War of the Beasts and the Animals

With plates on damask cloth

When they light the Christmas tree

And sing Ave to the host

When a camel hoof

Breaks the icy crust –

A king’s ransom: gold

Frankincense and myrrh

Won’t light us through the cold

Won’t ward off the hunger

So it was all a lie, my girl.

No need to caress the brambles

Or finger through the copse

I’m the empty corner of old cloth

The earth has lain on top.

Poems from earlier collections

Bus Stop: Israelitischer Friedhof

Along the bus route, to the right and all in front

The letters on the wall spell out G – O – D.

And issuing from the mouth with unprecedented force

Involuntary, like a speech bubble: Lord. Have mercy.

And so another verst slips

By, with such and such upon the lips.

Like the cheapest ballad of a briar

At the bus stop, yet bearing on apace.

It runs at you and unwreathes

Like a paper handkerchief blossoms on your face

The whole town momently bathed in light

Climbing to the upper branches for a sight

Dumbstruck at the balustrades

Watching, like the neighbour, from behind her lace,

How the dead rise from their graves.

 

There is no place for the living on dead ground

Even there, where the first lady of the sod,

Soviet Maize, strode on limbs earth-bound

And waxed unceremonious towards the Gods

The young mother, the queen bee

Who has learnt to gather up like children, the glean

Of harvests, meadows and sowings

Her tongue sucking sap from the weed

A cocktail of vital air and dank mould-green

Blood and water from the left flank flowing.

Even here where she leafs through the fields

Speaking with the voices of seasons

Where the antennae quiver, the swarm breathes

And unready minds are breached

By the promise of bright new reasons.

Thimble-bodied, the sparrows flit and fly

The sparrows, as shaggy as foxes.

Where a cross is formed from every outline

And, like the maypole, surges to the sky

And flies – but onto the ropes, like boxers.

So at dawn they lie still: her, him, any of us

Like the babe in its pram, the ice in the compress

Like the unborn child in the amniotic flow

Its soft down washing in the womb’s scumble

Like a headcount in a children’s home

Like a little finger loose in a thimble.

Is anyone easy in their skin? How about the one

Who will wake embraced and held tight?

Moses in his basket, the muses’ suckling son

The newlywed appearing in smoke and light?

Stepping across the reproductive earth, one as two.

In imitation of spring, whispering, renewed

And will he give thanks and praise

For this duality, so newly gained…

Is he easy in his skin? Who was pulled into light

And opened himself for the first shriek

Between red and white, between doctor and breast

The indignity of air in the barrelling chest

Now speak!

Nor is there place for the living in the warm surf.

Is anyone easy in their skin? Is anyone easy enough?

And clutching at the very last the last of all

The hands I can trust, I glance out over the sill:

Between soothing and surviving, between living and dead

There is a secret place, I know

I cannot steal it, nor is it my debt

Nor will I leave it alone.

In the deadest of all dead places at the heart

Of the earth, in an empty sleeve, in the untouched dust

Of endless cenacles, each colder than the last

Brought to life by the cooing of doves.

On the buses terminating at and on their paths

In the darkening bushes, the unworkplaces

The brashly lit halls where kids learn martial arts

On orphaned balconies, two joining faces.

Buying the day’s pretzels

Crossing with the bicycles

Every warehouse loader, every wife, every girl

This place drags them all into its thrall.

I stand by it like a watchman, pacing my duty

Borne by invisible hands, in a heaven that is earthly

At the cemetery, where the eternal act of bringing forth

Is the meeting and parting with a new natural force.

(as they must)

Night terrors

Marching their way –

Dragoons of them, tapping

Their beetle legs like twigs on dry paper.

The native population of the heart’s nether-nation

Their tears cocked like a loaded weapon

Like a lesson got by rote, your words of explanation.

Once they’re in, they devour everything.

And you, sweet reading

Lifting the lamp’s lit arms above its head

Spreading your tent above fallen dreamers

Hiding the Jew in an empty store cupboard.

And you, courage,

Fear’s flushed veneer.

The pointless ability to rest one’s cheeks in one’s hands

And lift one’s own head like a cup –

A cup

Barely half-filled

And quite useless:

The wine of madness, its dark contents