poems from The Lore of Falling Bodies
Thaw
too heavy to be thrown
the snowball marks
the foot of the hill
though the thin snow
on the grass has gone
and so the looping tracks
it persists
somewhere beyond
the roll of a game
from which the children
could not keep their
mittened hands
one instant
Where we Made the Fire
adapted from Where the Picnic Was, by Thomas Hardy
Where we made the fire
In the summer time
Of branch and briar
On the hill to the sea,
I slowly climb
Through winter mire,
And scan and trace
The forsaken place
Now a cold wind blows,
And the grass is grey,
But the spot still shows
As a burnt circle - aye,
And stick-ends, charred,
Still strew the sward
Whereon I stand,
Last relic of the band
Yes, I am here
Just as last year,
And the sea breathes brine
From its strange straight line
Up hither, the same
As when we four came.
But two have wandered far
From this grassy rise
And one, and one has shut her eyes
Charon Ushers in the Cinephiles
I used to have a boat, an oar
a robe slung over one shoulder.
I used to have a beard
of bubbled wrack,
and the thunderheads
would gather round
whenever I called names.
The dead?
They used to queue for years
to be paddled across
the irrelevant waves.
That’s all below me now.
I work my shift in this Odeon.
I lift the corners of my mouth and vow
that once you’re in you may come out,
go in, come out , go in and wait – no glass,
no drunks, no children. Are you buried?
Steady, it’s a simple slope down
but it does go down
toward music and voices
muffled as if heard
through the membrane
of a uterus.
My palm as your guide, I finger
the furred wall as you fade,
then turn back to brush
your faces in the carpet
with my shoe.
You’re late.
You’re cold.
You’re stumped by the rows and aisles.
You puke.
You faint.
You shit to block a bowl –
no pork gelatin too trodden in,
no disintegrated Butterkist
a match for squat, red Henry –
with a black bin bag and a blue glove,
a Maglite and a lanyard – I am Staff.
I service the worlds either side of these doors,
one stub per soul to prove you alive
should the fires break out and I evacuate you.
Think twice by the handrail.
Recount with me
comforts of car interiors,
tooth whiteners,
of pensions and stellas and the slogan
that dirt is good.
I, too, shuffle down this corridor
having kissed good night
the friend with the empty glass.
I, too, stop rustling
as the lights are dimmed.
The difference being
I need no ticket
for the privilege.
Monism
there is nothing to do
night falls
but night doesn’t fall
bodies fall
we in this force
must acknowledge through skylights
the moon
we sip
we nibble
under the mossy skylights
they are just
skylights
so far from being
actual or possible causes
of the tides themselves
and yet
it is through the skylights
I see the moon move
the mossy moon move
Mucking out at Creech
The first and only time I saw the stables at Creech was last April. We drove there in your Toyota, to where the manor nestles in a valley of woodland, heath and horses, where a ragged lake stands still and an unlocked chapel squats above the yard.
You showed us the hay in the barn, the separate bails for every horse’s diet. You showed us the beds of hay in the stables, how the hay was banked so the sleeping horses wouldn’t wake against a wall, unable to rise.
And when we walked back along the track between the fields, it was hard to know whether the horses ambling to the fences came to say hello or goodbye, or simply that they knew. I think a horse says all of this with one look.
The giant cob, the saddle of his back rising to the arch of his neck, that line of beauty cresting then falling down a roman nose to the carrot in your hand, as you kissed him between the eyes.
He knew.
You knew heaven before she left for heaven.
In April, the horses here
are gods on the heath.
Come snow the gods
look over their stable doors
Lottie, Robbie, Chrissie,
Ebony, Howie and Pep
their breath condensing into blessings in the yard
as your fork clatters in the wheelbarrow.
You’re here to muck them out
a goddess among her own
in service, shovelling the shit
forking the divine heat and must
of a horse’s rest
each bed of hay a gift
where a god slept
then rose easily.
You raise your hand to their nostrils
your pocket knobbly
with the promise
of a carrot.
As you know their names
you know their breath,
the way each beloved touches
and takes the carrot in your palm.
You knew heaven before you left for heaven
the stableyard
where the stamp and scrape of hooves
on wet stone means leaving
or coming home.
If where we come from is always behind us
we are behind you now
where loose hay gathers by the trough
where the hollow clops
the knack of a stable door
the fork in your wheelbarrow sing
to the snorts and the whinnies
and the barks in the stableyard,
to the swifts weaving time
as a goddess sweeps.
For you are a goddess here, a goddess in purple,
a goddess in gunboots, blue jodhpurs,
a purple puffer and a beanie the colours
of hundreds and thousands
a goddess among hay-bails who
when the race is won
blesses the jockey
with a diamond
whose strength and sinew
are the strength and sinew of one who makes and makes again a horse’s bed
who prides herself in making the best beds for her beloveds
whose sheer health held you alive
though you yourself slept in a bed made by angels
by those who tend their own until only the breath remains
and then that too departs
and you rise easily
from the stableyard
as quiet as heaven
and the silver in your hair
in the wiry wilderness of a hack through Purbeck
lies like a tarnishing flame on crisp linen
until only the shape of the flame remains
still kissable
its light withdrawn to its source on the heath where
in the silver of a frosted field at Creech
the bootprints by the gate describe
the labour of your love
Houns Tout
The valley has a secret
The river has a dream
The beeline is a flight
Of love through falling leaves
You’re wet but do not shiver
Rain is coming down
A raindrop on a berry
Turns you upside down
You’re cold but don’t get colder
Your hands are holding roots
The fire is wet and smouldering
The ghost of the hill is loose
On the heath is Hardy’s game
The dice are in the gorse
The ghost is caught on a thorn
The ghost unfurls a horse
She barters with an apple
Her hair is silver flame
The swifts weave fate as heaven
Rises from the hay
Has the apple been taken?
The ghost is dry as bone
Has the apple been taken?
The ghost is dry as bone
Whose breath is this arising?
Whose breath is this arising?
The horse the god the ghost
The horse the god the ghost
The horse the god the ghost
An echo in the gwyle
A finger to the wrist
The horse stamps once and shakes
The flame I bend to kiss
One stitch of smoke plucked loose
From a chimney in the bowl
The horse stamps twice and time
Is as the river flows
A riddle on cobbles
A song through a tunnel
Silk ribbons around boulders
To the cliff and the fall