The Cat in the Treble Clef Read online

  With heaven so close, it’s but a pace

  From where I stand, one pace

  From where you lie, my beauty, who,

  When I was young, was far too young

  To yearn for.

  You barely lived out half a life,

  Yet here you lie, Lucy, who was fifteen once,

  And golden, lively, joyful, lovely,

  Henceforth stilled and dumb.

  This grave is eloquent with loss, a grief

  That seeps up through the soil

  And soaks the skin like dew.

  Farewell to you,

  So pristine once, so near to heaven,

  Oblivious, in these Surrey Hills,

  To those like me, who linger at this stone.

  ANITA PALLENBERG IS NEWLY DEAD

  Anita Pallenberg is newly dead,

  Long-lived beyond the bold fantastic age

  When then she sparked with youth and loveliness,

  And reckless, godless, self-destructive fun.

  You golden woman, insolent and spoiled,

  We longed for you, we envied you your self-

  Made madness and your gilded cage,

  Your shameless liberty, your sordid mess.

  I watched an Irish blonde stroll by just now

  And thought of you, and how it is that all

  Our beauty flits from one, to one, to one.

  I’ll sit and wait here by this wrinkled sea,

  Alert to those who have your beauty now,

  This rare fine day of southern Dublin sun.

  Dalkey 17/06/17

  THE FORMER BEAUTY

  The old woman knits for her friends,

  Has people to stay,

  Works in her garden, goes

  Shopping in heavy-heeled shoes.

  Asthma shortens her breath.

  She groans as she stands,

  The keys of the Bechstein remember no longer

  The skip and dance of her hands.

  Regard her well, read closely the lines of her face,

  Perceive the life that lived in the eyes.

  She who was loved by heroes,

  Painted by artists, sculpted,

  Feted by princes, posed for magazines,

  Caused a poet to leap from a bridge,

  A gallant lord to renounce his lands.

  Who would have thought that here’s where it ends?

  She goes out for walks with a spaniel, embroiders cushions, like

  Any old woman, knits colourful scarves for her friends.

  INSIDE THEIR LOOSE CLOTHES

  Inside their loose clothes, their chrysalis skin,

  The old souls hide, of those who thought

  That age would never come.

  Their souls crouch down within, and wince

  With pain, and pray for wings, and wait for sleep,

  In order to be young again in dreams.

  Inside their loose clothes and slackened skin

  They wait for sleep that may, may not be birth.

  Inside their shrunken world,

  With patient dread, and,

  Understanding nothing

  But the need to fly or fall,

  The old souls wait to go to earth.

  DAYS OF LOVE AND REVOLUTION

  Let’s sing for the last time, Tovarisch,

  Of the bright, abandoned days

  Of Love and Revolution,

  When comrades’ names rolled off our tongues like

  Rubies from a miser’s hand; those

  Innocent, unintelligent, youthful days

  Of big ideas, impossible plans,

  Implausible hopes, of slogans, red scrawls

  On urban walls, and home-made flags;

  When we were saviours of the world and champions of

  The workers that we’d never met,

  With whom, united, we’d never be defeated,

  Who shook their heads and laughed us off,

  And drowned their nights in beer.

  We danced like puppets, fucked like rabbits,

  But at greater length, with luck,

  And with more finesse, so not

  So much like rabbits, perhaps, and

  I’d like to do so again; but how many times

  Can you drink wine and eat bread

  At the same communion, repeated

  Ad infinitum

  Till the light of the soul goes dull?

  At night, asleep, I’m still a boy,

  And it’s only by day my belly sags

  And the last grey hairs grow white,

  And I ache if I sit too long.

  And now my dreams are polluted by dismal things

  I’ve been forced to learn since the

  The days I had nothing to learn.

  They’ve gone, Tovarisch, those bright,

  Abandoned days of Love and Revolution,

  But still I wait by the door

  In case Love calls.

  I’d hate to miss out when I’m in town

  Or down at the doctor’s

  Or making a fire of sycamore leaves

  In the corner down by the shed.

  And as for you, My Lady,

  My Mistress Revolution,

  You’ve lost your beauty entirely;

  You never were honest, saintly or holy.

  I don’t even spare you a thought

  As I wait by the door for Love.

  WE WHO WERE BORN TO LIVE FOREVER

  We who were born to live forever have now grown old;

  Our joints lose faith, our hair is grey or gone,

  Our hearts give out and cancers scythe us down.

  But we were the golden hopeful ones

  Who’d end the wars, make ploughs from guns.

  We made love, played cheap guitars, knew three chords,

  Considered our parents fascists, blamed society,

  Took pompous music seriously, listened to gurus,

  Compared star signs, consulted cards,

  Smoked weed, looked for God in the smoke.

  But we who were born to live forever have now grown old,

  The joke was on us, those that survive.

  How very beautiful, how sweet, how bright our eyes,

  How quick and easy our answers,

  How full of hope, how full of talk, how full of shit we were.

  THE GREAT RADICAL

  Of course I’m proud of my past! Regrets, I have none, almost none at all.

  I did throw stones. As far as I know they always missed.

  The bombs, well yes, but they never got used.

  The petrol got put in the car, the bottles put out in the bin.

  I wanted change, wanted to better the world, still do.

  I haven’t changed at all. I don’t do demos and leaflets now,

  But I never gave up my ideals.

  And it’s hardly my fault I won that prize for my book,

  Sat on committees, enquiries, went on the box,

  Got well paid, ended up in the Lords.

  I didn’t sell out, I’m still the same inside, the fire still burns.

  I’m writing a book on social change, on what’s to be done,

  On what’s gone wrong. They gave me a big advance.

  I gave up bombs and stones; I’m still a terror with words.

  NOT IN COFFEE SPOONS

  This is how we measure our lives:

  That was the year the old king died;

  That was the year that Father was killed;

  That was the year the dog

  Was put out of its pain;

  That was the year that mother went in

  And never came out;

  That was the year that war was declared

  And the olives were scorched by frost;

  That was the last occasion we met, we three,

  And after that, were never together again.

  Sisters, lovers, brothers, this is how it is:

  We measure out our lives in lives lost.

  THE JACK RUSSELL<
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  He runs in the wake of the train,

  Barking and chasing, barking and chasing;

  Across the meadows and ditches

  The small dog runs.

  The train flees and the dog stops chasing,

  Barking and chasing.

  Always the winner, so fierce and swift and strong,

  Once again, without dispute, he’s won.

  Pleased with himself, so proud and pleased,

  He wags his stump and lifts his leg,

  Sprinkles a tuft, a job well done.

  THE LEGACY

  I have a bank of drawers that store my long-held dreams,

  My heart-close longings and desires,

  Wrapped up in coloured tissue, neatly laid

  In pretty rows, with labels stating what they are,

  That name the year they were conceived,

  That sometimes, even, nominate the day.

  From time to time I take them out and clean them up,

  These pretty baubles gathering tarnish,

  With their patina of age, the cracks of shrinkage

  As they dry, the deepened colours, beautiful,

  But darker than they were. I keep them free of dust,

  Against the day that might, but never seems to come.

  I’ve left them to my children, this store of antique dreams,

  That they might know their father as he was,

  Not merely as he seemed to be, as Time devoured his time,

  But as he always meant to be, when first he gathered dreams

  And wrapped them up and cherished them, and laid them by in drawers,

  Who wasn’t built of meat and bone, but conjured up his own strange ghost

  And formed himself from fantasy.

  IN WHOM I DO NOT BELIEVE

  1

  I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe

  For the land behind my home,

  Where I am hunter-without-weapon in the hedgerows and spinneys;

  Where, crouching silent, I await the mouse

  Who sallies forth to sniff the air and wash its face,

  Complacent on hind haunch outside the nest

  Behind the hole no bigger than a coin

  Between the roots of oak.

  I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe

  For the knowledge and the conversation of the birds

  I name, who follow at a safe distance,

  Demanding in urgent voices answers to questions

  That are barely understood; and I tell them that

  They are my free subjects, who pay me taxes

  In strangeness and beauty, and whom I heap with honours,

  Lords and ladies in their own manors.

  2

  I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe

  For the dog who chases with no suspicion of futility

  Deer I merely glimpse beside the burrow of the badger,

  The mansion of the rabbit and the palace of the fox;

  Where the sun fractures in splinters through the

  Leaves of summer, and the very branches even in

  The death of winter, when I read the night’s activity

  In sporemarks in the snow.

  I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe

  For the murky stream that is mire in autumn,

  All but dry in summer, feeding standing pools

  Where I confuse newts with dark fish, and panic ducks

  Who yell their imprecations as they clatter past the trees,

  Where fidget squirrels rain down husks of hazel,

  Chittering and swearing at the snuffling dog

  Who marks inconsequentially at toadstools in the moss.

  3

  I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe

  For the island between two fields between two branches of a stream,

  Impassable for fallen branches; and the rug of bluebells

  I cannot bring my feet to crush, where, as a boy,

  I was amazed by kingcups, by harebells, by the cycle

  Of decay, by the silent owl who slept upon the

  Bough above my head when all was still, and I, too,

  Slept in broken sunlight by the banks awash with bees.

  I give thanks to God in whom I do not believe

  For the deer’s skull found amid the stream;

  For the dreams of the love of women unfolding

  With the bud, when I was the first

  And only boy amongst the tracks and burrows,

  First Lord of Life and Duke of the Duchy

  Of untrodden ways, and hummocks unexplained,

  Except as breast and womb of the hidden God

  In whom I do not believe,

  Who milks my praise.

  THE WAKE

  Poor woman –

  Crucifix in your right hand, rosary in your left,

  Laid out rigid in your best blue gown,

  Your chest razed flat where once your breasts had been.

  How white your fingers are, how grey and blotched your face.

  And, my love, your lips, so wide and full,

  That should be living and kissing.

  The wicker coffin, the Catholic candles,

  Mother of God on the table, smug and still.

  Poor woman, trusty servant of heaven,

  Too much in love with the Lord,

  Who thought you’d heal yourself through prayer,

  Shat upon by God for all your forty-seven years.

  LAZARUS

  And when I rose, confused, from the cold stone slab,

  Tight with windings, stinking of myrrh,

  There loomed the Healer’s face,

  Still damp from tears, a face I’d loved

  Since first I heard him preach, as

  We shared our food in the trees’ shade, in

  A silver grove of olives, walled, with a well.

  I’d known him all my life; we’d played together as boys.

  I hadn’t seen him for years, a prophet now in his own land!

  I was, I know, an idle, flippant, superfluous man.

  Some hoped he’d drive the pagans out; a magus, others said.

  But as for me, I went in idleness; I had a friend grown famous,

  And liked to hear what sophists say, what vagrant teachers teach.

  Caught by surprise, I went to death unwillingly, it’s true;

  But now I’ll live, perhaps grow old,

  Compelled anew to weakness, fear and pain,

  Remembering nothing from my dreamless,

  Absent days, decaying in the cave.

  Master, some years hence, perhaps, or soon,

  In the self-same fetid hole,

  Once more I’ll stretch upon that hard, cold slab,

  Tight with windings, stinking of myrrh.

  Master, alas for your tender, misplaced love!

  Master, alas for me, whom you raised up,

  Perturbed once more by the old dread,

  Condemned a second time to drain that dreadful cup.

  Have pity, Lord, on Lazarus, twice dead.

  MESSAGE TO SATAN

  I’ll send no news nor ask you how you are;

  No doubt it’s stark and cold in such black light,

  No doubt you haven’t changed at all. I’m keen

  To know the reason you stay obstinate and mad.

  And furthermore, I thought you’d like to know

  I’ve angrily complained to God above

  (Since He’s the Chessman, mover of us all),

  Demanding – as I ask from you – to know

  What kind of love His is, that isn’t love.

  KLIO OF RHODES

  Within this tomb lie slender bones,

  Those of Klio of Rhodes, the former beauty,

  Regretted by many, but not by wives,

  Retired and expired in Kalymnos;

  Who bequeathed to the Goddess the tools of her trade,

  Along with her portrait, deftly done in lieu o
f cash

  By Charmis of Kos, who perfectly captured her impudent smile,

  Depicting in one hand a phallus,

  A column of coins in the other.

  To those who’d loved her skills, she left weak hearts

  And empty pockets, wistful memories, aching muscles,

  Various itches and rashes.

  Her lyre and verses she left to Apollo.

  Her lifetime’s wealth she left to those she loved:

  Her ancient cook, her Nubian slave, a girl she bought

  In Crete, the cats she found in Samos,

  Six or seven brindled dogs, her goat,

  Her impotent husband, her many-fathered children.

  LETTER TO AFRODITE PHILOMEDA

  There’s been no news of you for fifteen hundred years.

  We’re wondering how you are. What mischief do you make

  Out of the headlines, lovely slut of heaven? Have you

  Lately loved a shepherd or slipped the grasp of Zeus?

  And does your jaunty scallop shell still bear you up?

  Your tranquil pool restore your often-lost virginity?

  And how’s your lame Hephaestus? Whose armour does he make?

  And has he caught you out again?

  And what attracted you to him?

  We’d like to hear your news

  Now that your statues are broken,

  Their foreheads carved with crosses,

  Your temples tumbled, rewrought into churches,

  Stocked with everything you’re not; those women

  With their hair concealed in modest scarves, their

  Babies not one whit as mischievous as yours.

  We wonder how you are.

  There’s never been a time when you were needed more.

  Be sure; one day we’ll pay you back in lovers’ tears.

  We miss you, slut of heaven, mount your shell, come sailing home,

  With swaying hips, and flowing hair.

  There’s been no news of you for fifteen hundred years.

  KERKIRA

  His skin hurts; it is tight and dark.

  His body prickles from the salt and sun.

  His blood is up, but there is no woman here

  That he might serve, who might make use

  Of all his lust and love.

  The stars are brighter than the lamps; the swallows dip for flies,

  The waves grind with a sound like distant wars.