"Achilles Slew Hector"

Achilles slew Hector,
Exultant on the blood-dark plain.
He held the lifeless form in his hand,
Baring his teeth to the sky.
Afterwards he ate.
      Men fight. They gather the harvest.

The sun burned bronze in a molten sky.

Men stooped as if to listen to the whispers of corn;
But the scorch of their hands
And ache of their backs were no joke:
The King’s champion rode slowly by.
      Men fight. They gather the harvest.

The women bewailed their shattered men,

Bathing wounds with cries by the water’s edge.
Blood mixed with dust and spirit with air.
The long wait began, and for the wounded
The helpless offer of food and drink.
      Men fight. They gather the harvest.

In a determined, roaring line

The combine harvesters process the land.
The work is unceasing, although
At a sudden report and a noise overhead
Eyes turn to the horizon, training like guns.
      Men fight. They gather the harvest.

Lord of benediction, of the calm face of waters,

What is to be said of the interminable
Passions of men? When I think on it now,
Of the gigantic fury of Achilles, I am thrilled:
Come. Offer me the offering of the bread and the wine.
      Men fight. They gather the harvest.

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© October 1979

 

The Cuckoo

The days relaxing in a smile
Bring to the nervous and the cold
Who stumble on in single file
   The respite of the sun;
The missiles nestling in the wold
Gleam freshly in the morning dew
And, much more deadly than a gun,
Are used to prove a point of view.
   The people as they walk
   Do not indulge in talk.
   Sing cuckoo.

Industrial heartlands after rain

Sink slowly in the evening light,
A watchman makes his rounds again
   But does not really care;
In offices where men are tight
The cards are cut in hopeless hope,
A sales rep mutters, “Do I dare?”
The Sales Director, “Can I cope?”
   The ice that’s in the gin
   Makes a nervous brittle din.
   Sing cuckoo.

A courting couple in the wood

Sat down upon a fallen tree,
Discussed the nature of the good
   While sitting eye to eye;
An ancient woman suddenly
Leapt up and shook her angry head;
She said, “The children always die
And there’s no talking to the dead.
   The fledgling in its nest
   Knows a single, brutal best.”
   Sing cuckoo.

The moralist at work upon

The outline of his latest book
Was pleased to write “Eleison,”
   To which he signed his name;
After a time he chanced to look
Up at a mirror on the wall
As someone somewhere whispered, “Shame!”
Across his forehead, writ in gall,
   Was, “Thinker, dare you say
   What you saw upon the way?”
   Sing cuckoo.

A lonely cottage on a moor

Was inundated by the spring
Which scattered roses round the door
   And cuffed them in the wind;
An old man started muttering
And turned to face the morning sun:
Who was guilty? Who had sinned?
Who the sacrificial one?
   “Lord, save me,” is what he said,
   “From the acid in my head.”
   Sing cuckoo. Sing.

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© August 1980

 

"When Christ Calls to the Cracking Heart..."

When Christ calls to the cracking heart
And squeezes out its human woe
Into a tear of ice in the wind;
And the wintry suburban station,
Crouching on a black embankment,
Mourns for the extinguishing lights
Of the time-kept city below –
There is a footprint in the snow.

When I wander through the unswept streets

With a pocketful of handbills and sweet-wrappers;
When the political cries and pleasure cries
Die vainly on the night –
I wake in a holly-dark wood
With the wind’s razor across my cheek,
The city become a pile of stones –
There is a footprint in the snow.

When I stand in the crematorium garden,

Counting the names on rose trees,
Disturbing the iron earth with my foot;
When I consider the passing of seconds,
Feeling the crease spread in my skin,
And the stain blacken my eye;
When my hand forms questions in the freezing air –
There is a footprint in the snow.

The field-worm pushed a grain to the crib,

Its winter store and offering;
The Christ-child smiled and touched its head
Sharing His brilliance with the glow-worm;
I would warm myself at the glow of winter berries,
And think on the candle flickering in a twilit transept;
O, may the stranger turn in the door –
Footprints and footprints in the snow.

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© September 1979

"A Siren Calling in the Night..."

A siren calling in the night,
A sniper’s gun along a sill,
A man convinced that he is right,
Prepared to wait and then to kill.

Who first denounced the middle way,

Appealing to a bunch of facts,
And now will not be seen by day
But in the dark does righteous acts?

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© December 1980

"There is a Great Wonder..."

   There is a great wonder in silence.
In silence the Fireball expanded in
   A fecund miasma, not like brute
Zeus scattering his seed in rambunctious
   Frenzy, but like the noiseless progress
Of dreams – lurid, efficient, working their
   Way through boggling creations to a
Logic more startling than dreams. Nought after
   Nought mustered behind that initial
“I Am”, gathering time in the ‘O’ of
   Their gazes until naked, stubborn,
Clinging to its rock like a child to the
   Breast, an active chemical started
Laughing and dying. Suddenly sound was
   At home, screeching with the wind from a
Razor-backed scarp, or grunting in the springs
   Of a valley bottom, accepted
Into meaning by the coils of the ear.
   And silence, also, inveigled the
Creatures, pulling them short with a stunning
   Absence as they deciphered whispers
Which had not been whispered. For silence is
   The language of God. This agony
Of molecules, this litter of ice-bound
   Debris, receives the Word like a tone
Of voice unexpectedly present in
   The galactic mumble. What it means
Bamboozles the senses, although like a
   Novice copying the Lives of Saints –
Lonely at his work, his teeth aching – one
   Can risk in a margin: “The sun is
Shining; it is quiet; how good is God.”

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© March 1983

Time

A lover weeping by a brook
Began to quench his crying thirst –
   “Who would credit all the woe
   When the best becomes the worst?
      My princess with a look,
      With a fatal, final ‘No,’
Has turned to ashes in my mouth
         This summer taste,
And fallen to a July drouth
         Where none can sing
Our country life is now a waste.”
A starling with a broken wing
   Said, “No matter what you say
   Time will wash it all away.”

A recent patient from his bed

Surveyed the hospital with fear –
   “What if I should die tonight,
   Who will care or shed a tear?
      The pain that’s in my head
      Like an active piece of light
Prompts the question that I put.”
         His neighbour who
Had stirred the waters with his foot
         Put off his death
And did as much as he could do.
He whispered through his failing breath,
   “Say the worst that you can say,
   Time will wash it all away.”

Heraclitus strode the hill

Muttering to an empty sky,
   “Life is what approaches fire,
   To fall away is then to die.
      The wolf which makes a kill
      Let loose upon a byre
May dip its teeth within the blood,
         But when the snows
Have turned the northern fields to mud
         The frozen stream
Will sing beneath the ice, ‘Suppose,’
Become as distant as a dream.
   After we have had our say
   Time will wash it all away.”

A watcher on the final night

Felt solid earth beneath his shoe –
   “Cosmic Mother, ever stern,
   Tell your creatures what’s to do.
      Will this rocky height
      On which we stand and learn
Survive the portents of the stars?
         Our children cry,
More terrified than in the wars,
         ‘O let us live
That we might put our sadness by.’”
The dying sun exploded with:
   “There is nothing you can say,
   Time will wash it all away.”

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© August 1980

An Ending

Efficacious formulae
Though we know not what they mean
Lead us up the garden path
Help us keep our fingers clean;
Having pulled the world to bits
Over whisky with a friend
I can sleep a dreamless sleep
Blithely sure it will not end.
Lorries thunder on a road,
Neighbours quarrel all the night,
Not a thought and not a qualm
Make me think I am not right.

Hence, in politics I find

Your ideas just will not do,
Doctrinaire tomfoolery
Out of date as much as you;
My ideas are to the point,
Badly needed I may say,
Broadly-based and well-thought-out,
Obvious as is the day.
If in time they’re found to be
Sadly distant from the mark
Blame it on conspiracy
Hugging shadows in the dark.

Or again, in personal life

Knowing what I wish to know
Once-close friends may drop like pins –
That’s their business how they go.
Health-checked and with much insurance
I’ve a sound belief which holds
Life’s a freshly laundered blanket
Free from shocks and sudden colds.
Many hours and many days
Stretch before me out of sight,
No one thinks about disasters,
Have you had one? Never? Quite!

Who, though, staring at the sky

After dark and after noise
Would not think on that dread day
Which will undermine our poise?
When the nebulae collapse,
Heat death like a dying stain
Will, across the cosmic spaces,
Cancel out what might remain.
So an ending stalks us all;
All of us despite our views
One day will receive a call
We’re unable to refuse.

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© December 1980