Jacob Polley
Jackself
PICADOR
This book is dedicated
to my mum
and
to my dad
Soul, self; come, poor Jackself . . .
G.M. Hopkins
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond
The wide world’s end
Methinks it is no journey
Anon.
Contents
The House that Jack Built
Every Creeping Thing
Jack Sprat
The Goodies
Jackself’s Quality
The Lofts
Lessons
Applejack
Peewit
The Goose Shed
Nightlines
Cheapjack
The Whispering Garden
It
Les Symbolistes
An Age
Jack Frost
Plantation
Blackjack
Snow Dad
Pact
The Hole
Jack O’Lantern
Redbreast
The Misery
Jackself’s Boast
A Haunting
Spring-heeled Jack
The Desk
Jack Snipe
Skipjack
The Comeback Deal
Tithe
Jack O’Bedlam
The House that Jack Built
the first trees were felled
and sailed in, wrecked, then slept
an age in the northern sun, blackening
to iron
were found by horsemen
leading their horses and raised as
cloud’s axles, rafters of night, a god’s gates
were passed through, seen
from miles off, rolled the sun
and moon along their lintels, rooted,
put out leaves for a second time
creaked, tasted the rain, held
the wind to their hearts while
the horsemen streamed like
their horses’ manes
into the dark, their fires
black smudge in the subsoil, their bridles
of gold underground
lived long, grew great
were a second time
felled, dressed
were sharpened to stakes
and raised as a fort
by farmers who’d followed their ploughs
to the treeline for fuel
to bake the pots
their ashes were buried in
with a scattering of grain
like stars
each small clay
heaven still hangs in the earth
were overgrown,
steered clear of
called dragon’s ribs
devil’s cot
were nested among, rotted
down beside
harboured foxglove, eggshell,
owl pellet, primrose, honeycomb
were glazed, split,
put out buds of malachite, blossoms
of salt, grew again, put out
small translucent fruits named
by the women who prized them
teardrops, ice apples, clarities
were offered bread,
dolls of woven grass, plaits of hair, coins
with the obverse ground smooth, beads
of turquoise
twisted, straightened, filled
the wind to their hearts, creaked, scraped
off the sunlight’s scales with their leaves, were
a grove, grew
manes of lichen, were murmured
under, gave counsel on still nights
of open doorways the dead came through
on horseback or shouldering flails or bearing chimes
of ice apples
gave shelter
were felled for it, their roots
ripped up by a legion’s engineers
and left like brainstems
rucked on the earth
were timber but the pitsaws
snarled in their rings of iron
broke teeth on the flints
that welted their sapwood
were good
for nothing, stacked, fired, marched
away from, sucked up the flames,
hissed, smoked, glowed blood-
black, were tempered, twice-
forged
bided
on site as battle-stain,
in story as Head Wood
lay half-buried, grown over, still hot
were stumbled upon
by navigators, hit
with hammers and rang
until they were made lock gates
to slam
shut on the slow wet
grew green, slime-
faced, knew runoff, weird particulates,
held fast against drizzle’s
tonnage, the nudge
and bonk of a bloater
were left
stinking when the water died
stood strange in currents
of deep grass, open wide
flexed, hungered once more
for the light, bulged, branched, rived
out of their lacquer, unfurled
leaves of oilskin, shook down clots
of blossom
lived
long, grew great
weren’t felled but walled in, roofed
over, giving span
to a farmhouse, hanging
a hall from their outstretch, bracing floor
after floor on their inosculating
joists, which sang
to a barefoot tread and were called
home of shadows
heart of the wind
Lamanby
Every Creeping Thing
By leech, by water mite
by the snail on its slick of light
by the mercury wires
of the spiders’ lyres
and the great sound-hole of the night
By the wet socket of a levered stone
by a dog-licked ice cream cone
by spores, mildew
by the green atchoo
by the yellow split pea and the bacon bone
All the doors must have their way
and every break of day its day
instead of a soul
Jackself has a coal
and the High Fireman to pay
By head-lice powder, Paraquat
snapdragon’s snap and rat-tat-tat
who’s at the door
of the door of the door
it’s Jackself in his toadskin hat
Jack Sprat
who depends
on strong drink and soft food
gives Jackshit
comprehends
fearlessly by mouth, lacquering bricks and bottles with curatorial spit
who watches Thomascat
stalk the sliding light across the hearthrug on afternoons
of his limited Jackspan, none of which he can get back
not the suns and moons
of it, not the crackling fur, lavender and turpentine smell of it
who mumbles his greens, his fists, the bars
of his cage
whose one-piece suit isn’t nightmare-
retardant
who is driven round and round in strangers’ cars
for comfort
who can achieve unawares,
like Thomascat, aloof only to be turned upon by those minted ladies
he’d brought so low before him
whose face is reset hourly
whose mind is solid fear
whose trades are none and all
the possible
who will come into anthracite,
corbel, gasometer, throstle
who gnaws boot- and book-leather alike
who covets the onion
wrapped in plain brown onion skin
whose small memory is a gift that makes
the world over again
when he wakes
The Goodies
goody on you goody sweet
smell goody goody touch
goody butter, goody meat
goody shoes on goody feet
a goody cake with six
goody candles to yank
the goody shadows round
by their goody hair
goody blow goody out
goody fire’s little spikes
breathe goody in
then pop the goody squeak-face with a goody silver pin
no wishing it wouldn’t be
or wasn’t or would better be
no wondering how so hard it hurts,
just two goody thumbs and a goody peephole
for goody staring, goody weepers, standing goody by
in nothing but your goody suit with goody in your eye
goody easy goody true
who’s the goody
goody you!
goody up the goody staircase with a goody creak
to watch the moving pictures on the screen of goody sleep
no worrying the world to shreds
no going blind or blue
just a choice of face on waking from a dozen goody heads
thank goody goody dust do goody do
or you’ll be trapped with one grey face your baddy pokes right through
Jackself’s Quality
can’t be bought
or stolen
Mudder hasn’t bottled it
Mugginshere hasn’t brought it home
in his briefcase
the farmer hasn’t clipped its weighty foam
from his blackest sheep
the hawk-man, with a rag of meat
in his leather glove, can’t bring it
stooping from the sky
Thomascat
hasn’t fetched it from the farmyard
to lay still warm at Jackself’s feet
the dark continent
Jackself peels from the flank
of a Friesian cow, ties to his ankles
and drags across the flatland
at midday, doesn’t prove
his substance
the night
is made of what he needs
he moonwalks in daylight,
afraid like snow he’ll wane or drift
before he can hold
the road out front, the fields behind
and the earth in the churchyard
so Jackself crawls to the coal-shed
and eats
The Lofts
Jackself has climbed into the lovely lofts
of Lamanby, their floors ankle-deep
in silver dust and the floorboards
spongy with woodworm
in the attic corners great cauls
of cobweb hang from crusty chains, frayed rope, horse tack
and the skeletons of past Selves, their skulls
packed with sea salt and tea-leaves
Edwardself, Billself
Wulfself with scraps of his shaggy self still attached
alas
in the vaulted gloom
sunbeams fizz
off a canine here and there
a gold medallion
that flares from its nest
of spider-grey chest-hair
back they go, the Selves
Aself, Oxself and coracle-ribbed, ape-armed Selfself,
his ochred bones trophied in a flaky niche in the clay wall
Jackself holds his pullovered forearm
to Selfself’s flute-like radius, which swivels
in the draught
soon,
Jackself murmurs, and every Self skeleton
clinks
thanks a fucking bunch, Jackself cries
and his cry echoes back
echoes back
the mouse in the hope chest
nibbling the cuff
of Annself’s unworn wedding gown
stiffens its whiskers
the ghost of Billself’s army pony flicks an ear
and paws
the unshiftable dust and Selfself sings a silent song of the horned whale
and the white bear
Jackself, if only you’d found that meteorite
at the bottom of the coal hod
or that necklace of eagle claws
strung from the handle of the skylight
but you were too afraid to stay and hear
the silence that was yours
by birth, and back you thundered down the stairs
Lessons
the names of things and their relations, adding and taking away
Jackself is taken away
from the rest of the class and added
to a corner most days
days that stink of cow-gum,
mouldy silence and the screech
of Miss Clout’s chalk stick on the blackboard
a wall is for staring at
a desk for sleeping at
Jackself can do that
there’s nothing to read and the world’s written
backwards
at lunchtime Mr Workbench, the Headmaster,
moans the Lord’s Prayer and everyone
and Jackself must join in
Jackself has many trespasses
but no daily bread
is baked in the school’s ovens
he must ask the dinner-ladies’ forgiveness
for the cartilage stew and spreadable carrots
the flavour of warm steel tins
a floorboard’s for eating off
a fart for letting off
get thee, Jackself, to the trough
for you are pig-slow, a starey calf
and can’t even hold a pencil stub
in your hooves to letter see,
Miss Clout says to Mugginshere,
see what he’s written all these hours and days
and she shakes the sugar-paper sheet
of wobbly noughts
standing over her, Mr Workbench solemnly inclines
his one-thought-
at-a-time head
but Jackself’s far
and away
his mind a corner
of beehives
his fingers a box of matches
his nose the afternoon rain
his ears yesterday
his eyes green eyes
his tongue an earwig
before it hatches
Applejack
by hedgehog path
and badger path, Jackself
happens with the clouds
into sunlight
water-
damaged sky, silver in the floor
and Jackself on all fours,
his skin skin his
talk all gone
hound’s tongue oxeyes
birdsfoot rosehips
grain of the wind
in a buzzard’s wing
bones, empty as the sky
crab apples oak apples applejack
cold
under his ink cap,
holes in his foxgloves, his
foot leather black
and supple now he knows
his own mind with it
goes
by cattle grid
and cattle trough, icy
sloshings in him
fears
the dog
and Lucy Fur, who
glints at night
where he trembles, shut in
everywhere with his own
he
artrush and the trees’ roar
a white root
threading the muck
under a rotted log
wakes him
bent pale stalks,
leaves let go
to dry-curl and turn on the surface