Bucha, March 2022

 

24 February 2022

Father, Father tell me why
these fires of crimson cross the sky,
revealing horsemen all aglow
with weapons at the saddlebow.

The flames are pyres of Pestilence,
the worm that rides by night and day,
that hurdles thorny hedge and fence,
to fall on unsuspecting prey.

Look! Stamping on the burning earth,
you see the rough-shod steed of War,
whose rider was a god at birth
now changed to something all abhor.

There, equally to be reviled,
rides one to wither grain and grass
called Famine, War’s unsightly child,
with eyes as pitiless as glass.

With fury’s fever gone at last
comes Death to rake the smoking embers;
to tamp them down into the past
until nobody quite remembers.

        Painting Father

A grainy photo, shot in sandy hills:

I catch a glimpse of Dad in World War One,

unwounded yet, untouched by peacetime ills.

He smokes a fag, his tunic is undone;

expressing discontent, perhaps disease.

It’s otherwise a well turned-out parade:

the London Rifles smartly stand at ease,

the Lewis gun on legs correctly laid.

For poetry and paint to flow in tune 

it’s better to be lucky than inspired;

as I portray him on his dusty dune

my Lady Fortune’s graces are required

but suddenly he’s here. I feel his breath.

A moment only, he returns to death.

On watching a video made by Isao Hashimoto

Cassandra knows she’s listened to no more

but still I hear her crying in the wind,

in fear of fierce white horses far offshore.

Her eyes are wild, her ragged hair unpinned.

She shouts a warning of calamity and war.

She sees the incarnation of her fears

on ocean’s edge, where sea and sky are twinned,

where keen eyes catch the flash of shields and spears.

She hears the grind of keels upon the sand;

the savage rush and tumult of the Greeks;

the missile rain of rock and firebrand;

the storming of the city; dying shrieks.

Cassandra’s warning is a waste of breath

but contemplate this catalogue of death

www./youtube/WANQrqg-W

On watching a video made by Isao Hashimoto

Cassandra knows she’s listened to no more

but still I hear her crying in the wind,

in fear of fierce white horses far offshore.

Her eyes are wild, her ragged hair unpinned.

She shouts a warning of calamity and war.

She sees the incarnation of her fears

far out to sea, where wave and cloud are twinned,

where keen eyes catch the flash of shields and spears.

She hears the grind of keels upon the sand;

the savage rush and tumult of the Greeks;

the missile rain of rock and firebrand;

the storming of the city; dying shrieks.

Cassandra’s warning is a waste of breath

but contemplate this catalogue of death

www./youtube/WANQrqg-W

Love lines

I see her love lines curve and zoom

in shades of blue all round the room.

They turn and sweep, now wide and slow,

now fast and thin, now high, now low.

The best of love lines to be seen

are hers, to show that she is Queen.

Her lines are wise and strong; they wind

their way through any block they find.

Their touch is soft but when it’s felt

stone walls go soft, turn pale and melt

to let a flood of grace pass through

from glad, new worlds we dimly view.

I light with joy to hear her voice

and wait in hope to know her choice.

On reading Catherine Mansfield’s ‘Bliss’

‘Why must it Always be Tomato Soup?’

a question worthy of the drills of Zen;

like ’What is bliss?’ and other thoughts that troop

unanswered through the cluttered minds of men.

Bliss comes from common things, no need of thrills:

we make tomato soup for friends and dine

or plant a sunny spot with daffodils

and then this joyful light begins to shine.

To shop exquisitely is happiness

for those endowed with ample energy and wealth

but not complacent in their state of bliss

for ruin ever watches us in stealth

while those white horses, far off from the shore,

like creeping cats, could turn to tsunami,

to car and corpses soup and muck galore,

that sweeps away our final ecstasy.

Lincoln Cathedral Choir

Once on a time we climbed Steep Hill and stood

before the quiet carvings in the choir.

For you loved poetry spelled out in wood:

the angels, pipes, the King, the drum, the lyre,

miserichords of toughened heart of oak…

Among these masterpieces, stall to stall,

each craftsman added his religious joke,

till plague arrived and put an end to all.

So here and there, some blocks are chisel-spared,

abandoned, lumpen logs, or if you will

are limitless potentials, left prepared

for handy chance and time to shape skill.

Since chance is quite as infinite as time

perhaps we’ll go again, up that steep climb.

    

 

 

On forging a sword

 

Wayland the Wanderer taught us how to find

the tough, bright iron, never prey to rust,

that not from earth but from the sky is mined

but for myself I’d sooner put my trust

in crucibles and bright electric arcs

with iron, carbon, tungsten, manganese,

vanadium…  assayed by fiery sparks

and spectrographs. We mix them as we please,

surpassing any ancient recipe,

katana of Japan, Toledo steel,

in fiery melts, controlled to fine degree.

We get our billet, stamped with maker’s seal

and those proportions that the chemist found,

in heavy bars of alloy, shiny, round.

 

 

It is the time for glowing steel and prayers.

A dragon’s breath comes flaming from the hearth,

exhaling poisons in sulphurous flares.

We lay the billet in its burning bath

until with cheerful red it glows but not

that brilliant lustre with which iron burns,

consuming it to dust in fire too hot.

The bellows moderates, the colour turns.

Red-hot from hearth it crinkles empty air.

It eats all flesh and so we dread its touch,

however leather-skinned, and yet we dare

to hold and carry it with iron clutch.

Unto its sister where the hammer swings,

the billet flattens and the anvil sings.

Unyielding mother of the shining sword,

the anvil has a merry tone and clear.

Her warlike rhythms ring out chord by chord

to shape the weapons of the chevalier.

She turns to a harmonious refrain

that pierces to the heights of heaven’s clouds.

Musicians listen, play the theme again,

in far-off cities to delighted crowds.

The billet bends beneath the hammer blows

to sickle shape, a section of a wedge,

the nascent figure that the craftsman knows

will straighten out to form a cutting edge.

We hear the swish of tyres in the rain,

the sough of pebbles on the stormy beach.

The best of steel is quenched in warm champagne

to dull its colour from the cherry-peach.

Unwillingly it takes the curse of Cain

in busy bubbles, clouds of scolding steam,

and hisses sibilant, a viper’s scream

and then it’s sullen, cold and rough of coat,

embrittled as the thinnest champagne glass

but innocent of threat to any throat

and fit for cutting neither flesh nor grass.

 

It’s now reheated, scratched with brick to show

the oxide colours: Oxford blue for blades

that do not break but bend beneath a blow.

Light blue to give the edge that never fades

but there are secrets that cannot be told

of different tempers, using clay and oil,

of shattering to shards, of fold on fold

to forge anew with added sweat and toil. 

Some things are governed by a rule of three:

blade, edge and tang make up the trinity.

 

 

A chisel cuts the red-hot steel like cheese,

with deadly cuttings smoking on the floor.

When cold it has no eagerness to please:

the hardest chisel barely leaves a score.

A grainy whetstone at the waterspout

unpeels the chrysalis. The dragonfly’s

pearlescent wings are eager to be out.

The blade is fixed and polished as it lies

unmoving, inch by inch, in slaveries

of toilsome work with fine and finer stone

till rich striations curl in traceries

to show the sword has patterns of its own.

This is the ending of the swordsmith’s skill:

the naked blade is polished, straight and true.

It is an ornament; not meant to kill,

to whistle in the wind, to stab and hew.

It can escape the gripping hands of guilt,

remain unfitted for the ranks of war,

until it has been furnished with a hilt

and then it’s in state of grace no more.

A sword can never sleep when in the hand;

its cuts run deep; our blood soaks into sand.

 

Slow Boat to China

She’s been ashore, laid up, these thirty years;

uncaulking at the seams, her timbers dry.

There’s mutiny no more, no buccaneers,

no hearts of oak to keep her full and bye.

Blown beam-ends on, upon a stormy sea,

as nevermore to rise, I’ve seen her reel,

down by the stern or head. Then up comes she,

a scrap of sail above a leaden keel.

Time was we heard the distant shanty go

a-warping down the river for the deep,

‘Haul away, we’ll haul away, Joe.’

No change of wind could leave her in the neap.

‘Slow Boat to China’ by the waves baptised.

I see her now. The wind is in my eyes.

My Lady Butterfly

Are you a dark moth from a silk cocoon, 
the flower wanderer of the midnight sky 
who drinks from honeydew beneath the moon? 
Not so, you are my Lady Butterfly. 
When we were straying from our proper course, 
swept all awry by wanton blasts of air 
you fluttered on your wings of subtle force 
to find your flower and alighted there. 
Whatever bloom you choose, whatever field, 
your presence makes its beauty twice as much; 
whatever plant with budding petals sealed 
is glad to open to your gentle touch. 
Ah! Lucky me that you have come to sip 
my nectar and to take it from my lip.

The Art of Poetry

‘Of writing well, be sure, the secret lies 
in wisdom, therefore study to be wise'[1] 
but what is wisdom how can it be got? 
It is not learning; cleverness it's not; 
nor ready wit nor probity nor wealth 
nor gained for sure by cunning nor by stealth; 
the words of children oftentimes have strength 
while many grown-up authors rave at length. 
So, writer, may your works be widely read 
but only if you've weighed what you have said.

Mother

The rose that scents the summer day 
and flaunts her colour to the bees 
knows nothing and has naught to say; 
her only talent is to please. 
With fickle blooms and ready claws 
she wanders where the rough wind blows; 
her children left with hips and haws 
abandoned in the wild hedgerows. 
She leaves themn there without a sigh, 
in swollen, orange bulbs they lie 
but like their mother, by and by, 
they grow to flatter every eye.

Mistress Winter's Jump

Over the stile, the sticks and the stumps 
goes Mrs. Winter over the jumps; 
clearing all the ditches, flooded or dry, 
shot from a longbow and feathered to fly. 
Follow the hound that follows the deer; 
jump every fence and swallow your fear, 
up on a horse that is bred from the blood 
with a clatter, scatter, spatter of mud! 
Over the fence at desperate pace! 
Fie to the fox! It's Winter I chase. 
I'll catch her yet if I get a good start 
but she's up, away, away with my heart.

When she's riding, not dancing.

 Hallo and greetings, knight-at-arms,

all PPE accoutred!

Your presence conjures fresh alarms.

What variant is bruited?

 

What apprehension holds you here,

when deadly foes are ravening?

 ‘The sedge is withered from the lake

and no birds sing.’

 

‘I see pale crowds in multitudes,

with fever moist and blue of lip

they cry, La Belle Dame sans merci

has us in grip.’

 

‘And that is why embattled here

on never-ending trials 

I labour like a Hercules

with viruses and vials.’

 

 

Ships Pass in the Night

I want to sing when love comes to my heart 
but songs of sorrow linger in me still. 
We are at sea on passages apart, 
night-passing once, bathed in a mutual thrill: 
the swell, the wash of wakes, ships' lights ablaze, 
the song of sirens,tables laid for two… 
Our ships continue on their different ways; 
beyond the rim of sea and sky are you. 
The ocean's vast, erratic face is bare. 
The albatross in his incessant flight 
alone can see our kisses floating there, 
where ocean liners lingered in the night 
the roses and the wine flung on the waste, 
a momentary splash, a fleeting taste.

Silent Air

Lord,how I long to snatch 
what swiftly flew away 
and went with all despatch 
despite my plea to stay. 
Scant was the time and space 
the kindly gods have lent 
when I could stroke your face 
to heal my discontent. 
A desert route I see; 
a setting sun behind. 
I know that I am free 
but freedom is not kind. 
I walk without a will. 
I call. The air is still.

Allegory

I found your love was stronger than I thought 
Upon the brink and hesitant to leap 
I dipped a toe and by a current caught 
I tumbled headlong in the rushing deep. 

I learned to float and drift through pleasant dales 
where willows overhang their images 
and listen to the river telling tales 
of castles high and lowly villages. 

I little thought of where a river flows: 
its slow meanders, jagged cataracts 
where over booming falls the water goes 
to die of thirst in dusty, desert tracts 

but over mud and estuary to sea 
which swallows rivers great and small we passed. 
I lost you there, the river ceased to be; 
upon a lonely seashore I was cast.

Japanese Garden

The mistress of the mini-masterpiece 
was fixed upon her purpose of renewal, 
her garden of Japan, her plot of peace, 
her precious gem set in a royal jewel. 
One day we saw her tending plants at Kew. 
‘We should remember this', I think I said. 
So there among the foxgloves and bamboo 
I drew her in acrylics on the shed 
and now she is a memory of you. 
She gardens on when all the flowers are dead. 
I see her toiling there the winter through. 
It's not a fertile spot but some flowers grow. 
She talks to them perhaps. Would it were so.

v

Train passenger

She did not see the endless stands of trees, 
their hollow eyes in shadows by the tracks, 
through once-enchanted regions where the bees 
were sealing clover honey up in wax. 
She did not see the murmuration write 
its fleeting charcoal message on the sky; 
girls diving like kingfishers in the bright, 
reflective river as the train passed by. 
The chapel, listing in eternal rest 
to founder in the soft, decaying earth: 
she did not see. Her thoughts were unexpressed. 
Perhaps she wondered what the world was worth 
while she sat there with neither smile nor frown 
as if a final sun were going down.

Wastes of Wishful thought

Your memory, the flower that I tend, 
my insubstantial relic of desire, 
grows pale despite the time of mind I spend 
to bring alive a remnant of your fire. 
A second's thought, a minute or an hour, 
an age of recall: you are absent still. 
Too much of this has made my mind run sour 
and no philosophy can cure my ill 
for I am lost in wastes of wishful thought 
without a prayer to mend a withered rose. 
The heavy weight of learning comes to naught. 
The world is wearier than I supposed. 
Of glorious Creation who can boast 
it brings us love? It kills what we love most.

Paganini's theme 

It seems to summon demons all around 
with snatches of the devil's private prayers; 
to fill the air with wild, disturbing sound, 
with doctrines dangerous and rebel airs. 
The kick and stamp and dash of heel and toe 
go on until a master stroke, unplanned, 
comes in to soothe the endless welts of woe, 
to put a treasure in the master's hand. 
The eighteenth variation changes all 
as if some jungle balm made from a leaf 
had turned to flowers every cannonball; 
made us forget the price of love is grief; 
put scarlet roses in the armoury; 
turned all our conflicts into harmony.