Blackbird – White Night
Blackbird on a power-line,
singing a 240 volt song
to a one kilowatt dawn.
Augury
In a checkerboard field
a convocation of magpies
consider the entrails of the new year.
The Capitano tells of his war wounds
“I lost my leg when we took Omdurman
but the Sultan’s surgeon sewed it back on.
I broke it again at the battle for Rome
but I just carried on and refused to go home.
At the siege of Prague I was shot in the head,
my soldiers went on and left me for dead.
This made me shaky and, at a ruck in Tyree,
a lousy horse-thief stamped on my knee,
so ignore the tales and dismiss them as bunk
that I injured it falling downstairs blind drunk.”
The Capitano
“I’m not Harlequin or the old Clown
nor any you’ve seen in your town,
no, I’m not one of those mentioned above,
my character’s plain and so is my fame –
I am the pirate of love.
In my suit of rich flames, with more reprobates,
I drum what you feel in your heart
and, if you like to play games and to reach heightened states,
you’re welcome to join and take part.
It is a matter of common record
that women like pirates aboard
so, when they hove to and I came alongside,
their hatches were soon open wide.
I do not boast anywise but many of my prizes –
succumbing after a long cannonade –
had already met brigands of different sizes
and allowed that my shots were well laid.
There must be something scaring about my proud bearing
that had women daring
to trial my skill with the sword,
but I was too caring,
despite the mask I was wearing,
and, all too soon, those pretties were bored.
I enjoyed taking capture and ravishing their honour
but valued the treasure I took.
Now I’ve quit the sea and don’t sail upon ‘er,
I just count up my hoard in a book.
Pierrot crawls out of bed late
“I sleep badly without her,
the white curve of her back isn’t there,
nor the the glow of her face turned towards me,
the taste of her neck, the smell of her hair.
I don’t know any more who I’m mourning,
they merge into one in my mind –
my goddess of tides and emotions
or a woman with a full moon behind.”
Pierrot visits his family
“I feel like an owl among the crows –
they watch me closely but do not attack.
Perhaps I look too weak and sleepy
to manage to fight back.
They seem so well-ordered
as they wheel into a flock,
while I am alien and solo –
the cuckoo not the clock.
They’re quite accepting of me
and even like me being there,
but I am more myself at night,
alone upon the air.
At the sign of the loving loaf (for my lover and my good friends)
I dreamt of a bakery the other night
and woke with a heart full of such delight.
Noj is the name of the lovely man
who had the skill and had the plan.
I’d met a comrade on the road,
walking on stilts with a tasty load,
it smelled so good, we just had to find
where we could get some more of its kind.
We went off to look for this magical place –
a derelict block. just off the main ways,
it was near to our pub and it seemed alright
to make a diversion and go for a bite.
A maze and a warren, an unfinished plot,
but the ovens were working and the bread was still hot;
he also serves coffee that’s fragrant and strong,
you can drink it short or you can drink it long.
We sat down and crumbled the loaves in our hands
and ate it like that, without butter or jam;
it was wholemeal and filling, but light and delicious;
he asked for a name that was warm and auspicious.
I thought of ‘corn flower’, but cornflowers are blue
and could be confused with maize flour too;
someone else said ‘cornfield’ and that had its charm,
‘the fruit of the corn’ or ‘the fruit of the farm’.
We chatted and laughed and honoured our host
and demanded to know how he’d achieved most
of his vision with so little finances,
what would come next and what were the chances.
The future looked good and I wanted to stay,
I woke up so happy and ready to play,
I know I’ve felt that way before
and that, for sure, I will do some more.
I know I’ve met Noj and will do again –
he’s a cook, a musician, a drinker, a friend,
I know the place and where it is found –
not far from here or another town.
I know he’s long had this beautiful scheme –
it isn’t just me who’s had this dream –
it will all come back when I’m fully awake
then we’ll get together to party and bake.
rs 26.8.04
Summoned by drums (for Bruce Chatwin’s detractors)
Don’t know ‘bout you but I can sense
the sounds of walking in the beat,
the clash of gourds and cooking pots,
the bells of beasts, the bangled feet.
Some music swings, slides and sways
with a camel’s winding gait,
other kinds, like ponies, trot
or tread as oxen, slow, sedate.
You may reject this as the work
of a wild imagination,
that we learn dancing in the womb
on our regular migration.
It may seem mystical or trite,
yet I’ve no problem with the notion
that our rhythms are the product
of former modes of locomotion.
Composers now quite consciously
choose the pounding of the wheel
on railway or road to give
their accompaniments a modern feel.
This has still to penetrate
into the roots of memory,
where our bodies catch the spring
to the step of melody.
But, thanks to our technology,
I can hear right round the earth
and all the way into the past
to where these patterns had their birth.
That’s why the drums can spark across
gaps in our cultural education
and teach the ignorant to move
without further explanation.
Only little brown men*
The journalists came to the country
to discover the truth, so they said.
“The good folks back home need to know
why so many are tortured and dead.”
The people didn’t want to show them,
they feared for their own lives, it’s true,
but the hacks persisted in asking,
’cos they had their assignments to do.
At last they found a poor boatman
to ferry them over the lake;
their expense sheets would scarcely notice
the twenty dollars he’d take.
So they came to the scene of the slaughter –
an entire village wiped out.
These words cannot do justice to the graves,
to the flesh and the bones spread about.
Though they almost were drowned while returning,
the boatman got them safely away;
back in the city they develped their films
and wrote their reports on that day.
The papers did carry the story,
it made the front page everywhere.
The newsmen felt proud of what they had done –
they’d make us all more aware.
But the death squads didn’t like the attention –
their public image looked bad –
so they gave the poor boatman four bullets
to go with the dollars he had.
The price of truth can be heavy –
when you’re poor, twenty sounds like a lot,
but tweny’s not much compensation
when for a bonus you get yourself shot.
Our ‘civilised’ liberals worry,
shake their heads and ask again why:
why the rich do such things to hold on to power,
why do so many poor people die?
Stop asking your self-serving questions.
Stop pretending you haven’t a clue.
Journalists and mercenaries doing their job
and they’re doing it all just for you.
After Rain – to the tune of Alexandra Leaving – (for Jayne C & Leonard Cohen)
Click on the bar below to listen to this piece read aloud
Click on the bar below to listen Leonard Cohen’s song Alexandra Leaving
The ground is wet, the smell of petrol strong,
the weather’s been intemperate again –
just when we think that winter should be gone
there’s sun and snow and wind and freezing rain.
Mimosas are outlandishly in bloom –
the yellow sprays, like tansy gone deranged,
they look like giants who’ve strayed away from home
and haven’t learned the seasons have been changed.
Even magnolias already light their candles –
each pale pink flame it struggles with the light,
this is not the season that generally handles
such luxuries as gently as it might.
Some have been released, while others are imprisoned,
and more are torn to shreds without a fight.
Many are forced to disappear for ever,
or come back dead or scarred and never right.
Everywhere you go there is more pain and terror –
unfinished business poisons every road.
We live and die and look for buried treasure
and think the secret’s written in some code.
Look to the sky, you cannot see a border,
though you are lost or safe where you belong.
We search for sense amongst all this disorder
with lies and numbers, histories and song.