Lazy old arse. The trick, I’m convinced, to writing a lot is to lower one’s standards. Ego slows you down. As such this year I only wrote one substantial piece of prose, which was misconceived from the start, and which, anyway, was not for public consumption. Knowing, however, that I am a poor poet, I have felt the freedom to be positively prolific in the production of verse. Sonnets predominate. The first couple of poems here were written in the tail end of last year but I claim them for 2023 anyway. Please enjoy.
He Tries to Reconstruct the Image of his Beloved in her Absence
What strange taboo restrains? Her beauty is
A masterpiece his mind cannot repaint,
Like a faded Giotto of a saint.
Does her perfect jaw curve like this – or this?
The sweet particulars all flee from his
Impatient memory, and leave extant
A pale and smoky silhouette and faint
Unsatisfying reminiscences.
He cannot now recall that dark-eyed glance
Which makes heartache into a kind of game
And selfishness a kind of innocence.
And however much he invokes her name
In barren sleep he knows her absence.
We cannot dream of what we wish to dream.The Mermaid
Is that not Venus bright above the land?
A second Venus twinkling in the sea?
Across those silvered waters drifts to me,
To where I fret and brood upon the sand,
A velvet voice expressing sweet demands:
O come to me, husband, O come to me.
So often wived, so often widowed, she
Is true and faithful 'til the gasping end.
And she will keep my wrecked and beggared bones
And hold my hollow ribs and skull in trust
Within a secret, dark, inviolate vault.
Her voice like breaking waves cast down on stones,
And her embrace as cold as winter frost,
And eyes of black, and lips that taste of salt.(Written for Rachel Edward’s sonnet competition).
Like hibernatory squirrel or mouse, or like a poppy whose greenness has fled yet has a living root in the icy earth, the soul retires to keep a narrow house, to rustic furnishings, a spartan berth; for thirst takes water and for hunger bread, and leaves the outer world to winter’s care, and hopes no more for spring. And yet the spring does come, in time, to chase away the snow, and brisk birds million in the open air. At once the magpies know, the rabbits know, and fresh new life engoldens everything. There rises from the south a breath, an air perfumed and lusty, all sighs and mutters like those of springtime lovers. Through the still and shuttered creature’s den and soul’s close lair, it whispers “Wake” to wearied ears, until a hind leg twitches. An eyelid flutters.
Lines Written in a Hurry on the Occasion of His Majesty's Coronation
All shall be okay, all shall be okay
In this wet and steelskyed May.
The King shall have his pomp and glories
To show there's hope left for a while,
Even though it seems like I'll
Take more Ls than the Tories.Between the teeming earth and Heaven lies A distance vast beyond our failing reach. No human effort can unmake the breach; Nor through the blue and aery gulfs can rise. And so we hasten on with feet of clay; Take worldly physic for unworldly needs. How fast the glowing horizon recedes - The godward path is travelled but one way. Let poetry enliven earthy prose. Let thistles dream that they are goldenrod. And for a shining moment let me see, Though fleetingly and distantly, a God So merciful His mercy overflows The lofty bounds of unreality. (Again, for Rachel's competition.)
A Sonnet on Dante’s First Sonnet Draped in crimson, her naked form shows through; His burning heart into her mouth is placed. Doubt not, dear reader, that his love was true – But dare, if you do dare, to call it “chaste”! And true, once dead, she (his Beatrice) the way Through Heaven’s heights led with a gentle voice, But still, churlish though it may seem to say: Those pearly gates were Dante’s second choice. Insomniac and grim at midnight, he Rehearses well these oft-repeated thoughts. His thirst, though wanting scotch, is getting tea. The poem turns into a riddle of sorts: Red-draped, red-lipped, and heart-swallowing jaws. Why, the answer is: a postbox, of course!
I see him now, chisel in hand, no less Delighted, master mason he, to hew From rock demons as saints – for, yes, what true Artist does not delight in ugliness? But here as elsewhere, time has not been kind. Long acid weather has that old grotesque Rendered so mushy, sad – a tragic mask; Its teeth made stumps, its eyes both sunken blind, And jawbones yellowing with mossy mange. So far have its once-fierce features decayed That nesting larks have stuffed its mouth with straw. And listen now: the demon-face (how strange) Begins a most unlikely serenade, And twitters birdsong from its granite maw.
How can a man lose a city entire? Not to a flood or to war or to fire, But to a word that he spoke indiscreetly - How can a man lose a city completely?
You know not of the Rose of heaven? Fair it grows
Upon the Nordic mountainside,
Where fairy-folk and demigods reside,
In places mankind barely knows.
It grows beneath an holy oak, all bent and knurled
In ancientness. And seeded there
It sends bright shoots into the misty air,
Its roots into another world.
It drinks sweet waters from the hidden lakes of Bliss,
And, showing pale leaves to the sky,
It builds its petals and plant-organs by
Auroral photosynthesis.
And iridescent with fire like the sky above,
That scarlet-golden-yellow bloom
Sends forth a sweet and heavenly perfume;
A perfect rose for a perfect love.
Ah! If I knew the way, if I but had the lore,
I’d travel to that distant land.
I’d pluck those perfect blooms and bind them and,
Bouquet in clutch, knock on your door.Finding Religion
Though still I can confess no pious creed,
My restless heart is stirred by something new.
I find within me now a dreadful need
To worship; to adore; to hallelu.
Let Friedrich’s Overman his life repeat;
Why should this fool indulge such wantings when
That single morning, chill and bittersweet,
Was quite enough – was more – to want again?
Who needs theodical defence of Grace
In light of grief, the grave, our wretched Fall?
Not he who even once has seen your face,
The merest glimpse of which pays for it all.
My mind remains unchanged; still this is true:
There is no God. But, O! – there’s you. There’s you.When I am old and you are old And in your second beauty's flower, If I but caught a glimpse of you, I'd bless that blessed hour. And if we stopped for old times' sake And traded stories for a while, I'd give the years that I had left To see a single smile.
“There’s a skeleton inside you.” - Aubrey, aged 3 I see them, stretched out on a desert floor, And bleaching white and whiter in the sun; The desert sands have just begun To blanket them forever – or Adrift beneath the waves and growing furred With the indifferent life of the sea, And there they shall forever be With little fish and crabs interred. Or forgotten within a wood, a rose, A red and thorny rose, entwining through An empty orbit. Morning dew The skull enjewels. The high grass grows. And all this pulsing flesh, this blemished skin, The tension of these muscles, harp of nerves, The wrecky heart which life preserves, The eyes that shine, the brain within, The twine of arteries, the cord of veins, The much-abused liver, the red of blood, Returning, all, to clods of mud, ‘Til nothing soft or warm remains. Now growing gaunt with age, I swear I see Before the bathroom mirror, late at night Beneath the lights, so stark and bright, The most immortal parts of me.