I have chosen to wait with me for winter.
I have fed them autumn fruits,
let them eat beside me.
Summer is not my season,
sunlight and water not my elements.
November is my favourite month,
almost my name.
Malvolio
I am toiling my way into light.
A noise from below has broken my sleep.
Smashing glasses and cries
Drawing me outward from dream.
I take up a candle and pass down to Hell.
The fat fool sways with beer
Stains on his straggling moustache.
The harlot licks them off with her
Tongue. Oh God, may they be damned!
He plants a meaty hand upon her breast
And spits at me a noise of cakes and ale
And the whore laughs and leans into his arm.
The candle burns my finger as I turn.
My room is cold, my anguish
Sharp as icicles.
One day trumpets will
Proclaim our victory.
I salve my heart with prayer.
Restored, I rise and retreat into sleep,
In search of a grace they shall never know.
I close my eyes in the cold room
And the madness below writhes to flame.
I walk amid gardens of precisely trimmed hedges
Where she awaits me, unveiled and alone. My garters
Are yellow as I sigh my way back into splendour.
The Refinements
The pinwheel of your choice!
The crucifix! One-legged for modesty
or two for realism—
the naked truth, so to speak.
Nails or thongs, apocalyptic
oaks lopped by lightning,
or the understated subtlety
of polished ash: the brochure
displays your options. Wounding
spears, prophetic ravens,
double axe, crown of thorns,
high priest or high priestess
to speak the ancient words—
all these, as you can see,
are standard.
The refinements,
you will appreciate,
lead us somewhat deeper
into the matter,
and cost rather more.
At The Death of Pan
Where the god fell—
mark the place with flowers,
red for blood
and the white . . .
there are no rules for this,
you know. Precedents
are somewhat limited.
Do something with the white.
Clear a space as well
for the hangers-on.
I have no idea
how many will be here
or how they’ll behave.
There will be royalty so
it does make sense
to have a score
of maidens immolated,
to be on the safe side.
For the rest—yes, white
for the maidens! Good.
It ought to do, it ought to do,
if the rains hold off.
Hero
He did not come back
from the battle with Night
unscathed, though his deeper
wounds you will never see, unless
he rises from your bed
one night in the hollow
of winter when things die,
and goes outside to walk
the crackling, moonlit
snow, brittle underfoot,
lacing the branches of bare
trees at the forest’s edge.
And if you are reckless enough
to follow as far as your doorway,
wrapping a blanket about you
like a shroud, you will see him,
by the inhuman light of that moon,
kneel on the hard-packed snow
and, stretching forth empty hands
(that you have known warm on your thighs
just now, in the heart of your bed),
call out to the black forest,
the keen in his voice
that of a lover abandoned
to walk by himself, unenchanted,
under the bland, soft sun,
remembering the pulsing of earth
when he battled Night in the wood.
Cain: The Stones
And he dwelt in the land
of Nod east of Eden and the soil
was hard, the ground stony, the rains
came seldom and then too heavily.
His wife screamed when she bore his children
and many died.
Whenever he buried them
he thought again of his brother
broken on the ground,
remembered the sweet sick
dizziness of rage, and heard
that voice again.
At such times he wanted
to weep, and lose himself in regret.
But being his children’s father
he would retreat to the fields
and silently battle the stones
for their bread.
And never nearly winning
children multiplied beyond
the land of Nod and some
even went west to where Eden
was not any more.
Psyche
I
Asleep on your bed in the night
in the night with his breath
soft on the pillow beside you,
soft on your pillow in the absolute black.
And there is always this darkness
the darkness over your knowledge of him.
You know his hands
the touch of his hands needs no light,
nor his mouth upon your body.
The nightingale cries in a tree outside.
There is always the darkness,
always the darkness he always demands,
commands before he will ever come to you
to break with his touch
your heart.
II
And sudden and swift
to your mind leaping
an image of a candle
light
and the sight of his face on your pillow.
Your hair is unbound,
unbound
because he wished it so,
and his breath is soft by your side.
Outside
the nightingale cries and stars shine.
There is no moon.
He never comes
when the bright moon rides.
Under moonlight you sleep alone.
And so you rise,
slowly
you rise
your hair unbound and falling
your hair falling
and on bare feet
(across cold rooms)
you go through starlit doorways.
The moon is fallen, as is your hair,
down and backwards to black.
Behind you
his breath is soft on your pillow.
III
The nightingale sings in a tree outside
deep in the branches, hidden by leaves,
cradled by leaves, beneath summer stars,
from the leaves of a starlit tree his song—
Your fingers are shaking
in the darkened house.
And then
light
light
light in the house
as trembling fingers
bear fire before you
and the candle burns its way back
back to the room
and the dark of your need
burning far backwards to night.
His breath is soft on your pillow.
Your hair is unbound on your back.
The n
ightingale sings in the tree.
The light is burning to black.
Burning to black in the nightingale night
though now there is light
for this time there is light
and you bend softly over eyes wide
from the dark
to see for once only
once only to see in the nightingale night
(hidden by leaves song bursts outside)
his face, and your heart turns over and cries.
And the flame
the flame leading backwards to darkness
betrays
as the wax
hot as love
in the blackness
of night
slides slowly downward
and burns
on the side of his face.
IV
The candle burns back towards night.
The nightingale sings in the tree.
Your hair is unbound,
your heart forever unfree
forever unfree
as he flies away under stars,
away to where you cannot follow.
PART
FOUR
Heartcoil
labyrinth of blood
heartcoil
again and again
windcircle back
again and
once, before
you touched,
i saw
anemones blood
red dark
violet in
valley light
labyrinth
monastery
a night dance
and the moon
above seasound
again and again
the coil
unwinding
so
circling back
i could,
you could,
so.
In The Morning
In the morning
the bleared fact of not
having slept at all
will imprint itself against
the blinds drawn over
the windowpanes. But
it is only three o’clock.
In bed four hours ago
with a book and
a glass of milk
warm as a cat
she has listened to
her husband sleep
and watched
the lights of cars slide
across those blinds
like search beams
for too long.
In the morning,
she knows,
she will be found
wanting on the day
of his return.
Ring, cross, husband,
glass of bitter milk
no longer warm, indict
her sleeplessness reproachfully.
‘Around your birthday I’ll be back,’
the letter said.
And she is older now
than when she went to bed.
Green Breaks
stone
and the water breaks,
green tearing
into white.
so seeing you
i break back
into something
that i’ve been before
but not of late.
(there were rapids,
stones before.)
winter saw me
down
into a green
seclusion.
(stone, green
breaks to white.)
i cannot bring you
all the sea’s
gifts just yet
(green breaks).
i’m learning, though,
to hold them
longer than my breath.
right now i
don’t really need to try,
seeing you
and wanting to see you.
Power Failure
winter down
now come
the dark
starless
the snow
flowering
like lace
and in his bed
a final
turning
away
so who will
now candle
me home?
soon
the snow
will lie
along
the lit
night street
and winter
white with
frost
the grass
outside
the room
where she
lets him
hold her
dreaming or
dreamless
all the night
all winter
all my life.
Shalott
. . . and so forgetting
what I came to say,
I sense a shadowed loom
in the room behind you.
There will be no windows
save one and, of course,
one river only.
Then the mirror,
lacking, suddenly, you.
What you are
forces the tapestry: your hands
shaping fables, my steps
on the twisted stair.
I must ride past,
not at all myself,
you must look down, the mirror . . .
Night Call
‘Hi. Am I too literal?’
Before the telephone
has quite stopped ringing.
No screwing around.
Self-doubt in my love
is urgent and masterful,
sharp as a reprimand
for shoddy penmanship.
‘What brought this on?’
‘Sharon’s always saying so.’
‘Well you can start by telling
Sharon she’s ungrammatical.’
Cute line. Made her laugh, at least.
‘Want to come sleep here tonight?
It’s getting colder now.’
And so I seem to be driving across
the city, very late, windows down
to know the rain before it comes.
We have so far to go into what there is of light.
November Song
Massed banks of cloud above the lake.
Dark grey afternoon. First snow
this morning. November song.
Maureen sent a card: ‘Birthdays
in summer are too hot. Being born
in autumn leaves one
dulcet, burnished, smooth.’
Vickie treated for brunch, Daniel
cooked a dinner. Carla sent a note,
John and Annette their love.
Visa sent a bill. My brother
arrives tomorrow from Vancouver.
Two years ago tonight
Galini’s moon
came up behind the cliff,
round as love.
The night sea slapped the tied boats
in the harbour as we drank
in Zorba’s, danced, toasted
my arrival in raki and ouzo,
then staggered, singing—Titus, Mark,
and I—out into the village
and up the back of the black hill
towards the bobbing stars.
Their last wobbling chorus
across the dusty road pulled me
back out to my balcony
where I finally looked at the sea,
and then turned my head,
as the world settled
itself enough to let me see—
drunken, burnished, smooth—
that assertion of rock
for the first time,
moon above,
profligate silver on the bay.
The streetlights snapped on
awhile ago. Dusk now.
I’ve work to do. The lake
is hard to see when it gets dark
and the bank tower
lights
come on between.
The Bay
Over the lake
the line of clouds
is darker. Beyond
the islands,
one sailboat.
Nearer in,
the downtown towers
allow sunset.
One building
seems afire
with bronze light:
gold-plate in the windows
does the trick. Still,
it is beautiful.
On the lawns
of the courthouse
the chestnuts
began some days ago.
It seems to have become
springtime. On Crete
I would have known.
Darker the bronze
of the building
and dim now
that sail in the bay.
Venus soon,
bright this month,
then later,
a full moon sailing,
made round by memory.
Lunch At The Gallery
Among the less-important
works of art that stand
around the tables
of the gallery cafe,
the river of her hair.
Splints of light and shade
leave sculptures as they were
but change her, the way shadows
reveal clouds across the sun.
She almost smiles. ‘I had a dream
last night. There were people
I needed to know about.
One was my doctor.
I don’t have one, actually.’
Her expression requires
a word I cannot reach.
‘I went to his office
with a list of questions
about him. He said he would
examine me instead.
He found a cancer
in my body. I remember
hearing him tell me this
and wanting to live forever.’
Her Own Excellence
Novi Vinodolski, Croatia
Her own excellence is not enough:
there’s a tightening of the mouth now,
thinning towards judgement
as this late-night discussion goes on.
It’s as if, after a childhood brilliant with promise
and a life tangled (inexplicably!)
with people who disappoint,
it will be too much to have been wrong
about him, as well. To have conferred
trust and confidence, intimacy really,
upon someone who will not agree with her
that teaching a child any religious tradition
is (inarguably!) an error amounting to abuse.
How not so, when warring faiths have filled
the long trough of millenia down to the earth’s
deep core with bodies? She will not