Recorded in the book of conscience
And behind the gilded crest stamped on the boards
They barely dare to scratch or burp.
3
Tear tears along, chasing tear, and kicks it
When it’s down: Turn the other cheek, tear!
I’m trailing you, I’m on your track,
Blinking at you like a lighted spill
Making the walls reel, like a lighted match.
Tease me, tear, you madcap
Be my healer:
You, my little book, me your reader.
Tear answers tear:
Nivermore, tear, rest you nighwhere
Beyond the hermit’s lonely rock-fault
I will return to you as rocksalt.
4
My lady neighbour drives out on black sables
Riding hood laughing, her mittens speak in riddles
Three fields she passed, and the fourth a rise,
Into the yard like thunder she rides.
Her neighbour sits stunned – hey, neighbour, budge up
Not often a vixen comes to sup!
Offer her honey in the bowl of your paw
Put her to bed on the bench in the warmth.
She will then set up such a howling:
The master’s right burns bright as a barn
A mother’s caress is still as a millpond
And if you thirst and drop your snout down in
A pail, there’s not enough water to drink or to drown in
5
Where the dance was shaped in flame:
Stand away – you’ll see it’s still burning now
Flames without heat, fire without sense, inextinguishable
Steps marked in distinct and crooked letters.
What whined in the air, is still singing now
Tugging at roots, squeaking loose threads.
The pools make their round sound, release no bubbles
The road is asleep, neither trembles nor moans.
Beyond the third poplar, day is falling
Beyond the fifth poplar, the shadow falls away.
Beyond the fifth poplar the soul flees away,
Beyond the third poplar there’s no point searching.
The wreath won’t hang for long in the house,
Look in the mirror, already your hair is sparse.
6
Chorus line, on our feet
On our legs, our dancing legs:
In dyed stocking
In borrowed stockings.
We’ll dance our lithe line
To the shore of the blue blue sea
And knock, and you’ll draw your waves
Apart, expose your flats
And we’ll sing the refrain:
We come at a price
Pay in watery gruel, a coralline ear
And beaten coins of gold!
We’ll sing below the waves (and the sea rolls on the shore)
We’ll sing the miller’s song (and the foam white as flour)
We’ll sing of the laundrymaid (and the waves wash us through)
We’ll sing of service (and the soldiers stand tall).
Sleep in on a Saturday
Breathe in on a Sunday
Young beauty is washed from your face
A scattering of snow on your foolish bobbed head.
And the sea sighs and beats its hooves
Won’t come to the shore, won’t pay its dues.
7
You my gifts, o my gifts
Thin white linen sheets
Over whom will I throw you
Entrust you to whom?
My friend has no pillow under her head
She sleeps in a stream
My little mother
Runs away down the track
She takes nothing with her
She doesn’t look back.
My own brother
Can’t hide himself in the field.
I’m no mistress, me
Nor cattle, nor kettle.
The giftgiver asks no questions
Says nothing, suggests nothing,
Thunders and rolls
Over the dirt road
Dark firs are cut to masts
And above their rustling tips
He walks, leaning on their light trunks.
8
Who guards our picket fences, our blooming hedges?
Friar Pan and Into-the-Fire are vying with each other.
Into-the-Fire has six flaming fingers, see them and shiver
And Friar Pan takes off his sooty frock, stands shaggy as a goat.
Higher, higher place the roof, praise the new roof
Shacks and wattle walls, daub and dug out, logs for cabins
Give us up, gather us up, give us a sign –
We’ll show you, we’ll bow to you, we’ll pay our way:
With starry-eyed blackberries, blue-lipped bilberries
Sharp-blue magpie feathers and hazelnuts,
With marbled water like an old man’s beard
With the black ploughed furrow, our lives’ work.
9
A deer, a deer stood in that place
Under the nut tree
And tears ran down its coat
Blood smoked on the snow.
A deer, a deer stood in that place
Under the nut tree
And rocked, rocked gently
The empty cradle.
A deer, a deer stood in that place
Asking the endless question
And from beyond the seven seas
Carried the wails of a child.
I wandered the yards, I glanced in the windows
I searched for a child I could raise myself
Choose myself a little babby
Maybe a girl or a little laddy
I’d feed my child the purest sugar
Teach it to lace and embroider
Take it for strolls under my pinny
Sing sweet songs to my own little sonny.
But they cast me out, they came at me
With torches and pitchforks they drove me
Your own foolish mothers and fathers!
And you will wander snot-nosed for years
Angering strangers, lost and derided
Without the muzzle-scent of tears
Never knowing your own true tribe.
10
The last songs are assembling,
Soldiers of a ghostly front:
Escaping from surrounded places
A refrain or two make a break for it
Appearing at the rendez-vous
Looking about them, like the hunted.
How stiffly unbending they are
Running water won’t soften them now!
How unused they are to company
The words don’t form as they ought.
But their elderly, skilful hands
Pass the cartridges round,
And until first light their seeing fingers
Reassemble Kalashnikovs,
They draw, with sharp intake of breath
From wounds, the deeply lodged letters –
And towards morning, avoiding checkpoints,
They enter the sleepless city.
In times of war, they fall silent.
When the muses roar, they fall silent.
from Underground Pathephone
*
Stop, don’t look, come close,
Sit a while, here, on my breast,
Crouch like a shrub on the steppe
Frozen under a crooked cap
Dig a hole, speak into it
Press your ear to it, catch a sound
And where my right hand lay
Pick the forget-me-not, the weed from the ground.
I can’t make you an answer
I’m slush, a few pounds and no more.
It’s bright here under the oak
Bright with hardly bearable love.
*
Don’t wait for us, my darling
Me and my friend been took.
Reporting back from the front, sir:
There’s war wherever you look.
We’re based down in a basement
In the deepest depths of the clay
They’re throwing flames above us
But we’ve gone away
Some arrived only lately
Some at the beginning of time
All of them flat as playing cards
Fallen in the grime.
And the earth that flows between us
Is thick as wine.
We were men but now
We’re amino acids in soup
The smell of tears and sperm
And bonemeal and gloop
And me I’m singed at the edges
A piece of felted wool
The one who stood at the window with you
Is made of deep hole.
When they lay that table
With plates on damask cloth
When they light the Christmas tree
And sing Ave to the host
When a camel hoof
Breaks the icy crust –