With heaven so close, it’s but a pace
From where I stand, one pace
From where you lie, my beauty, who,
When I was young, was far too young
To yearn for.
You barely lived out half a life,
Yet here you lie, Lucy, who was fifteen once,
And golden, lively, joyful, lovely,
Henceforth stilled and dumb.
This grave is eloquent with loss, a grief
That seeps up through the soil
And soaks the skin like dew.
Farewell to you,
So pristine once, so near to heaven,
Oblivious, in these Surrey Hills,
To those like me, who linger at this stone.
ANITA PALLENBERG IS NEWLY DEAD
Anita Pallenberg is newly dead,
Long-lived beyond the bold fantastic age
When then she sparked with youth and loveliness,
And reckless, godless, self-destructive fun.
You golden woman, insolent and spoiled,
We longed for you, we envied you your self-
Made madness and your gilded cage,
Your shameless liberty, your sordid mess.
I watched an Irish blonde stroll by just now
And thought of you, and how it is that all
Our beauty flits from one, to one, to one.
I’ll sit and wait here by this wrinkled sea,
Alert to those who have your beauty now,
This rare fine day of southern Dublin sun.
Dalkey 17/06/17
THE FORMER BEAUTY
The old woman knits for her friends,
Has people to stay,
Works in her garden, goes
Shopping in heavy-heeled shoes.
Asthma shortens her breath.
She groans as she stands,
The keys of the Bechstein remember no longer
The skip and dance of her hands.
Regard her well, read closely the lines of her face,
Perceive the life that lived in the eyes.
She who was loved by heroes,
Painted by artists, sculpted,
Feted by princes, posed for magazines,
Caused a poet to leap from a bridge,
A gallant lord to renounce his lands.
Who would have thought that here’s where it ends?
She goes out for walks with a spaniel, embroiders cushions, like
Any old woman, knits colourful scarves for her friends.
INSIDE THEIR LOOSE CLOTHES
Inside their loose clothes, their chrysalis skin,
The old souls hide, of those who thought
That age would never come.
Their souls crouch down within, and wince
With pain, and pray for wings, and wait for sleep,
In order to be young again in dreams.
Inside their loose clothes and slackened skin
They wait for sleep that may, may not be birth.
Inside their shrunken world,
With patient dread, and,
Understanding nothing
But the need to fly or fall,
The old souls wait to go to earth.
DAYS OF LOVE AND REVOLUTION
Let’s sing for the last time, Tovarisch,
Of the bright, abandoned days
Of Love and Revolution,
When comrades’ names rolled off our tongues like
Rubies from a miser’s hand; those
Innocent, unintelligent, youthful days
Of big ideas, impossible plans,
Implausible hopes, of slogans, red scrawls
On urban walls, and home-made flags;
When we were saviours of the world and champions of
The workers that we’d never met,
With whom, united, we’d never be defeated,
Who shook their heads and laughed us off,
And drowned their nights in beer.
We danced like puppets, fucked like rabbits,
But at greater length, with luck,
And with more finesse, so not
So much like rabbits, perhaps, and
I’d like to do so again; but how many times
Can you drink wine and eat bread
At the same communion, repeated
Ad infinitum
Till the light of the soul goes dull?
At night, asleep, I’m still a boy,
And it’s only by day my belly sags
And the last grey hairs grow white,
And I ache if I sit too long.
And now my dreams are polluted by dismal things
I’ve been forced to learn since the
The days I had nothing to learn.
They’ve gone, Tovarisch, those bright,
Abandoned days of Love and Revolution,
But still I wait by the door
In case Love calls.
I’d hate to miss out when I’m in town
Or down at the doctor’s
Or making a fire of sycamore leaves
In the corner down by the shed.
And as for you, My Lady,
My Mistress Revolution,
You’ve lost your beauty entirely;
You never were honest, saintly or holy.
I don’t even spare you a thought
As I wait by the door for Love.
WE WHO WERE BORN TO LIVE FOREVER
We who were born to live forever have now grown old;
Our joints lose faith, our hair is grey or gone,
Our hearts give out and cancers scythe us down.
But we were the golden hopeful ones
Who’d end the wars, make ploughs from guns.
We made love, played cheap guitars, knew three chords,
Considered our parents fascists, blamed society,
Took pompous music seriously, listened to gurus,
Compared star signs, consulted cards,
Smoked weed, looked for God in the smoke.
But we who were born to live forever have now grown old,
The joke was on us, those that survive.
How very beautiful, how sweet, how bright our eyes,
How quick and easy our answers,
How full of hope, how full of talk, how full of shit we were.
THE GREAT RADICAL
Of course I’m proud of my past! Regrets, I have none, almost none at all.
I did throw stones. As far as I know they always missed.
The bombs, well yes, but they never got used.
The petrol got put in the car, the bottles put out in the bin.
I wanted change, wanted to better the world, still do.
I haven’t changed at all. I don’t do demos and leaflets now,
But I never gave up my ideals.
And it’s hardly my fault I won that prize for my book,
Sat on committees, enquiries, went on the box,
Got well paid, ended up in the Lords.
I didn’t sell out, I’m still the same inside, the fire still burns.
I’m writing a book on social change, on what’s to be done,
On what’s gone wrong. They gave me a big advance.
I gave up bombs and stones; I’m still a terror with words.
NOT IN COFFEE SPOONS
This is how we measure our lives:
That was the year the old king died;
That was the year that Father was killed;
That was the year the dog
Was put out of its pain;
That was the year that mother went in
And never came out;
That was the year that war was declared
And the olives were scorched by frost;
That was the last occasion we met, we three,
And after that, were never together again.
Sisters, lovers, brothers, this is how it is:
We measure out our lives in lives lost.
THE JACK RUSSELL<
br />
He runs in the wake of the train,
Barking and chasing, barking and chasing;
Across the meadows and ditches
The small dog runs.
The train flees and the dog stops chasing,
Barking and chasing.
Always the winner, so fierce and swift and strong,
Once again, without dispute, he’s won.
Pleased with himself, so proud and pleased,
He wags his stump and lifts his leg,
Sprinkles a tuft, a job well done.
THE LEGACY
I have a bank of drawers that store my long-held dreams,
My heart-close longings and desires,
Wrapped up in coloured tissue, neatly laid
In pretty rows, with labels stating what they are,
That name the year they were conceived,
That sometimes, even, nominate the day.
From time to time I take them out and clean them up,
These pretty baubles gathering tarnish,
With their patina of age, the cracks of shrinkage
As they dry, the deepened colours, beautiful,
But darker than they were. I keep them free of dust,
Against the day that might, but never seems to come.
I’ve left them to my children, this store of antique dreams,
That they might know their father as he was,
Not merely as he seemed to be, as Time devoured his time,
But as he always meant to be, when first he gathered dreams
And wrapped them up and cherished them, and laid them by in drawers,
Who wasn’t built of meat and bone, but conjured up his own strange ghost
And formed himself from fantasy.
IN WHOM I DO NOT BELIEVE
1
I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe
For the land behind my home,
Where I am hunter-without-weapon in the hedgerows and spinneys;
Where, crouching silent, I await the mouse
Who sallies forth to sniff the air and wash its face,
Complacent on hind haunch outside the nest
Behind the hole no bigger than a coin
Between the roots of oak.
I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe
For the knowledge and the conversation of the birds
I name, who follow at a safe distance,
Demanding in urgent voices answers to questions
That are barely understood; and I tell them that
They are my free subjects, who pay me taxes
In strangeness and beauty, and whom I heap with honours,
Lords and ladies in their own manors.
2
I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe
For the dog who chases with no suspicion of futility
Deer I merely glimpse beside the burrow of the badger,
The mansion of the rabbit and the palace of the fox;
Where the sun fractures in splinters through the
Leaves of summer, and the very branches even in
The death of winter, when I read the night’s activity
In sporemarks in the snow.
I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe
For the murky stream that is mire in autumn,
All but dry in summer, feeding standing pools
Where I confuse newts with dark fish, and panic ducks
Who yell their imprecations as they clatter past the trees,
Where fidget squirrels rain down husks of hazel,
Chittering and swearing at the snuffling dog
Who marks inconsequentially at toadstools in the moss.
3
I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe
For the island between two fields between two branches of a stream,
Impassable for fallen branches; and the rug of bluebells
I cannot bring my feet to crush, where, as a boy,
I was amazed by kingcups, by harebells, by the cycle
Of decay, by the silent owl who slept upon the
Bough above my head when all was still, and I, too,
Slept in broken sunlight by the banks awash with bees.
I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe
For the deer’s skull found amid the stream;
For the dreams of the love of women unfolding
With the bud, when I was the first
And only boy amongst the tracks and burrows,
First Lord of Life and Duke of the Duchy
Of untrodden ways, and hummocks unexplained,
Except as breast and womb of the hidden God
In whom I do not believe,
Who milks my praise.
THE WAKE
Poor woman –
Crucifix in your right hand, rosary in your left,
Laid out rigid in your best blue gown,
Your chest razed flat where once your breasts had been.
How white your fingers are, how grey and blotched your face.
And, my love, your lips, so wide and full,
That should be living and kissing.
The wicker coffin, the Catholic candles,
Mother of God on the table, smug and still.
Poor woman, trusty servant of heaven,
Too much in love with the Lord,
Who thought you’d heal yourself through prayer,
Shat upon by God for all your forty-seven years.
LAZARUS
And when I rose, confused, from the cold stone slab,
Tight with windings, stinking of myrrh,
There loomed the Healer’s face,
Still damp from tears, a face I’d loved
Since first I heard him preach, as
We shared our food in the trees’ shade, in
A silver grove of olives, walled, with a well.
I’d known him all my life; we’d played together as boys.
I hadn’t seen him for years, a prophet now in his own land!
I was, I know, an idle, flippant, superfluous man.
Some hoped he’d drive the pagans out; a magus, others said.
But as for me, I went in idleness; I had a friend grown famous,
And liked to hear what sophists say, what vagrant teachers teach.
Caught by surprise, I went to death unwillingly, it’s true;
But now I’ll live, perhaps grow old,
Compelled anew to weakness, fear and pain,
Remembering nothing from my dreamless,
Absent days, decaying in the cave.
Master, some years hence, perhaps, or soon,
In the self-same fetid hole,
Once more I’ll stretch upon that hard, cold slab,
Tight with windings, stinking of myrrh.
Master, alas for your tender, misplaced love!
Master, alas for me, whom you raised up,
Perturbed once more by the old dread,
Condemned a second time to drain that dreadful cup.
Have pity, Lord, on Lazarus, twice dead.
MESSAGE TO SATAN
I’ll send no news nor ask you how you are;
No doubt it’s stark and cold in such black light,
No doubt you haven’t changed at all. I’m keen
To know the reason you stay obstinate and mad.
And furthermore, I thought you’d like to know
I’ve angrily complained to God above
(Since He’s the Chessman, mover of us all),
Demanding – as I ask from you – to know
What kind of love His is, that isn’t love.
KLIO OF RHODES
Within this tomb lie slender bones,
Those of Klio of Rhodes, the former beauty,
Regretted by many, but not by wives,
Retired and expired in Kalymnos;
Who bequeathed to the Goddess the tools of her trade,
Along with her portrait, deftly done in lieu o
f cash
By Charmis of Kos, who perfectly captured her impudent smile,
Depicting in one hand a phallus,
A column of coins in the other.
To those who’d loved her skills, she left weak hearts
And empty pockets, wistful memories, aching muscles,
Various itches and rashes.
Her lyre and verses she left to Apollo.
Her lifetime’s wealth she left to those she loved:
Her ancient cook, her Nubian slave, a girl she bought
In Crete, the cats she found in Samos,
Six or seven brindled dogs, her goat,
Her impotent husband, her many-fathered children.
LETTER TO AFRODITE PHILOMEDA
There’s been no news of you for fifteen hundred years.
We’re wondering how you are. What mischief do you make
Out of the headlines, lovely slut of heaven? Have you
Lately loved a shepherd or slipped the grasp of Zeus?
And does your jaunty scallop shell still bear you up?
Your tranquil pool restore your often-lost virginity?
And how’s your lame Hephaestus? Whose armour does he make?
And has he caught you out again?
And what attracted you to him?
We’d like to hear your news
Now that your statues are broken,
Their foreheads carved with crosses,
Your temples tumbled, rewrought into churches,
Stocked with everything you’re not; those women
With their hair concealed in modest scarves, their
Babies not one whit as mischievous as yours.
We wonder how you are.
There’s never been a time when you were needed more.
Be sure; one day we’ll pay you back in lovers’ tears.
We miss you, slut of heaven, mount your shell, come sailing home,
With swaying hips, and flowing hair.
There’s been no news of you for fifteen hundred years.
KERKIRA
His skin hurts; it is tight and dark.
His body prickles from the salt and sun.
His blood is up, but there is no woman here
That he might serve, who might make use
Of all his lust and love.
The stars are brighter than the lamps; the swallows dip for flies,
The waves grind with a sound like distant wars.
The Cat in the Treble Clef Page 3