Greater Still: 1979 - 1993

1.   NOT HERE      Still dark,  thin curtains resist  a taut March sky;     my room is uncompleted – unoccupied;   my possessions shrink beside books, clothes,   stuff left here by others –     and because you are not near -   not in this village or the next – not in this thin doctored placeso far from the southern Weald –  because we are not here –my body moves, a blind man, proving the place,calculating distances between here and there – a bleak, discordant siren enticing me to stay, with a nonsense song: that there is no other way.  BEDFORDSHIRE, MARCH 1979   2.            EDGE Ploughed fieldsforce me to the edge –a destitute land, barren and friendless –hedgerows of briar and blackthorn stiff as razor palisades, a slammerof bare trees, flooded ruts thick, greasy, drowning mudand a thin, slashing horsewhip wind to keep at bay my breakout.  BEDFORDSHIRE, MARCH 1979   3.            CEEDED iLight haemorrhages,bleeds through brooding trees, though copse. We await the storm. iiSound of the quiet moor – small hours of dark certainties, sleepless, terminal. iiiThis, the toughest place,a night long anvil smashing every dream that comes. ivHe has let the room – and now a watcher steals everything he knows. vCome and commandeerthis world, that world, take them all - we have an excess. viLift, scatter, dust, winddown the ragged station cold, strangers ever stirring. viiBlue electric crown –by the sky, I bring you close:it covers us both.  BEDFORDSHIRE, MARCH 1979   4.            CEASELESSA cloudless blueinvites a house, long-lost, white- honoured guest, seated, air still as whispers,friends dining in candlelight;a record playing, photographs shuffled --as if a kindly cardsharp dealt redeeming kings  LANGOLD HOUSE, SUMMER 1979   5.            BOMB Green fists of budlurch towards summer – bring meto Sussex downs laid on chalk, cut sheer -tracks to the sea. I lie - toes out,following patterns on the waves; following people spreading towels; following familiessweating in a salty breeze – sun pilgrims, returningwith plastic bags and floppy hats. The day has killed their talk; there is onlythe sexy grass beneath bare feet – vast smooth fields below a prosperous sky –a measureless ocean –the smell of summer, spreading like a blast.  BEECHY HEAD, JUNE 1981   6.            SCHOOL Overnight, our schools have becomestrewn streets in ruined cities - lessons takenby looted shops, gutted cars – classrooms reached down roads burningwith debris from the night before; the playground, a hearthof petrol flames shared on television; the curriculum recastby ragged warriorsin cities north to south – even unobtrusive towns have traded intheir silence for slogans, as if all thiscould ever start a new term.  LANGOLD HOUSE, JULY 1981   7.            BUSTED This room is busted – this house is broken –bolted, a trail of bricks and masonry. Barbed wire, red with rust,defines the edgesof a disappearing drive Birds call - boundlessly friendless.  LANGOLD HOUSE, JULY 1981   8.            PETITION Forgive us – say a prayer –let’s dine on blood. Give us this day our daily bread - the man haemorrhaginghis life on bags of spilt basmati rice.  All kingdom come -unhallowed bodies bobbing downriver; leperstrespassing the garden gates (dry to the right, wet to the left). The Power and the Glory -the corpse delivered from evil on a jute bier of marigolds, weaving through traffic. Ever and ever -scraps of horse and jockeyminced on earth by a Naxalite bomb, bound for heaven, Thy will be done.  LANGOLD HOUSE, JULY 1981   9.            TRIBUTE iThis makeshift air, choked.The dreams the old men held dear, mountains poised to rise. iiTapers are unlit;the alter is empty now,its trinkets packed away. iiiSummer twists the knife – leaves an unwieldly wilderness, a wreath, remembered. ivStill he assails,as if love would ever be an explanation. LANGOLD HOUSE, JULY 1981   10.          FICTION Why let him dream when really –he cannot; whylet him think that he will live without end,that he will drawthe flame from fire,thathe can take it to the shadow –to the silver in the dim – to burn forever more?  LANGOLD HOUSE, JULY 1981  <...