Collected Poems
Page 37
Winter wins
Freeze the trees.
Winter winds
Chill the knees.
Bitter, shrill,
They whistle, shriek,
Nip and whip
Chin and cheek.
Shiver, shiver, bird on tree,
Shiver, shiver, fish in sea.
Stream and river, frozen be.
Soon will spring
Bring the sun,
Linnets sing,
Winter done.
‘OUT OF THE STATION PUFFS THE TRAIN’
Out of the station puffs the train
Under the bridge, then up the hill,
Down the hill, across the plain,
Beside a river, till once again
It comes to a station and stands still.
SONNET FROM ‘THE END OF THINGS: THREE DIALOGUES FOR OLD MEN’
Crippled, the antarctic fire with chiselled skill
And fraught with allomorphs deforms the climb
To netherness and, opportune, clangs time
Out of the waldorf-coloured chlorophyll.
Undoubt, unbuild the wharf-encrusted thrill
That doubts redouts of most discordant slime
Where, weathered to a clink of the sublime,
The sheaths of allergy must work their will.
Enough – or else too much, which means too little.
Unbreach, consider neither jot nor tittle,
The swarthy Nordics out of Dusseldorf.
You find it mollient? I found it brittle,
And hence exploded with a beery skittle
Each brooding titan and resplendent dwarf.
‘IMAGINATION IS YOUR TRUE APOLLO’
Imagination is your true Apollo.
In our translunar skills the moon’s small beer.
Fact’s fancy’s cripple. Acts are dim to follow
Words (small cheese, I meant – small green cheese).
We’re too long beyond the moon. The moon’s too near.
Bored with the merely visible, SF
Spends trillions on each fresh galactic race
Yet shells out not one cent to make us deaf
To the shrill signals from that silver face,
Attuning us to tunes from deeper space.
Still, it was all romance, drawn up from wells;
Or myth – an uncertain lantern in the air,
Or Prester John’s balloon, the Christian hell’s
Chill annexe, or the huntress in her chair.
Now Armstrong (Neil) and Aldrin (Ed) are there,
And Collins in his clucking mothercraft.
Old Glory on the consecrated crust
Is all th’ old glory that, alas, is left.
Glory in, in your progressive lust,
These heroes who sift silver for its dust.
Where the black gods deliciously prevail,
You find cool tribes. Our hot entropic plan
Submits to seeing human order fail,
Erects inhuman order where it can
And smiles and sighs at lunonautic man.
‘OUR NORMAN BETTERS’
Our Norman betters
Taught English letters
To bathe in the fresh
Warm springs of the south.
So turn your backs on
Anglo-Saxon,
The þ in the flesh
And the æ in the mouth.
NOSTALGIA IN HEAD PLUNGING
----------different topic
a rose is a rose is a rose yes, but try:
a street is a street is a street
a bridge is a bridge is a bridge
rosa no buscaba rosa buscaba otra cosa
gli archi fanno più belli i ponti
is everything art,
is everything structuralism?
‘DREAMING WHEN DAWN’S LEFT HAND…’
Dreaming when dawn’s left hand…
Break break break…
Grrr there go my heart’s abhorrence
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking
Simon Danz has come home again
Earth hath not anything…
A thing of beauty…
O wild west wind…
Loveliest of trees…
Before the Romans came to Rye…
AN ELEGY FOR X
X is unnecessary, like his brother
That ‘whoreson zed’ (King Lear) or like the other
That stands between thoses two – the Grecian i,
As Latins call it. You may ponder why
We need an X in taxi when you queue
(There’s Norman tyranny. C double U
Will do, and did do for the Saxons when
A queen had not dethroned a native cwen),
Lugging your luggage from a train or bus,
For tacsis at a Cymric terminus.
In Russia, if you have the time to wait,
A takcu is delivered by the state.
St Cyril gave the barbarous Russians X
For a good Grecian purpose. Even sex,
A western import, has a K and C.
The Welsh, though far from sexless, like to be
X-less. And yet that letter was a brand
Of Celticness when Claudius stormed the land,
Raping and pillaging, firing farmer’s ricks,
Subduing what he thought were knavish tricks –
Asterix, Obelix, Vercingetorix.
X stands for sh in Malta; Taxxbiex.
Venetians, scornful of the Roman leash,
Mock X in rex and lex bidding it dance
In place of voiced and unvoiced sibilants.
Only in Xmas do we pay our dues
To the harsh velar Greeks and Russians use,
For Christ is Xristos, and who spoke or wrote
The sacred name paid homage in his throat.
Now phoneticians sensibly denote
That fishbone-clearing phoneme with the letter
Which marks the sounds that K and S do better.
Was XXXXXX the ghastly agonizing rasp
St Andrew uttered in his final gasp
Spreadeagled on his special, chi-shaped cross?
It’s a sad letter. We won’t mourn its loss,
Let it be buried, vapourised or drowned
At least when it essays a double sound.
X is a cypher, X the unknown,
The sign of the analphabete, alone,
Along with brewing strengths, the pseudonyms
Of spies and co-respondents. Sing no hymns
Save frog-croaks. Only note where it is not
With this sole epitaph: ‘X marks the spot’.
WORDS FOR MUSIC
FROM MUSIC FOR MOSES THE LAWGIVER
PRINCESS’S LULLABY/QUEEN’S LULLABY
Out of the desert the wind blows strong, but cool from out of the sea.
The desert burns and the day is long, but night sends my loved one back to me.
CHANT
Lord of the river and of that quickening mud
Whence all manner of lowly things are brought to birth,
Bring to thy servant the gift of fecundity,
That she be not despised among the lowlier daughters of the earth,
And the worth of her birth be matched by the worth of thy gift.
Lift her, O river god, to the ranks of the mothers, the mothers, the mothers.
SOLDIER’S SONG
Here’s the way we earn our pay.
Who’s the enemy we slay?
Baby slaves so long as they have
Balls between their legs.
That’s no way to earn your pay.
We would rather any day
Take their mothers and then lay our
Balls between their legs.
legs legs legs legs legs legs legs legs (repeat ad lib)
PRAYER
You who nourish the palm and tamarind,
The date-palm and the pepper-tree,
From whose m
ud the crocodile breeds,
Many-toothed, strong as a chariot.
LULLABY
Out of the desert the wind blows strong, but cool, but cool from out of the sea
The desert burns and the day is long
But night sends my loved one back to me
PASTORALE
What will my love bring when he comes?
A silver ring.
Earth will ring with his tread,
I when he comes.
On his head a kingly crown
When he comes down the hill.
What will he bring?
A silver ring,
When he comes,
When he comes…
WATER SONG
So sang the water, so sang the water:
I was here before man began
And though I will cleanse him and slake his thirst…
I will make him know that I was first,
And when man’s brief day is past,
I will be last.
So sings the water,
So sings the water:
I will obey in the little things, but
I’m not his cattle, his cattle or sheep.
He may bid me go, ocean or rain, or the snow but
I remain
DESERT SONG FOR MOSES
Burning day
Brims into the burning skies
Where only the vulture flies,
Alert for his prey.
Only faith imparts
Hope to hopeless hearts
And bids us brave the dust of our desolate way.
Airless air,
A kingdom of stone and sand
That stretches on hand and hand
Unbounded and bare.
Still we dare the sun
Till our goal is won
And brave the hell that leads to a heavenly land.
TRAVELLING SONG
Sing praise to our God,
Praise to Israel’s Lord.
He strikes down our foes:
Praise the might of his sword.
He will lead us to land
Where our flocks may graze
And temples will stand
To hymn his praise.
His mercy is great as the
Power of his sword –
Hear ye, Israel –
Praise your Lord!
MIRIAM’S SONG OF TRIUMPH
Sing ye to the Lord for he has
Triumphed gloriously
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea
Halleluluiah
Sing ye to the Lord for he has
Triumphed gloriously
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the
Sea hath he thrown into the sea
Praised be his name for ever and ever.
Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Halleluiah!
(repeat and ad lib.)
MIRIAM’S SONG OF TRIUMPH
The Lord is our captain,
his helmet the sun,
the moon his shield,
the night sky is full of his arrow holes.
Halleluiah
The hands of the Lord were with us.
They pushed the water aside and aside
Like the hands of a farmer dividing grain
The Lord is just, quick to smite the tyrant
Quick to heal the oppressed,
Comfort the comfortless.
He dips his sword in honey, his spear in balm.
Halleluiah
We have seen the wonders of the Lord, in fire and hail,
in plague and famine, in the parting of the waters.
He leads us to a green abode bursting with richness.
Praised be his name for ever and ever.
Halleluiah
Halleluiah
Halleluiah
MARRIAGE ROUND
Where will our wedding wedding be?
Up in the fronds of a dikla tree.
What will we drink and what will we eat?
The moon for wine and the sun for meat.
MOSES’S SONG
Give ear O ye heavens and I will speak
And hear O earth the words of my mouth.
My doctrine shall drop as the rain,
My speech shall distil as the dew,
As the small rain upon the tender herb
And as the showers upon the grass
The Lord is the rock, his work is perfect.
Rejoice O ye nations with his people
For he will arrange the blood of his servants
And will be merciful merciful merciful
Unto his land
And to his people.
TRAVEL SONG
We go, we go to the unknown land
Where the hand of the Lord showers blessings
And the sun fails not nor the soil,
And the man’s toil is a prayer of thankfulness
To the Lord.
There it lies beyond our eyes
And yet within reach of our hand
We go to the unknown land, to the unknown land
BULL SONG
His strength is the strength of the bull that charges in thunder
Again and again
Above in the skies and under the skies
In the golden noon and the moon’s gold
His power and wonder are told.
Halleluiah
GOLDEN CALF SONG
His head is the sun, he bears the moon on his brow.
His legs are the North and the West and the East and South
From his mouth blow the words thereof.
His coat is speckled with the stars.
He strides in power over all the world.
Halleluiah.
BARD’S SONG
And we turned and went up by the way of Bashan.
And Og the king of Bashan went out against us.
He and all his people, to the battle at Edrei.
And the Lord said unto Moses: fear him not,
And thou shalt do to him as thou didst
Unto Sihon king of the Amorites.
So we smote him, and his son, and all his people.
Until there was none left alive.
And we possessed his land.
JUBILEE ANTHEM
FOR MALAYAN BOYS’ VOICES
I
What have we seen in fifty years?
Worlds rise, worlds decay.
Blasts of war have shattered our eyes, our ears,
And threats of war, as terrible as they,
Fed us with fears, blinded with useless tears.
And even this green land
Land of mountain, jungle, birdsong-haunted,
Of sun- and rain-washed earth, sea-beaten sand,
Has seen the conqueror’s garish banner flaunted
And felt the conqueror’s hand.
Nor has the conflict ceased,
The blindfold war to liberate the free.
The untamed jungle hides another beast
Clenching its teeth in evil glee
To see blood rise in the unhappy east.
But we must celebrate
Something achieve, something with labour won
From the devouring jungle crouched in hate
To trample time and swallow up the sun,
A work as nobly great
As any in this noble land begun
Whether to conquer death, impose the rule
Of law on chaos, re-create
The merging of the many into one –
This growth and slow maturing of our school.
II
Young Boys
Beside the silver river
In the silver land
Changing ever-never,
With bright devotion planned,
In green and glory stand
The halls of our endeavour.
Older Boys
Where the only strife
Is to seek and learn –
Here the key of life,
There the hand to turn.
Young Boys
The river swiftly flowing
Tells us that the time
For acting and for knowing
For learning how to climb,
Time that never waits
Begs us to begin
Open up the gates,
Let the truth come in.
We pledge ourselves to borrow
The strength they had of old
Who learned through pain and sorrow
The only wealth to hold
Is that unminted gold
Which hides in each to-morrow
Prelude
Trumpets sound
For Jubilee,
Drums pound
For Jubilee,
Flutes shrill,
Bells beat their fill
For Jubilee!
Older Boys
Let us use the past
As a road to reach
That enormous beach
Rich with sail and mast
Seas for us to chart
Call the eager heart:
Let the voyage start!
Young Boys
Remembering the ruins.
III
Let us praise those men whose vision
Scorned a sneering world’s derision,
Dreamed a dream and then fulfilled it,
Dreamed a school and went to build it.
Let us praise the boys before us
Whom we echo in our chorus
Who became the men who freed us
Who became the men who lead us.
‘THE THREE DIMENSIONS’
Watch me trace
The three of space:
Up, down, and then across
The three dimensions, as they say.
But there’s another,
An elusive sort of brother –
Time!
I’m
Giving all my attention
To treating that fourth dimension
As if it were a spatial one.
I can walk up and down it or run,
Even fly. My
Time journey’s almost begun.
The past is hidden,
The future’s forbidden.