Selected Poetry
The Sixties
ARCHANGEL
I whispered it
to myself
coils around the tree.
my voice
juddering through my bones
netting the tree.
No wilderness but this
I cried to others uncoiling myself
from the tree.
Eat and know thyself in eating.
In the evening I was nothing
At dawn I am
created willed
that man may blossom –
amid blossoms
that he may destroy
I come to you aged
my scales cracking
Shun not the fallen world
for all its thorns
embrace it
This spake the white worm Satan
Archangel of God
SONG OF AN OLD MAN
Your silk handkerchief
spread across the blankets
memories of the fallen
Your lips kissed strangely
and your hat had peacock feathers
Trying to recover you
in the waterfall
no wonder I drowned.
NOVEMBER
November
is
bleak
lamb
raindrop
glistens
on
barbed
wire
SHADOWS
Shadows
where both twigs and hulks frame the sky,
and if
the twigs were woven and the hulks built high,
no shadows,
there being no sky
So did they build who were frightened of shadows
twig upon block.
And under one roof, which was now their sky
they lived under lock.
But as
time loped by, fears grew of things that were out of sight
and worse
moving things, first beasts, the snakes and cockroaches and pigs, then
themselves,
they all stood still in fright.
fright is a curious substance
bubbling today
shadows, then objects,
slowing, slowing, slowing down
like a ferret about its prey.
And they
told themselves that all was outside them
it was
better to live in the black than the light
your fate
can never approach in plain sight
besides
you was never them.
them, them, the eternally present
only knowing when they touched another,
things that make love, feel the cold,
that is all.
How were
they to know the other existed
only
by the touch of something pleasant here
based on the fact they’d once decided
to cut
out the light and cut out fear
fear is in external objects
but fear clicks catches in the self
imagination lack has compensation
in the dark.
Too long
I watched them with all seeing eyes
hate was
brewing in my brain
So I
sent my messenger from the sky
to bring them light and shadow again.
Fear was in the total stranger
unlike the wolves they thought they knew
the wolves had never yet attacked them
eyes shut in the coal black blue
But with this stranger came a murmur
There was fear in the glimmering sky
And with the fear a sibilant whisper
crucify!
POEM FOR ARK
Cows bellowing across the fields,
I was afraid of them.
And sometimes giant clouds stamped angrily over the hilltops
But in dreams it was different;
cows’ mouths held no terror
and their mouths were cavernous soft
under the bedclothes.
III
He grew up in a forest
topped with swarming smiles,
midget pretty puckering smiles
buzzing flutters and big big grins.
He was lifted and tickled.
Later, taller, with a butterfly net,
he did not find smiles quite so nice.
the reds and golds were blotched
the grins had ugly flapping wings.
worse still, they bit.
So he moved to a cuboid.
There were no smiles around
and he was glad,
But sometime perhaps
an honest smile will flit through his ageing net
and she will be his Mona Lisa.
VIOLENCE
(for Father Kelly)
The fire coughs livid sparks
howling anticipation
Ah, come in Smith
Fire!
red flash engines, jingling bell;
burning whisky pouring down
the wooden staircase.
Lift up your dressing gown.
Her carefully folded paper panties
ravished by the flames.
I don’t want to have to do this again.
Fire!
No escape but the door that is locked;
and the open windows fanning the flames
are barred.
Bend down; clasp your ankles.
There are twenty charred bodies
A baby’s cry in the scattering ashes
Whack, whack, whack, whack
Never mind, there are compensations.
PROGRESS
A scientist said
a sphere has no edges
no good for a head
put spikes in instead.
FRUITPICKING 1969
I am the virgin fruitpicker
who would twine the clusters about his fingers
but bent beneath the hump that hides the reservoir
fingers fumble
tearing nothing but leaves.
Piecework
Every minute is a clutching
and the world is shrunk to high wet bushes
your stool and your precarious tray of black jewels.
It’s lonely work unless you listen
to the women’s voices.
You got to watch out for the Social.
Artie is chasing the children from the reservoir.
They laugh as they roll down the other side,
Artie has a wart on the end of his prick, say the women.
He’s the man of the field for all that.
Bursting down the row, fucking your world ten times a day.
You missed some back there. Go back mate!
Obedient you hump your pitiful tray and stool.
In a sickening second the tray slips over. Your glistening precious jewels spread across the mud.
Ten shillings’ worth of hours of work.
once
just once the currants are like flesh
to fondle
then: He’s happy today. Look you can see he’s smiling.
He got thirty bob today.
But more often it is dust
dust of dried up fruit
so many choking leaves
and glutted wasps
meanness, so meanness
muddy sixpences.
SEQUENCE
I
And to descend into the blackness
thin streaks of light bending backwards
deeper, deeper,
spirals the inward head
eyeballs roll
lidded
Red comes to vision
sinking into blood, turns purple
deeper, deeper,
bleep bleep bleep bleep
the dot on the screen jumps up
jumps down
jumps up
jumps down
slowly we are pulled through
the smoke
and the talk
to a kind of silence
bleep
the grey painted
walls come
bleep
orange
orange and grey
moulded in stillness
to rise to rise
to arms
palm trees across the desert
where flows the river quietly
beneath the sphinx
to rise to
raise arms
to movement
At evening the swallows swoop outside my house. Crazy
circles agains speeding cars
tick
the descent
tock
and bleep
bleep
II
Evening slips across the land
at a speed the street lamps just can’t reach
forward the golden world
chariot
down
wet
black
alleyways scattering shadows
waking happy Jack with his
little black briefcase
And every honest man is by his fireside
cosy, cosy
pudding and pie
with a cat for that
matter
and an evening paper
Hail to thee landlord
master of the dartboard dial
serve out the drinks
quickly
please
III
breath
necessary part
in and out
breathe
in
and out
winds too have their appeal for the
lost soul
but they carry too far
and oh my soul, too
cold
Heaven cannot be cold
Just breathe
and lady your bosom is
the rhythm of life
IV
And in the morning
I would go
down the lane between the sheep
barbed wire and farm houses
I would watch the fields
stunned by their foldings
ever changing
horizons
glimmer with the dew
the sky so close that I
greet it
in the morning
And as I walked
November
came winter out of the long long
summer
suddenly
so suddenly
there was no autumn
fall
through to the shivering
sheep
V
Behold
death’s chariot
eleventh fruit of the
one armed bandit
down thunder
dawn
razor blade
to the tree
The ripe fruit falls
plop
and Farewell.
REFLECTIONS IN HELL
I
And is hell but ashes
desert of nothing?
What of the ceaseless tears?
Would they not have crusted ere this?
And if dull grey
Satan!
Where are you in this
lifeless
teeming of men?
II
If God is light
white streaming from his godhead
and the just bathed
in airy rooms
of light,
shall we not see the black?
And in the black shadows
flickers
purple behind the eyelids?
And scarlet, sure, is not of the kingdom of light:
night owls, screeching shades of popes
cardinals and statesmen.
III
Tell me prison, when will you talk of the mandrakes
spawned about the electric chair?
They’re selling them as plastic in England. Squeeze
them and they scream.
But I know
I know
Apt it was that the necrophile should engender mandrakes.
IV
Count me not a tomb maker,
rather a knight that goes questing for
Hell.
V
Knock knock! Who’s there?
A corpse
Are you rotting, corpse, in your coffin?
Nay sir; I burn.
Tell me then who cries loudest in Hell –
Is it the Pope?
Nay sir, quoth the corpse
’Tis the living.
The Seventies
Glimpses of Spain/Morocco
There’s rusty iron and a smell
of musty wood
and dogshit in
the dark bar written
tall. Forbidden
to sing
*
The family of men
centre – the eye darter
beautiful talks eagerly with his
ringed fingers
Right – rough wild eye
says “Francais est tres jolie, but I
can’t speak it’
Left – placid well asleep
Airing his socks.
All is well in
the family of men.
*
In Algeciras they turned out my clothes
with gloved hands
delicately.
*
The boy, hair dyed blonde
said
“do you remember me in Spain?”
I looked at him
his mouth puckered for a kiss.
No no no
“Where are you from anyway?
Russia
“Fuck you!”
*
Guard your eyes
Everywhere they meet folk
who want to help you
*
Lunch in the market
sardines and haricot
with much cold oil
The boy at my back plays with a knife
half jokingly.
*
A thief taken,
his terrible look
leading two policemen
and the rabble
homeward.
*
3.30 a.m. outside the gates of
CTM Bus company huddled
white forms of sleepers mingle
with the muttering of
arriving passengers.
strange circumstance
awaiting a private dawn
LOVE AFFAIR
She said I seemed so far away
I played my guitar.
My fingers restless on the strings
Not knowing what to say.
Her fingers clutching at my arm
I played my guitar
Strumming out the measure
soothing my alarm.
What do you see? she whispered.
I played my guitar
The jangling wires held me down.
I answered not a word.
She left of her own accord
I played my guitar
Heart riven by my fingernails
I played the final chord.
SONG
In my psychedelic flat in Bayswater
in the years before the bust
I made frantic love to the Mayor’s daughter
breaking through the upper crust.
I brought out a pack of Lebanese gold
that I’d lifted from my friend the lawyer
and the heat of our minds seemed to banish the cold
as the lonely guitar took us higher.
It was so far out as I fingered her breast
and pulled on her soft silky hair.
She rubbed her nose on the bone of my chest
to find out if I was there.
And I lay there entranced as she danced –
It’s so cool.
Man I’ve never been there before.
Just wait till I tell them at school
It’s cool
Just wait till I tell them at school.
I played my guitar and stared at the wall
In the months before the bust,
waiting in vain for the landlord to call
to shout that I’d got him sussed.
I’d made barricades out of tables and chairs
My dart gun stood at the ready
I’d got sixteen anarchists living downstairs
Bombs can get you higher than money.
And I got me a note from Jimi and Che
To tell me I was keeping cool
Right on brother! Revolution OK
Man I ain’t nobody’s fool.
The fuzz on the corner creates a bad buzz
They’re always walking in pairs.
Just wait till I tell them downstairs
in pairs
Just wait till I tell them downstairs.
I waited my turn I stood in a line
In the days before the bust
shifting my legs, lost out of time
on the floorboard desert of dust.
The Grateful Dead gave a concert for free
the same tune in my head
the dizzy guitar, it sang about me
what I said what I said what I said.
I rolled up my sleeve and I paid the fare
I pointed to a possible vein
I faced the wall. I wasn’t there
I never felt no pain.
And I lay there entranced as I danced
It’s so cool
Man we could have been there before
Just wait till they tell us at school
it’s cool
Just wait till they tell us at school.
(St Albans)
PARENTS MEETING
Yes I know; you understand him
Mum leans. imploring.
She even washes his hair
So they say.
You should beat him
Dad sits upright remote
He should be reading Shakespeare
So he thinks
I have two ears
two eyes
two mouths
When his mother at last left home
he locked himself in the school toilet
smoked and cried.
And when he went for poor worried Mr George
four teachers had to hold him down
so they said.
BILL
Bill sits at the back of the class he’s chosen –
chosen – he didn’t want to be shown up.
He does his work in a beautiful hand
then stares out of the window.
He comes to school most days now
A signal triumph – though he’s in trouble again.
He put a boy in hospital and the mother
phoned the police.
Very quiet he is, now as ever
I turn my back. There’s a yelp.
Who did it? Lazily Bill admits it.
He’s got nothing to lose.
I’m sure he doesn’t smoke in class
as a favour to me. He writes
his beautiful poems, then tears them up
Satisfied by my praise.
We’re reading Sillitoe – everything
is true – he’s been in homes and worse.
His family’s a smash up
on the social motorway.
And lately he took a car
an expensive car and drove it into a wall,
drove it into another wall
drove it into another wall.
Wrecked it and walked away.
He sits at the back of the class he’s chosen.
He won’t be here much longer he says.
His cases are coming up.
(Bulgaria)
FREEDOM BOULEVARD
To walk down Freedom Boulevard
is to scan unbroken code,
scalp of the world ruthlessly parted
plastered by this empty road.
And what is gained in this lost time
but to drag uneven the spilling load
of thoughts and dreams and counter checks
as the buses march down Freedom Road
Bus by bus to measure the pace
of all who hurry on the goad
of future action – a lifted leg
to mark the cracks on Freedom Road
Christo Botev, join me weary
give your strength once overflowed
Let me tread this empty vastness
Join in the dance on Freedom Road.
FEBRUARY
Sour winds in Burgas
Sky a grey circus tent
Lit by the craning lamps
the snow clown swings
hurling showering cold sparks
in the faces
hurrying faces
pressed inn the mighty spaces
as here where the pendulum
swings heavy at the traffic lights
tearing minutes of life
from the faces
hardened faces
walled in the mighty spaces.
Grey dressed circus master
walks heavy among machines
towards the stranded child
down the faces
white lined faces
lost in forbidden spaces.
6.40
Burgas morning blue block sky
light in the hastening rush of pupils
spread in the sweep of rolling buses
flat in repeating windy spaces
wheeling world in a seagull’s eye.
Pavement morning lamppost sky
tight in the stamp of breathless steps
each with his secret love on the cracks
skilled with the footing of uneven places
shuddering wall in the seagull’s eye.
Burgas walking as if in the sky
pressed to forget the never reaching
feet on the heartstrings slowly beating
gained but a cloud blown patch of meaning
It’s not the wind that makes me cry
Here where the blocks meet the sky
lost and alone in the seagull’s eye.
ON A NUMBER 12 BUS
From the inner darkness the long bus drunk
raised his fists at the girls and boys
started to shout in a rhythmic beat
rasping shrill through sodden noise.
A cry from the murk from Christo, his Christo
A lung puffing rage against lounging jeans
and pop and sex – that they did not know
a word of his work or what it means,
Smirninsky Christo, did he die you think
did he die of TB in a bandit land
so this bus stop preacher can die of drink
or that boys in jeans can hold girls’ hands?
AFTER TAM LYN
I forbid you maidens all
that hold your country dear
to come and ring that certain door
for Englishmen be there!
They that ring that certain door
They must give up a pledge
Their rings, gold, silken things
Even their maidenheads
Annie has hiked her Polish dress
a little above the knee
She’s off to that certain door
as fast as go can she.
She’d not rung the dark door bell
but two times not four
When up spake young Christopher
Lady, you ring no more.
And he has brought her willing in
sat her down on his bed
he has hiked her Polish dress
right up above her head.
And he has clasped her thighs so white
softer than the softest down
and he has kissed her pretty lips
the sweetest in all the town.
And she has held him in her arms
as strong as in-drawn breath
Annie, Annie, cease not, he cried
I’ll love you unto death.
He felt her hand run down his back
A hand that held no knife
A hand as soft as new mown hay
held to his root of life.
And the rolling lulling sea
became that young man’s bed
She came a girl to his young arms
And left a woman instead,
And Annie has hiked her Polish skirt
a little above the knee
and she’s away to her parents’ house
as fast as go can she.
And up spoke her mother dear
Never seen to look so wild
Daughter daughter she cried
I fear you go with child!
If I’m with child mother dear
myself must bear the blame
There’s not a man in all Bulgaria
shall bear the baby’s name.
For my man’s no Bulgarian
He is an Englishman
I’ll hold to him like a strong tree
to see he receives no harm.
You can wed no Englishman
without you pass the trial
months of secret reports
will fill the police file
They will turn him in your arms
into a fascist snake
hold hard his slippery scales
don’t let him go or quake
They will turn him in your arms
to a pig from MI6
Hold him by his wiggly tail
ignore his squeals and kicks.
They will turn him in your arms
into a western whore
hold him hard to your breast
or you won’t see him more.
And she has held him in her arms
as tender as a baby’s breath
Annie Annie, cease not, he cried
I’ll love you until death.
The police have laid a curse
a heavy curse it be
thou and I can ne’er be wed
till town becomes a sea.
And so it fell one rainy day
Burgas became a lake
Through the torrents they did wade
all for their true love’s sake.
Up then spake the police chief
His face was sullen grey.
where will you make your vows
they said Pomorie.
We will plight everlasting troth
In Pomorie town of love
we will lay our bridal flowers
at the feet of Yavarov.
TO BURGAS
I
You kings of old Bulgaria
cloaked in the knowledge
of treachery
danger in the swirling snows –
the suffocating sun and dust
of armies on the plain
on the march – a throw of the dice;
a kingdom
a knife in the dark;
your foreign queens and jealous lords –
close your eyes in the peace
of sky and sea:
do you see
from the idle fishing boats
bobbing, raise your eyes
as if in vision on a shimmering day
see
Burgas now raise its white towers
from the salt marsh.
II
Burgas never so beautiful
as after a shower:
the tarmac and the concrete
glisten with a metal sheen,
reflecting dissolving
the harshness of the blocks to
a mirage of white towers
clean against the blue sky
the gurgling gutter
three yellow leaves
the whisper of an endless
red bus.
III
Water flows across the way
some day
between Nessebur and Sozopol
you kings of old Bulgaria
in a mosquito second
pause gaze
on the silent heights
of faceless windows in the sky
fortresses of daylight throng
the shore where
your armies disappear.
THIS MONTH’S BLUES
Rain dashes on my window, wind blows round my door
I got no minute to myself to break this aching store.
I lay with my baby all on my lovin’ bed
but the sleeping sickness got me turning my limbs to lead
When the rain falls on Burgas, seems like there ain’t no time
chased by the winds and loving becomes a crime.
Don’t you know it’s mean to travel on a number four bus
Your baby’s upset and she’s going home to face a fuss.
Wind’s blowing in Burgas, blowing the sun away
But when the sun comes back I’m gonna lie with my baby all day.
SONG FOR SOFIA
(after getting marriage documents)
Sofia’s a lady I sing this song for you
To some you’re just Shopski but to you I’ll be true.
Though your gallery is painted in a shade of shocking pink
And your cafes don’t sell coffee and I can’t afford your drink
In the trolleys and the buses you stamp upon my toes
and round your Russian monuments a cold wind blows
But now the sun is shining I’ll shout with all my breath
Sofia, Sofia I’ll love you unto death.
Sofia’s a lady I sing this song for you
though people just sneer Shopski to you I’ll be true
Be true to that office girl who nodded and who smiled
as long awaited documents into my hands she piled
Be true to those old men who just gave a smiling glance
as I burst into the sunlight, kissed the papers, did a dance,
be true to those young girls who handed me a flower
Sofia I love you more and more by the hour
Sofia’s a lady I sing this song for you
And though the lady’s Shopska to you I’ll be true
In this city in the sunlight my happiness is sealed
With hard to find taxation stamps the wounds of love are healed
Though the waitress brought me moussaka when I distinctly ordered soup
Even by the mausoleum I can’t restrain a whoop
From your majestic theatre to your snowy virgin peak
I’m in love with you city. I’m a shopski freak.
SITTING ON THE LOADING PLATFORM (reading Livy)
I sit on the cluttered platform
looking at a cow grazing in the mud
picking its way slowly over the single rails
and sleepers. Else the stillness of waiting
An evening not yet cold, just the smoke
curling softly from the high chimneys
against the steel blue sky and the grey
granary towers and the field of
cable drums in rows and rows
moments of changelessness.
And changeless too is the old man who
trudges up the track never faltering
threading his way through puddles
shoulders hunched for the coming strain.
Closer, his cheeks are bristled white.
He bends over the lonely tap, trousers
lap bare ankles over rubber shoes.
As he sloshes the water, and lurches off
bent sideways with the effort, changing hands
each twenty yards. Ten times he came.
In my book, Hannibal crossed the Alps
in turning pages, braved precipices,
in jumping lines of swift relentless words
to Trasimene. I look up – again that old man
rounds the corner an eleventh time
bucket jogging at his side. Only it’s colder.
And the granary seems even solider against
a darker sky and the cow is rubbing itself
slowly on the fence. The hasty Consul ignores
the omens, the calf leaps bleeding from the altar.
Panic in the fog: moans of the dying
helpless splashings in freezing lake.
The trap was well set. Hannibal triumphs,
his vow of vengeance almost met as the mists
clear from the rotting dead – look up
I shiver but the old man shows no sign
not faster or slower he trudges past,
changes hands and trudges on.
Or Hannibal will fail or ride his elephants
down the line, this does not change.
THE DEBRIS OF LOVE
The debris of love
the fall out – two bodies
falling in – the clumsy
clutching, falling, no bed
no world sufficiently wide
for this wasteful love
And the debris of love
as you lie on the damp of my sofa
twilight tights about your knees
and bra wrenched.
the mess of love is the mess of my room, so
book and paper strewn
and carpet rucked like your dress.
In Primorsko the wind caught us unaware in the garden
In Primorsko they ran like blown leaves, chattering children
In Primorsko the clouds built red castles against an autumn sky
In Primorsko at a puff the castles were insubstantial dragons
In Primorsko I held your hand and wished ourselves stillness
And the sky grew darker
The wind drives us; only the eyes remain.
Pages turn in rooms
A sneeze – the dust no doubt.
Who sighs for us?
A door bangs, the walls are so thin
Thin the curtains, the candle flickers
Hold me in your arms – the wind
is cold, the debris sliding and only
your body is sure.
The debris of love
your eyes roll sudden towards a corner
a wall a watch, the time, the time
your mother, your mother,
seconds tick, and grey hair falls
brows knit – чуваш ли?
чуваш ли?, my love.
NO TITLE
The gasping universe of slow revolutions
And Annie, you are my centre
Consider the atoms and lumbering galaxies
your circling thighs
would win me to combustion.
We live in a capsule beaten with wear
And Annie you are my pilot
Consider the circling vacuum of death
Your tongue on mine
releases my words to pour in your ear.
There is a centre of dismissal and recall
And Annie we are reborn
Consider the aeons ‘twixt reach and destruction
our child in your womb
is the beginning and end of all.
VASKO NYOTEV
(the idealist principled Communist teacher of Russian)
Vasko, your body covered with flowers
you who sang as we ran up the school stairs
suddenly your face is wax.
And if there’s no world beyond the cares
that killed you, beyond the love
that strained your heart
And if no mother’s cry can move you
to become a second Lazarus
and push those flowers apart.
Push apart the horror of death at thirty years
in this state where death plucks
so few acquaintances.
And if then nothing can be said
the sea wind blowing keen across the mud
but the vacuum of a dream dead.
So many, so many then came with flowers
for a red coffin lying on a mound of earth
dropped into the crack that gave us all birth.
Vasko nature’s cycle cut too short
a cry cuts the wind your child is pale at seeking
– but so many many crouch with only one thought –
you
MALINNA AT THE BREAST
A candle flickering
as in some painting
Georges de la Tour perhaps
our Christ girl child
prepares to suck and I
peep from the warm bed of guilt
to see the second agony
as the toothless gums grip and chew.
And Annie rocks
in silent pain.
This was never painted
my masters!
SPRING
Suddenly
it’s the evening
that jolts the heart.
In a flash
of mad pedaling
past lean and chat
Khan Tervel
on a ringing bike
divides the murmur
with a knife
the warring breeze
and flying sheets
taut sail the sky
tug at my heart
that I who
walk behind the blocks
am scarcely here
in this channel
of sudden intercourse
of balls and shouts and men from work.
green
and soaring implications
of grey in the falling sun
and every shaken carpet
proclaims a day undone
unthought
that Spring could bring
such shaking wonder
in Burgas.
Poems for Alma Mater
MY SCHOOL
As in an empty room, retreating walls,
again I walk
that chestnut drive to
the stone cross biffed
on old boys’ night.
Open the door –
the ambulacrum gapes,
its broken flags well trod
by rosary boys
in slow reverence awaiting
the hated bell
that ruled my life
now cracked.
We found a dead rat
under the radiator
where Father Physics lounges
warming his cassock backside
self-made favourite with the boys.
And their noses point
to my first common room.
That’s Razor.
He ruled the school
is what we believed.
There stuck to the loud speaker
Crazy John listens rapt
green snot dripping
to Pick of the Pops
Father Physics had recorded.
Let’s get out of here.
The corridor is cold.
A procession of pillars.
There I tried to hide my tears
whimpering mass.
There later I met Razor under armed escort
he was being expelled –
something to do with explosives and silver spoons.
But take care before you open the next door
There Montrasse, I thought so,
he’s throwing knives, he’ll kill someone
one day, is what we thought,
They’ve got a record player and it’s the Rolling Stones
and they’re standing on the snooker table
so they can watch the record turn and return
over the packed throng
I used to love her
It’s all over now for Father English took the player away
too much noise interfering with his Handel.
That’s the room where we polished our shoes
where they found Shag whimpering under a locker.
Matron reported his sore arsehole to Father
Father beat him for lack of hygiene.
Let’s get out to the Quad
We’re allowed this door now.
But keep off the grass – forty lines!
And lines of soldier boys
form deathless squads
on feverish Mondays and Thursdays.
There they are now faces frozen
in terrified insubordination.
Little dictators flex their powers
The rabble, the shower,
their guts for garters,
Bricks in their kitbags
rifles above their heads
running till their trousers fall down.
real wars are fought
in the mind
behind
the glazed eyes that stare
away from the white squiggles
and droning mouth
into dreams of guillotines.
This is the school block.
Silence at all times
smells of chemistry and antique desks
carved with legendary names,
we sat in love. fear, respect, contempt.
Father French who stank of fags
held his head in his hands
and waved us away.
Stew in your juices.
Father German who loved to teach
and went away.
Father English who declared
that Joyce and Lawrence should be burnt
but loved their books for all that.
For all that Father Science liked to joke
he had a mean flash
he broke Pete’s head against a door.
All that fear, never allowed to talk.
Prefects stalk
behind every open door.
There’s one now observe
the specimen face angry
with responsibility
too young.
For all that
here we learnt
most to judge a man by
the swish of his cassock,
made friends by mimicry
and secret codes,
dared what we could.
Even drove Father O’Religion
to walk on the roof one night
shouting he could fly.
He’d said the reins were loose
turning his lessons
into a wild chariot ride.
Down some steps below the stage,
it’s dark here, dark
as ink stained walnut.
We can wander, hands in pockets.
He won’t stop us – nor will he
face white and arm flung out.
Listen that’s Blaise playing Dowland
in a whitewashed cell of golden notes.
And Razor’s smoking a fag.
Here be an area of dreams,
rebellions plotted. We’ll sit here
on the piano and rest.
Next door Pete and Tony and Johnny G
thump out the Rolling Stones but
don’t disturb them. They’re the counter-elite.
First to be forced down and shorn after every holiday.
Ah the dreams of long hair,
wild and straggling, a naked curse
on the dog collar world.
Dream of how in two years’ time
we’d ride our roaring motorbikes
up the long and chestnut drive
hair blotting out the sky and face,
girl on the pillion present her
to Father G and watch him squirm.
Let’s get out of here. There?
That’s the prep hall – of hundreds of desks
I could never find mine after film night.
Lost on the cliffs of Navarone.
I played Caesar on that stage,
pompous authority
stabbed in the back!
Let’s get out of here too
the memory of being throttled by the mad Papini.
Out by the entrance is the notice board
announcements of our latest crimes:
wearing of rings or chains
corduroy jackets, two tone shoes,
not in keeping with official dress.
Snuff!
How ever faster would they react
to our inventions? Out out
The air, the air,
past the tuck shop
to the vast green of cricket pitch
sacred grass – where could we find
a mechanical digger? – but the hot sun
on our back, lying in the long boundary grass,
the click of bat was calming
time for new thoughts, for loin
restlessness – the young nun,
the Italian maid – roll off the stomach
roll back for
Father English is reading his breviary,
but his eyes are alert. His lips trapped
in a prayer. New spring lust
a man in a black skirt,
candle sniffer.
Yes Pugin built
that stunted cathedral
tacking it on to the changing rooms.
Fill it with water!
a fitting place for fish.
How many early mornings
sleepless we crouched over the back
of the chair in front, eyes fixed
on the shiny bottom in front
farts were legendary
gas masks, boys.
Let’s get out.
Let’s get away from
the fathers who dressed like women
and suddenly were not fathers
betrayal betrayal mother church!
I crouched gown lifted
pyjama bottom beaten by father
lurking in the corner of my eye.
The forgiveness of sins.
Back in the ambulacrum
the stone stretches
cold cold cold cold
Let’s dance, if you shout
the virgin saints will echoe,
a jig never stepping on a crack.
Shake the blood! You were not
first among the rebels.
Barry got drunk and Johnny
told the head to get fucked.
Masks in the dream world
past, gone, too late
as in this empty room
retreat, returning walls,
memory will never
sleep
……………..
……………..
OUR CHAPEL
You could fill it with water
submerge those pews and
roots of pillars and dive
deep the cooling thought
from the organ loft’s edge.
Else climb those dizzying heights,
the gothic roof beam and then
fall to a harmless splash
on your back.
You could fill it with water
holy and salt and
with uncut hair dive
like a merman through
the broken pews and altar
rails – see their dead faces
straining upwards, swaying
like jellyfish above weeds
in a water tank.
You could fill it with water
lapping the blue Madonna
stain glass and dive
from the heads of angels
on a sun’s ray and
in the murk of altar cloth
and candle find
a smear of God.
FATHER CAREY
Father Carey
in a short sleeved shirt
arms are hairy
and smeared with dirt.
Perched on a ladder
in bright red braces
he’s tacking out wires
in the carved spaces
the vault of the chapel
rings to the sound
of Father’s hammer
hitting the ground
One little helper
after a prize
scuttles through the pews
to where the hammer lies.
Mounts the ladder
to an awesome height
Father grips the hammer
reassuringly tight.
Then he bangs the nail
below the devil who mocks
a priest in red braces
and bright blue socks.
Father Carey
in candle stained black
is quite a different person
on a different track.
He wields a ruler
breaks nerves and heads
quotes his Shakespeare
as he softly treads
round his anxious choirboys
singing in white
just to check
each hits the note right.
One little choirboy
marvels to see
that Father is just
like you or me.
RETREAT
Father Flannery stalking the cricket field-
swish swish his cassock – the breviary
a useful prop but his eyes are sharp
for talking boys – swish swish his cane
in the evening.
His shadow crosses the bank where we’re lying
swish swish his heavy socked sandals
and we feel his suspicion, immersed in our missals
we do not look up; he’s blotted our sins
with a fear.
But now he’s heading for copses of smoking boys
lying hidden in last autumn’s leaves
and Stevens rolls back from the Tropic of Capricorn
and Razor starts stabbing the grass
with a knife
And I’m wondering, feeling the cast iron cover
the direction and purpose of drains,
to creep in the night to gas with new incense
swish swish the grills of the chapel
of death.
That’s the retreat – to find old positions
in silence of sunlight and few passing shadows.
My body warmed in the glow of a fantasy
the black swishing cassock of Father Flannery
laid to rest on the cold heavy stone.