEA AT 75

  Many years, many memories, my dear Miron …

  I met you early, an ignescent incomer,

  Raw yet ready to recognize your rare repute

  Of openness to all original output.

  Now none can ignore your initiative nous.

  Great is our gratitude for your genial gift:

  Rampart of rance amidst Ragnarok’s rioting,

  Indispensable international index,

  Nonesuch never needless of normative notions,

  Doyen of discerningly diglot dossiers,

  Exemplarily edited for an era –

  adam, acme of annals of authentic art.

  p. 1983

  ARBRES, BÊTES, COURANTS D’EAU: IMPROVISATION

  pour Salah Stétié

  « With the situation as it is in

  Beirut at present, anywhere is home. »

  BBC TV News commentator: 6.XII.83

  Dans ma première enfance en pèlerinage

  avec ma mère vers le littoral prochain

  certain midi nous nous assîmes

  sous l’ombre d’un gros pin quand soudain,

  étonnement inoubliable, notre siège gréseux

  se révéla fourmilière remuante rouge au soleil.

  Garçonnet je chantais sous la flèche

  la plus haute de mon pays

  qu’entoure un vaste tapis d’herbe

  de pâquerettes et de thym parsemé

  duquel un cèdre se dresse

  bibliquement vénérable.

  En vacances j’adorais

  surtout le riverain sableux

  d’un ruisselet roulant ignoré

  derrière notre logis: et grimper

  en chaman apprenti le jeune peuplier

  montant droit comme l’index

  auprès de mon antre buissonnier

  tandis qu’à l’alentour

  s’étalait une prairie soucieuse d’eau

  hantée par mes amis mystérieux

  le héron et le martin-pêcheur:

  un cygne passait parfois par là.

  Dans la contrée de lacs des poètes

  longtemps plus tard j’ai entrevu

  par hasard un cheval blanc bien vieux

  sur la verdeur d’un versant néanmoins gambadant,

  pégase nordique perpétuel partenaire

  que je n’oublie jamais.

  Dans l’ìle où j’habite

  que le fleuve Medina en raccourci pénètre

  un jour j’apercevais, blanchâtre grisaille,

  une truie que je n’oublierai jamais

  dans la boue de son enclos ruminant son deuil:

  Niobé stoïquement endurante.

  Mon compagnon c’est à présent ce Medina

  comme l’était jadis le ruisselet secret

  tributaire d’un Avon; et autrefois la Tamise

  a porté mon reflet rêveur, comme la Seine

  emportait les jours de ma jeunesse sous ses ponts,

  tandis qu’estivant je me trempais dans l’Arc.

  Mirage là-bas, obs
édante actualité:

  fresque foudroyée, façades grêlées de mitraille,

  dans les moellons le marasme des massacres

  que dominent des orbites de crânes bourrées d’affres,

  hérissement de barbelés et de brandons brandis:

  dans l’arrière-pays cependant toujours les monts de cèdres.

  Reste à jamais l’oasis par le mirage caché

  où coule la source qui seule peut adoucir

  le venin de la nostalgie innée, abreuvante

  et le cheval et la truie ainsi que toute bête.

  reverdissante toujours peuplier, pin et cèdre:

  oasis outre-lieu de tous nos lieux terrestres.

  « La jeunesse se plaint de la vie; la mort la guérit.

  La terre est ma chambre à coucher, la vôtre aussi;

  personne jusqu’à présent n’a quitté sa dernière demeure.»*

  Quoique l’on chasse jeunes familles et vieilles

  chaque jour harcelées de leurs logis,

  une terre paisible nous attend tous.

  p. 1984

  HAGUE HAIKU (for [Salah] Stétié)

  In the garden of Salah

  The silence is soothed

  By the whispered lisp of leaves.

  w. 1984, p. 1995

  * Abu Al-Ala Al-Ma’arri (903-1057)

  THALASSA: THE UNSPEAKABLE SEA

  For Mimmo Morina

  Sitting on a beach facing the foaming collapse of the waves of a vast expanse of acrid water stretching away as far as the distant line that indicates the curvature of the globe

  Sitting in a deckchair with ballpoint and notepad facing the theme of Thalassa

  Vociferations uninterrupted since the first emergence of all animal life. Thunders – murmurs: furies – calms. Ultimate challenge to language. Total proscription of words

  Primal matrix: insatiable grave. Unalterably other. Unlikeness extending out of sight

  We are a minority inhabiting an environment unaware of having given us birth

  Swimming, sailing and fishing: ephemeral superfluities

  How long before the final drowning of that book wherein it is written that our finest order is no more than a heap of garbage dumped at random on the verge of the purest and most polluted of waters, undrinkable and deadly to all but the Kraken and its countless amphibious hordes?

  Triumphant rise, fall and crash of a last billow against the definitive deserted shore: all too human imagining that no incarnate consciousness can ever realize.

  p. 1985

  ENTRANCE TO A LANE