Selected Poems of Thom Gunn

by Thom Gunn

as if shielding it from wind.

  Our eyes parleyed, then we touched

  in the conversation of bodies.

  Standing together on asphalt openly,

  we gradually loosened into a shared laughter.

  This was the year, the year of reconciliation

  to whatever it was I had come from,

  the prickly heat of adolescent emotion,

  premature staleness and self-contempt.

  In my hilarity, in my luck,

  I forgave myself for having had a youth.

  I started to heap up pardons

  even in anticipation. On Hampstead Heath

  I knew every sudden path from childhood,

  the crooks of every climbable tree.

  And now I engaged these at night,

  and where I had played hide and seek

  with neighbour children, played as an adult

  with troops of men whose rounds intersected

  at the Orgy Tree or in the wood

  of birch trunks gleaming like mute watchers

  or in tents of branch and bush

  surrounded by the familiar smell

  of young leaf – salty, explosive.

  In a Forest of Arden, in a summer night’s dream

  I forgave everybody his teens.

  4

  But I came back, after the last bus,

  from Hampstead, Wimbledon, the pubs,

  the railway arches of the East End,

  I came back to Talbot Road,

  to the brick, the cement Arthurian faces,

  the area railings by coal holes,

  the fat pillars of the entrances.

  My balcony filled up with wet snow.

  When it dried out Tony and I

  would lunch there in the sunshine

  on veal-and-ham pie, beer, and salad.

  I told him about my adventures.

  He wondered aloud if he would be happier

  if he were queer like me.

  How could he want, I wondered,

  to be anything but himself?

  Then he would have to be off,

  off with his jaunty walk,

  where, I didn’t ask or guess.

  At the end of my year, before I left,

  he held a great party for me

  on a canal boat. The party slipped

  through the watery network of London,

  grid that had always been glimpsed

  out of the corner of the eye

  behind fences or from the tops of buses.

  Now here we were, buoyant on it,

  picnicking, gazing in mid-mouthful

  at the backs of buildings, at smoke-black walls

  coral in the light of the long evening,

  at what we had suspected all along

  when we crossed the bridges we now passed under,

  gliding through the open secret.

  5

  That was fifteen years ago.

  Tony is dead, the block where I lived

  has been torn down. The mind

  is an impermanent place, isn’t it,

  but it looks to permanence.

  The street has opened and opened up

  into no character at all. Last night

  I dreamt of it as it might have been,

  the pavement by the church railings

  was wet with spring rain,

  it was night, the streetlamps’ light

  rendered it into an exquisite etching.

  Sentimental postcard of a dream,

  of a moment between race-riots!

  But I do clearly remember my last week,

  when every detail brightened with meaning.

  A boy was staying with (I would think)

  his grandmother in the house opposite.

  He was in his teens, from the country perhaps.

  Every evening of that week

  he sat in his white shirt at the window

  – a Gothic arch of reduced proportion –

  leaning on his arms, gazing down

  as if intently making out characters

  from a live language he was still learning,

  not a smile cracking his pink cheeks.

  Gazing down

  at the human traffic, of all nations,

  the just and the unjust, who

  were they, where were they going,

  that fine public flow at the edge of which

  he waited, poised, detached in wonder

  and in no hurry

  before he got ready one day

  to climb down into its live current.

  Night Taxi

  for Rod Taylor

  wherever he is

  Open city

  uncluttered as a map.

  I drive through empty streets

  scoured by the winds

  of midnight. My shift

  is only beginning and I am fresh

  and excitable, master of the taxi.

  I relish my alert reflexes

  where all else

  is in hiding. I have

  by default it seems

  conquered me a city.

  My first address: I

  press the doorbell, I lean back

  against the hood, my headlights

  scalding a garage door, my engine

  drumming in the driveway,

  the only sound on the block.

  There the fare finds me

  like a date, jaunty,

  shoes shined, I am

  proud of myself, on my toes,

  obliging but not subservient.

  I take short cuts, picking up

  speed, from time to time

  I switch on the dispatcher’s

  litany of addresses,

  China Basin to Twin Peaks,

  Harrison Street to the Ocean.

  I am thinking tonight

  my fares are like affairs

  – no, more like tricks to turn:

  quick, lively, ending up

  with a cash payment.

  I do not anticipate a holdup.

  I can make friendly small talk.

  I do not go on about Niggers,

  women drivers or the Chinese.

  It’s all on my terms but

  I let them think it’s on theirs.

  Do I pass through the city

  or does it pass through me?

  I know I have to be loose,

  like my light embrace of the wheel,

  loose but in control

  – though hour by hour I tighten

  minutely in the routine,

  smoking my palate to ash,

  till the last hour of all

  will be drudgery, nothing else.

  I zip down Masonic Avenue,

  the taxi sings beneath the streetlights

  a song to the bare city, it is

  my instrument, I woo with it,

  bridegroom and conqueror.

  I jump out to open the door,

  fixing the cap on my head

  to, you know, firm up my role,

  and on my knuckle

  feel a sprinkle of wet.

  Glancing upward I see

  high above the lamppost

  but touched by its farthest light

  a curtain of rain already blowing

  against black eucalyptus tops.

  from

  THE MAN WITH NIGHT SWEATS

  (1992)

  The Hug

  It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined

  Half of the night with our old friend

  Who’d showed us in the end

  To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.

  Already I lay snug,

  And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

  I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,

  Suddenly, from behind,

  In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:

  Your instep to my heel,

  My shoulder-blades against your chest.

  It was not sex
, but I could feel

  The whole strength of your body set,

  Or braced, to mine,

  And locking me to you

  As if we were still twenty-two

  When our grand passion had not yet

  Become familial.

  My quick sleep had deleted all

  Of intervening time and place.

  I only knew

  The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.

  The Differences

  Reciting Adrienne Rich on Cole and Haight,

  Your blond hair bouncing like a corner boy’s,

  You walked with sturdy almost swaggering gait,

  The short man’s, looking upward with such poise,

  Such bold yet friendly curiosity

  I was convinced that clear defiant blue

  Would have abashed a storm-trooper. To me

  Conscience and courage stood fleshed out in you.

  So when you gnawed my armpits, I gnawed yours

  And learned to associate you with that smell

  As if your exuberance sprang from your pores.

  I tried to lose my self in you as well.

  To lose my self … I did the opposite,

  I turned into the boy with iron teeth

  Who planned to eat the whole world bit by bit,

  My love not flesh but in the mind beneath.

  Love takes its shape within that part of me

  (A poet says) where memories reside.

  And just as light marks out the boundary

  Of some glass outline men can see inside,

  So love is formed by a dark ray’s invasion

  From Mars, its dwelling in the mind to make.

  Is a created thing, and has sensation,

  A soul, and strength of will.

  It is opaque.

  Opaque, yet once I slept with you all night

  Dreaming about you – though not quite embraced

  Always in contact felt however slight.

  We lay at ease, an arm loose round a waist,

  Or side by side and touching at the hips,

  As if we were two trees, bough grazing bough,

  The twigs being the toes or fingertips.

  I have not crossed your mind for three weeks now,

  But think back on that night in January,

  When casually distinct we shared the most

  And lay upon a bed of clarity

  In luminous half-sleep where the will was lost.

  We woke at times and as the night got colder

  Exchanged a word, or pulled the clothes again

  To cover up the other’s exposed shoulder,

  Falling asleep to the small talk of the rain.

  Skateboard

  Tow Head on his skateboard

  threads through a crowd

  of feet and faces delayed

  to a slow stupidity.

  Darts, doubles, twists.

  You notice how nimbly

  the body itself has learned

  to assess the relation between

  the board, pedestrians,

  and immediate sidewalk.

  Emblem. Emblem of fashion.

  Wearing dirty white

  in dishevelment as delicate

  as the falling draperies

  on a dandyish

  Renaissance saint.

  Chain round his waist.

  One hand gloved.

  Hair dyed to show it is dyed,

  pale flame spiking from fuel.

  Tow Head on Skateboard

  perfecting himself:

  emblem extraordinary

  of the ordinary.

  In the sexless face

  eyes innocent of feeling

  therefore suggest the spirit.

  To Isherwood Dying

  It could be, Christopher, from your leafed-in house

  In Santa Monica where you lie and wait

  You hear outside a sound resume

  Fitful, anonymous,

  Of Berlin fifty years ago

  As autumn days got late –

  The whistling to their girls from young men who

  Stood in the deep dim street, below

  Dingy façades which crumbled like a cliff,

  Behind which in a rented room

  You listened, wondering if

  By chance one might be whistling up for you,

  Adding unsentimentally

  ‘It could not possibly be.’

  Now it’s a stricter vigil that you hold

  And from the canyon’s palms and crumbled gold

  It could be possibly

  You hear a single whistle call

  Come out

  Come out into the cold.

  Courting insistent and impersonal.

  Christmas week, 1985

  The Stealer

  I lie and live

  my body’s fear

  something’s at large

  and coming near

  No deadbolt

  can keep it back

  A worm of fog

  leaks through a crack

  From the darkness

  as before

  it grows to body

  in my door

  Like a taker

  scarved and gloved

  it steals this way

  like one I loved

  Fear stiffens me

  and a slow joy

  at the approach

  of the sheathed boy

  Will he too do

  what that one did

  unlock me first

  open the lid

  and reach inside

  with playful feel

  all the better

  thus to steal

  Nasturtium

  Born in a sour waste lot

  You laboured up to light,

  Bunching what strength you’d got

  And running out of sight

  Through a knot-hole at last,

  To come forth into sun

  As if without a past,

  Done with it, re-begun.

  Now street-side of the fence

  You take a few green turns,

  Nimble in nonchalance

  Before your first flower burns.

  From poverty and prison

  And undernourishment

  A prodigal has risen,

  Self-spending, never spent.

  Irregular yellow shell

  And drooping spur behind …

  Not rare but beautiful

  – Street-handsome – as you wind

  And leap, hold after hold,

  A golden runaway

  Still running, strewing gold

  From side to side all day.

  The Man with Night Sweats

  I wake up cold, I who

  Prospered through dreams of heat

  Wake to their residue,

  Sweat, and a clinging sheet.

  My flesh was its own shield:

  Where it was gashed, it healed.

  I grew as I explored

  The body I could trust

  Even while I adored

  The risk that made robust,

  A world of wonders in

  Each challenge to the skin.

  I cannot but be sorry

  The given shield was cracked

  My mind reduced to hurry,

  My flesh reduced and wrecked.

  I have to change the bed,

  But catch myself instead

  Stopped upright where I am

  Hugging my body to me

  As if to shield it from

  The pains that will go through me,

  As if hands were enough

  To hold an avalanche off.

  Lament

  Your dying was a difficult enterprise.

  First, petty things took up your energies,

  The small but clustering duties of the sick,

  Irritant as the cough’s dry rhetoric.

  Those hours of waiting for pills, shot, X-ray

  Or test (
while you read novels two a day)

  Already with a kind of clumsy stealth

  Distanced you from the habits of your health.

  In hope still, courteous still, but tired and thin,

  You tried to stay the man that you had been,

  Treating each symptom as a mere mishap

  Without import. But then the spinal tap.

  It brought a hard headache, and when night came

  I heard you wake up from the same bad dream

  Every half-hour with the same short cry

  Of mild outrage, before immediately

  Slipping into the nightmare once again

  Empty of content but the drip of pain.

  No respite followed: though the nightmare ceased,

  Your cough grew thick and rich, its strength increased.

  Four nights, and on the fifth we drove you down

  To the Emergency Room. That frown, that frown:

  I’d never seen such rage in you before

  As when they wheeled you through the swinging door.

  For you knew, rightly, they conveyed you from

  Those normal pleasures of the sun’s kingdom

  The hedonistic body basks within

  And takes for granted – summer on the skin,

  Sleep without break, the moderate taste of tea

  In a dry mouth. You had gone on from me

  As if your body sought out martyrdom

  In the far Canada of a hospital room.

  Once there, you entered fully the distress

  And long pale rigours of the wilderness.

  A gust of morphine hid you. Back in sight

  You breathed through a segmented tube, fat, white,

  Jammed down your throat so that you could not speak.

  How thin the distance made you. In your cheek

  One day, appeared the true shape of your bone

  No longer padded. Still your mind, alone,

  Explored this emptying intermediate

  State for what holds and rests were hidden in it.

  You wrote us messages on a pad, amused

  At one time that you had your nurse confused

  Who, seeing you reconciled after four years