A blackbird binds the fragments of dreams
with the twine of his song;
a scattered archipelago of reality
emerges from the night:
clang of dawn deliveries; rumble
of dustmen’s carts on cobblestones;
the dragging steps of the Golem
after a night’s watch over his precarious city.
That was long afterwards, though. Where I was now
was just wanting to get her to stop,
stop the car on that narrow lane on a Welsh hillside
whose name I’ve forgotten
like the reason for our insane quarrel, or where I found
the recklessness that made me
open the door of a car driving along a narrow lane
on a Welsh hillside, jump outside
while she was still slowing down, bang the bonnet
and leave a dent that we both,
separately, secretly, worried about for the rest of
that holiday, because of course
we hadn’t taken out extra insurance for the rental car,
as you do when you are young
and still trust in things mostly turning out right, and still
capable of insane, inexplicable emotions
that will make you jump from a car on a Welsh hillside
and write a story afterwards,
long afterwards, a story about a man skipping stones
over the surface of a twilight pond,
about two people walking through endless cornfields
towards the grain silos of a sleepy town
somewhere in the dusty Midwest of the United States;
a story about love.
The cheerful confusion
of unidentified dawn birds,
punctuated by the bisyllabic
cackle of pheasants.
A little bird has dreamed
a strange amphibian dream
and practises a timid
ribbit – ribbit?
A blackbird and his rival
soar above the chorus;
another pheasant screech,
followed by heavy flutter.
A goose honks, once.
The ribbit has grown in confidence.
On a bleak beach
on the far side of the leaden Atlantic
an ungainly creature –
a huge sinister crow
assembled from canvas and metal struts –
hops, hesitates,
takes a desperate run,
lifts off towards lowering clouds and
plops back onto wet sand;
runs, rises, dips,
rises again to thin cheers, and flies
a short length of
the desolate beach.
Against the swell of the decades
I want to swim that ocean,
heave great boulders
into the obscene creature’s path –
let it crash. Let their dream
founder. Maybe then
there would have been no news
from Halifax today.
I imagine the dry crack,
unremarkable;
no one to observe the fissure,
all but invisible, on the distant face
of the glacier; impossibly slow
the slide of white on white;
the roar of descent, the splash
of the berg unheard –
their echoes yet to be born
at such a latitude, such a longitude:
this is how history is launched:
a frozen chunk of past drifting
blindly, with deadly precision,
into the future.
15 April 2012 – centenary of the Titanic sinking
Suddenly, halfway through
a steak and Guinness pie
at the Yew Tree in Chew Stoke
I realise this is happiness.
I have been away from you
and tomorrow I’m flying home.
There are yellowhammers
in the yew tree, and
I want to reach for my camera –
but they would only fly away.
this morning
I found
in my sock drawer
that missing
grey cotton
sock
it’s my birthday
maybe
all’s well
with the world
after all
I know all about
the fierceness of badgers:
how a border terrier
will follow a fox
down the darkest hole –
but should he disturb
a badger down there,
he will bear the marks,
and still win prizes
at dog shows
as if half his muzzle
had not been ripped off;
and this as a tribute
to the fierceness of badgers.
Secretive, nocturnal,
masked like thieves,
you only ever see them
at night or
safely dead
by the side of the road.
But today on a hill track
I came across one.
Wary, I stopped –
then inched closer
to take a snap
with my mobile;
still closer, and spoke to him
as you do to dogs.
He hissed.
I jumped back
and watched him
retreat into bushes.
He was young
and must have been lost
and afraid
as we all are.
And so we walk through life:
timid, gingerly, circumspect,
because we know all about
the risk of high places,
the danger of draughts
from an open door –
and the fierceness of badgers.
Our lives are lazy polar explorations.
Our kit is safely stowed; the trade winds blow,
and so we’re swept towards our destination.
Adventure’s guaranteed. No deprivations:
warm tents, down sleeping bags; cook fires glow.
Our lives are lazy polar explorations:
we botanize, sketch, study rock formations;
swig beer, sport beards and watch the lichen grow;
and on we’re swept towards our destination.
Our routes are mapped. No room for deviation:
we’re headed north, relax, go with the flow.
Our lives are lazy polar explorations
until the compass whispers transformation,
a world of wind and ice and things below,
and down we’re swept towards our destination:
fear, disbelief, rage, hacked off limbs, starvation –
And now as white turns black at last we know…
Our lives are lazy polar explorations –
and so we’re swept towards our destination.
A welcoming bathroom, this: blond wood and glass,
the white enamel washbasin fashionably raised
above the shiny white top. And it was talking to me.
The air was alive with hissing and burbling, with ticking
and clicks, snatches of songs; and borne on this stream,
now, and again now, half-caught, the ghosts of words.
Doubtless a rational explanation applied, involving valves,
matters of pressure, bubbles of air trapped in pipes –
but still: that room had a message for me. In the dark
it was whispering secrets; in the small hours its hisses
grew desperate, offering the answers to all my questions –
and I lay listening all night, too tired to understand –
whypoetry 