War of the Beasts and the Animals

Steps marked in distinct and crooked letters.

What whined in the air, is still singing now

Tugging at roots, squeaking loose threads.

The pools make their round sound, release no bubbles

The road is asleep, neither trembles nor moans.

Beyond the third poplar, day is falling

Beyond the fifth poplar, the shadow falls away.

Beyond the fifth poplar the soul flees away,

Beyond the third poplar there’s no point searching.

The wreath won’t hang for long in the house,

Look in the mirror, already your hair is sparse.

6

Chorus line, on our feet

On our legs, our dancing legs:

In dyed stocking

In borrowed stockings.

We’ll dance our lithe line

To the shore of the blue blue sea

And knock, and you’ll draw your waves

Apart, expose your flats

And we’ll sing the refrain:

We come at a price

Pay in watery gruel, a coralline ear

And beaten coins of gold!

We’ll sing below the waves (and the sea rolls on the shore)

We’ll sing the miller’s song (and the foam white as flour)

We’ll sing of the laundrymaid (and the waves wash us through)

We’ll sing of service (and the soldiers stand tall).

Sleep in on a Saturday

Breathe in on a Sunday

Young beauty is washed from your face

A scattering of snow on your foolish bobbed head.

And the sea sighs and beats its hooves

Won’t come to the shore, won’t pay its dues.

7

You my gifts, o my gifts

Thin white linen sheets

Over whom will I throw you

Entrust you to whom?

My friend has no pillow under her head

She sleeps in a stream

My little mother

Runs away down the track

She takes nothing with her

She doesn’t look back.

My own brother

Can’t hide himself in the field.

I’m no mistress, me

Nor cattle, nor kettle.

The giftgiver asks no questions

Says nothing, suggests nothing,

Thunders and rolls

Over the dirt road

Dark firs are cut to masts

And above their rustling tips

He walks, leaning on their light trunks.

8

Who guards our picket fences, our blooming hedges?

Friar Pan and Into-the-Fire are vying with each other.

Into-the-Fire has six flaming fingers, see them and shiver

And Friar Pan takes off his sooty frock, stands shaggy as a goat.

Higher, higher place the roof, praise the new roof

Shacks and wattle walls, daub and dug out, logs for cabins

Give us up, gather us up, give us a sign –

We’ll show you, we’ll bow to you, we’ll pay our way:

With starry-eyed blackberries, blue-lipped bilberries

Sharp-blue magpie feathers and hazelnuts,

With marbled water like an old man’s beard

With the black ploughed furrow, our lives’ work.

9

A deer, a deer stood in that place

Under the nut tree

And tears ran down its coat

Blood smoked on the snow.

A deer, a deer stood in that place

Under the nut tree

And rocked, rocked gently

The empty cradle.

A deer, a deer stood in that place

Asking the endless question

And from beyond the seven seas

Carried the wails of a child.

I wandered the yards, I glanced in the windows

I searched for a child I could raise myself

Choose myself a little babby

Maybe a girl or a little laddy

I’d feed my child the purest sugar

Teach it to lace and embroider

Take it for strolls under my pinny

Sing sweet songs to my own little sonny.

But they cast me out, they came at me

With torches and pitchforks they drove me

Your own foolish mothers and fathers!

And you will wander snot-nosed for years

Angering strangers, lost and derided

Without the muzzle-scent of tears

Never knowing your own true tribe.

10

The last songs are assembling,

Soldiers of a ghostly front:

Escaping from surrounded places

A refrain or two make a break for it

Appearing at the rendez-vous

Looking about them, like the hunted.

How stiffly unbending they are

Running water won’t soften them now!

How unused they are to company

The words don’t form as they ought.

But their elderly, skilful hands

Pass the cartridges round,

And until first light their seeing fingers

Reassemble Kalashnikovs,

They draw, with sharp intake of breath

From wounds, the deeply lodged letters –

And towards morning, avoiding checkpoints,

They enter the sleepless city.

In times of war, they fall silent.

When the muses roar, they fall silent.

from Underground Pathephone

*

Stop, don’t look, come close,

Sit a while, here, on my breast,

Crouch like a shrub on the steppe

Frozen under a crooked cap

Dig a hole, speak into it

Press your ear to it, catch a sound

And where my right hand lay

Pick the forget-me-not, the weed from the ground.

I can’t make you an answer

I’m slush, a few pounds and no more.

It’s bright here under the oak

Bright with hardly bearable love.

*

Don’t wait for us, my darling

Me and my friend been took.

Reporting back from the front, sir:

There’s war wherever you look.

We’re based down in a basement

In the deepest depths of the clay

They’re throwing flames above us

But we’ve gone away

Some arrived only lately

Some at the beginning of time

All of them flat as playing cards

Fallen in the grime.

And the earth that flows between us

Is thick as wine.

We were men but now

We’re amino acids in soup

The smell of tears and sperm

And bonemeal and gloop

And me I’m singed at the edges

A piece of felted wool

The one who stood at the window with you

Is made of deep hole.

When they lay that table