Out of the Blue: Poems 1975-2001, Page 2

  A lorry-load of stuff

  It was the green lorry with its greasy curtain

  like a leather apron,

  backing into the lane behind the terrace

  for a lorry-load of stuff.

  Cardboard boxes of books from the last move,

  not opened since. That’s thirteen years

  where A Beginner’s Guide to Birdsong

  and Marxism Matters have not been wanted.

  Two plastic caterpillars, clattering

  like tongues. They were new once,

  expensive enough to keep for no purpose.

  The boxes exist, though they don’t fit.

  A turquoise baby-bath, impregnated

  with the white-knuckle grip of one baby

  and the fat relaxed fist of the other.

  One afternoon it served as a sledge

  before the proper sledge, this one

  (which we also don’t want). Remember those woods,

  and our stopped breath that headlong

  downhill with both boys crammed in front.

  A proper lorry-load of stuff

  needs bits of wood, likely shapes

  that finally won’t hold shelves up.

  It needs a toddler’s bike

  hand-painted silver by a nine-year-old

  then torn apart to make a go-kart.

  If there is old food (lentils,

  tins with rust-spots, onion sets

  that never got planted, or could be gladioli)

  so much the better. In a climate too cold

  for cockroaches, you can afford to be careless

  of larder shelves. And your lorry-load

  is incomplete without the photographs

  you kept taking, badly, from duty,

  interrupting the happiest moments

  as you saw them. The booty

  of time, it was going to be. Lose them

  to the panting of the lorry’s engine

  impatient now, throbbing, and to the man

  parting the curtain, chucking stuff in.

  Virgin with Two Cardigans

  There’s a stone set in the car-park wall

  down at knee-level

  which commends her.

  There are these relics: a scrap of wool,

  a lost button, an unfollowed pattern.

  There is her stone, set in the car-park wall

  its flinty lettering so bright cut

  it would blind her.

  Here, on this path, slowly, leaning

  on two sticks, she still comes.

  Trying to know all the new faces

  she looks about her, tortoise-sweet.

  How patiently she wants God to unbutton

  her two cardigans,

  but he is slow.

  Here, buttoning her cardigans

  with lumpy fingers she bungles

  in the lee of a breeze-block wall.

  Virgin with Pineapple

  Virgin with the Globe as a Golden Ball

  Virgin with Two Cardigans

  pushing a pearl button

  into the gnarl of its hole.

  Ice coming

  (after Doris Lessing)

  First, the retreat of bees

  lifting, heavy with the final

  pollen of gorse and garden,

  lugging the weight of it, like coal sacks

  heaped on lorry-backs

  in the ice-cream clamour of August.

  The retreat of bees, lifting

  all at once from city gardens –

  suddenly the roses are scentless

  as cold probes like a tongue,

  crawling through the warm crevices

  of Kew and Stepney. The ice comes

  slowly, slowly, not to frighten anyone.

  Not to frighten anyone. But the Snowdon

  valleys are muffled with avalanche,

  the Thames freezes, the Promenade des Anglais

  clinks with a thousand icicles, where palms

  died in a night, and the sea

  of Greece stares back like stone

  at the ice-Gorgon, white as a sheet.

  Ice squeaks and whines. Snow slams

  like a door miles off, exploding a forest

  to shards and matchsticks. The glacier

  is strangest, grey as an elephant,

  too big to be heard. Big-foot, Gorgon –

  a little mythology

  rustles before it is stilled.

  So it goes. Ivy, mahonia, viburnum

  lift their fossilised flowers

  under six feet of ice, for the bees

  that are gone. As for being human

  it worked once, but for now

  and the foreseeable future

  the conditions are wrong.

  Cyclamen, blood-red

  Cyclamen, blood-red, fly into winter

  against the grey grain of concrete

  eight floors up.

  Winged, poised, intricate,

  tough as old boots

  flying the kite

  of pure colour

  season to season

  under a laurel leaf

  they make rebellion.

  Piers Plowman

  The Crucifixion & Harrowing of Hell

  (from the C text)

  ‘It is finished,’ said Christ. Blood ebbed from his face.

  He was wan and pitiful as a dying prisoner.

  The lord of light closed his eyes to the light,

  day shrank back, the sun darkened in terror;

  The temple walls collapsed into rubble

  solid rock split, and it seemed black night.

  Earth shivered like living flesh,

  the dead heard, and emerged

  rising up from their deep-dug graves

  to tell the world why this storm was wrenching it.

  ‘For a bitter battle,’ said one dead man walking,

  ‘Life and Death are wrestling in the darkness

  and no one knows who shall be the winner

  until Sunday, when the sun rises,’

  that said, he sank down

  a dead man, into deep earth again.

  Some said it was God’s own son who died so well.

  Truly this was the son of God,

  Some said he was a sorcerer, and practised witchcraft,

  ‘Let’s try him, find out if he’s really dead

  or still alive, before they take down the body.’

  There were two thieves that suffered death

  on the cross beside Christ. An officer came

  and broke their bones, the arms and legs on each man.

  But all shrank from laying hands on Christ.

  He was King and knight himself, his nature God-given,

  and none had the boldness to touch him in his dying.

  Only a blind knight stepped out, holding his spear

  that was ground keen and sharp as a razor.

  He was named Longinus, and had been blind for long years.

  Despite his protests, they pushed him forward

  to joust with Jesus, this blind Jew Longinus.

  No one else dared, of all those standing there,

  to touch Jesus or take him down for burial,

  only the blind man, who struck his lance through Christ’s heart.

  Blood leaped down the shaft and melted the darkness

  that sealed the knight’s eyes. As the light shone

  he knelt and cried to Christ to forgive him

  ‘It was against my will that I wounded you,

  I bleed to think of what I have done to you.

  I yield to your mercy. Do what you like with me.

  Take my land and my life, they belong to you.’

  For a while in my dream I withdrew into the shadows

  as if I would sink down into hell’s darkness.

  There my sight cleared, there this was revealed:

  out of the west a young woman came hurrying

  gentle, benign, sweet-spoken, />
  compassion itself shining. Mercy was her name

  and as she came she stared into hell’s mouth.

  From the east, as it seemed in my vision,

  her sister appeared, lightly stepping westward:

  she was virgin, pristine, inviolable Truth,

  wrapped in such virtue that she feared nothing.

  When they met, Mercy and Truth together,

  they asked each other about these signs and wonders

  the din and darkness, and how the day dawned

  and how a glow and glory lay at hell’s mouth.

  ‘I am dumbfounded, dazzled,’ said Truth,

  ‘I must go and make sense out of these mysteries.’

  ‘No mystery,’ said Mercy, ‘but signs of bliss.

  A virgin named Mary became a mother

  though no man touched her. She conceived by the word

  and touch of the holy spirit, grew great, gave birth.

  Without labour or loss she brought her child into the world.

  God is my witness that my tale is true

  and thirty winters have passed since that child was born

  who suffered and died today, about mid-day;

  it is his death which has darkened the sun

  and made the bright world lightless, but this eclipse has meaning:

  like the sun, man shall be released from shadow

  when the light of life blinds the eyes of Lucifer.

  The prophets and patriarchs have preached to us

  that what was lost by a tree should be won back through a tree,

  and what death felled, shall be death’s downfall.’

  ‘What friend of a friend told you that?’ asked Truth.

  ‘Listen to me. This is Truth speaking.

  Adam and Eve, Abraham,

  all their companions, all that are human,

  all those prophets and patriarchs that suffer hell’s pains –

  that light will never be allowed to lift them up

  and have them out of hell – Mercy, stop mouthing

  and hold your tongue, for I am Truth

  and I tell this truth, that hell holds them.

  Read Job, and let him put you right by his ruling

  that hell allows no redemption.’

  Mercy, unruffled, answered her sister.

  ‘I have grounds for hope, hope for salvation.

  Poison drives out poison, the cycle is broken

  Adam and Even shall find their redemption.

  Of all venoms the worst is the scorpion’s.

  No doctor’s skill can heal the site of his sting,

  until the scorpion dies, and, held to the wound

  drives out its own poison, turns sting to balm.

  I would lay a bet with my life as stake

  that this death will undo the deathly devilment

  done to Eve in the earliest days.

  And as the serpent seduced and beguiled,

  so grace, which made all things, will mend all things,

  and trick the tricksters by holy sleight of hand.’

  ‘Let’s stop all this,’ said Truth, ‘I see, not far off,

  Righteousness running out of the north

  from the cut of the cold. Let’s argue no more

  for she’s the eldest of us, and knows most.’

  ‘True,’ said Mercy, ‘and look, from the south

  Peace dressed in Patience, dancing towards us.

  Love has longed for her so long, I think it must be that Love

  himself has written to her. His love-letter

  will enlighten us all. We’ll soon know the meaning

  of this light that hangs over hell.’

  When Peace, clothed in Patience, came up to them,

  Righteousness curtsied to Peace in her rich clothing

  and begged her to say which way she was going,

  and whose hearts she would lift by the loveliness of her dress.

  ‘I am filled with longing to welcome them all,’

  said Peace, ‘all those who have been hidden from me

  by the pollution of sin and hell’s darkness,

  Adam and Eve and a crowd of others,

  Moses and more than I can name. Mercy shall sing

  while I dance to her music: do so, dear sister!

  For Jesus fought well for them, and this is joy’s dawning.

  Love, who is my lover, has sent me a warrant

  which declares that Mercy and Peace bring freedom

  to release the human race from its prison,

  for Christ has changed the nature of justice

  into peace and forgiveness, through his grace.

  Here’s the warrant,’ said Peace, ‘in peace I will both lay me down –

  and to prove it is binding – and rest secure.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind,’ asked Righteousness,

  or have you been drinking?

  Do you really think that light there

  has power to unlock hell?

  Do you really believe it can save human souls?

  When the world began, God gave his judgement

  that Adam and Eve and their descendants

  should die, and go down to everlasting darkness

  for touching the tree and its sweet fruit.

  Adam broke the law of our lord and denied his love,

  by eating the fruit he gave up both love and law,

  followed evil and fought against reason.

  – by the letter of the law it is all over,

  they must suffer for ever, no prayer,

  no intercession can come near them.

  They chose the fruit, let them chew on it.

  And as for us, sisters, let’s not complain of it.

  That apple bite was a landslip

  which changed their landscape for ever.’

  ‘But I shall pray for them,’ Peace said, ‘for the end of their pain.

  Joy and suffering are twined together so tightly

  that one cannot be known without the other.

  Hunger means nothing to full stomachs.

  If all the world were like a swan’s breast,

  who would know what white was?

  If night never came, what would day mean,

  and if God’s own tongue had not tasted death

  how would he tell if was sweet or sour?

  A rich man, living in health and ease

  would never suffer, but for the death

  that comes to all, equally, inescapably.

  So God, who struck the light that began life

  chose to be born human, to save mankind,

  and be sold into death to feel the pain of dying,

  which unknits all cares and ends suffering.

  *

  God placed Adam in peace and plenty,

  God gave him freedom to sin and to suffer

  to learn through this what his happiness was.

  and God challenged himself to take on Adam’s nature

  and know human fate in his own flesh.

  He came from heaven, lived on earth, and now

  will go down to hell, and discover

  the depth of suffering. The dark world

  opens to Christ, who lived in heaven’s light.

  Christ will take the human race with him

  on the same journey. Their descent into evil

  will lead them to know where love is.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Truth, ‘I see and hear it happening.

  A spirit speaks to hell and bids it unbar the gates.

  ‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates…’

  A voice blazed from the light at Lucifer,

  ‘Prince of this place, tear these gates open

  for the crowned King of Glory to enter them.’

  Then Satan shuddered and said to hell

  ‘A light like this took Lazarus from us.

  This is the moment of our undoing.

  If this king enters, he will take mankind from us

 
and lead it where Lazarus has gone, and seize me.

  Patriarchs and prophets warned of this

  that such a lord and such a light would lead them.

  Get up, Ragamoffyn, reach me those bars

  from your Grandad Belial’s wife-battering

  and I’ll stop this lord and his light.

  Before this brightness blinds us, let’s bar the gates,

  check his course, chain our doors, stop up the chinks

  so no light leaps in at the loop holes or louvers.

  Ashtaroth, get the lads moving, the whole gang of them,

  to defend mankind. They’re ours, we’ll keep them.

  Hurl down the brimstone, blazing and boiling

  to flay the flesh of those who come near our kingdom.

  Set the crossbows and the brass cannon

  and blind his troops with our ammunition.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Lucifer, ‘I know this lord,

  this lord and this light. From long ago I knew him.

  No death can snuff out this lord, hell cannot cheat him.

  Where he wishes, there he goes. But let him look out.

  If he tears them away from me, he does it by force, not right.

  For by right and reason, they belong to me

  body and soul, the good and the evil.

  For the lord of heaven himself promised it:

  Adam and Eve and all their descendants

  should suffer death and come to me for ever

  if they touched the tree or picked the apple.

  It was this same lord of light who gave the judgement,

  and since he is truth itself, he must keep to it,

  not tear from us what is ours, damned by justice.

  We have had them with us for seven thousand winters,

  legally ours, with no one arguing it.

  Will he be untrue, who is truth itself?’

  ‘True,’ said Satan, ‘but all the same…

  You trapped them and tricked them, trampled down his Eden.

  Against his law and desire you slunk onto his land