Behind these pitiful souls, who had squandered power,
The wood was overrun by black bitches,
Fleet as greyhounds on the track at Romford.
Into the one who hid they sank their teeth,
Tearing him apart piece by piece
Then ran off with his miserable limbs.
Berrigan now took me by the hand
And drew me towards the bush
Which was lamenting from every sore.
‘Oh Nick Clegg!’ it cried, ‘See what good
It’s done you to take cover in me.
Was it my fault if your policies backfired?’
Then Berrigan spoke to the bush, saying:
‘Who were you, who spit your words
through so many wounds?’
And he replied: ‘You spirits who have
Come in time to see this unjust mutilation
That has torn me from all my leaves,
Sweep them up quick, and restore them
To their owner. I come from that proud
City torn with strife, which made its wealth
In the linen trade and shipbuilding.
I was foreman when they made the
Titanic, that fated ship that struck the iceberg;
That same day, I made my home my gibbet.’
CANTO XIV
Love of my native city moved me to
Gather up the scattered leaves and give them
Back to him whose voice was already growing hoarse.
Then we reached a break
in the woodland
And came to a new place of pain.
We looked out over bare flatlands,
Stretching as far as the eye can see,
Where few plants grow,
Only reeds and wormwood,
so barren is the earth;
The mournful wood borders them
Like a lonely wreath, and is
Bordered in turn
by the river of blood
Which runs beside a wide rim of sand,
Thick and burning, like that packed down
By coalition boots in Iraq.
The place was swarming with herds of souls,
Some who walked naked,
like sun-lovers,
Some who were heavily dressed, as if for winter,
All cursing, or muttering incomprehensibly,
Or simply wailing,
So that the air was filled with their eerie music.
Of these, some lay sprawled across the sand,
Some sat crouched in the hollows
Of the marsh, while others roamed incessantly
Up and down, like dog owners
who had lost their mutts.
Over the sand, falling slowly,
Rained flakes of burning fire, like those
Of snow that fall in the Alps on a windless day,
Or those that Saddam Hussain saw raining
On his troops as they retreated across Iraq’s
Torrid lands, exploding
When they hit the ground, so that his men
And their vehicles
burned up as they fled;
Here
sand and reeds were kindled,
Like tinder under flint and steel,
Redoubling pain. Ever restless was the dance
Of scorched fingers, now here, now there,
Shaking off the fresh burning.
‘Berrigan, my guide,’ I began, ‘you who
Can conquer all things (except those angry students
Who shut the gate on us at the tower)
Who is that great spirit, who seems to care not
For the fire, that lies disdainful and contorted,
As if the rain didn’t bother him?’
As I spoke, the man raised himself up unsteadily
On the sand, waving an empty bottle of Bushmills
In our faces, then spoke in a drawl:
‘What I was living, I am too dead,
A Fenian, an alcoholic and a junky,
Like James Clarence fucking Mangan,
And a better singer of the songs
You’ll not find this side of Lethe’s waters!
Up in the light I took my share of the shite:
I’ve been raped and spat on and shat on and abused,
Kicked in the teeth till the blood came out my ears
By Her Majesty’s men in the blue cloth.
There’s nothing this side of Hell’s gates
I haven’t seen before, I tell you;
But would you be having any cheap pills,
If you know what I mean,
Your fellow there looks like a man
After my own taste.’
Then Berrigan spoke back: ‘Shane MacGowan,
It’s you, isn’t it? You haven’t lost any
Of your blustering pride, have you?
But you’ve had a skinful already,
Perhaps that’s why you pay no attention
To these searing flakes, I’m not handing out
Any free pills to you.’ And then he turned
His face to me, saying: ‘That man was once king
Of the hit parade, one of the seven Pogues,
He blasphemed his way to the top of the charts,
Then all the way down again, till he ended
Up in the state you see him in now.
Now follow me, and see you don’t step
On the burning sand, but stick
To the straight track close to the wood.’
In silence we came to a spot where a
Thick concrete pipe carried toxic effluent
Off the farmland, spewing it into the
Waters of the river of blood (its stink
Still sticks in my nostrils!). As I gazed out
Across the estuary, a thought framed
Itself in my mind, and wishing to know
The answer I asked Berrigan why it was
That the river flowed red.
‘Not far from campus,’ said Berrigan,
‘There lies a place they call Colchester,
Where the British Army rest
Between tours of duty,
And under whose king, Cymbeline,
the world once knew peace.
Before that, the Romans built their capital here,
Camulodunum. North of there, the Iceni
Still ruled, a warrior race,
But when their king – I forget his name – died,
The Romans turned on his widow;
She was whipped publicly and her daughters raped.
This was a big mistake: Boudicca
Turned the might of her army on
Camulodunum and torched it.
The Romans, mostly retired veterans,
Took refuge in the Temple of Claudius,
But this didn’t do them much good.
Boudicca torched that too, and to this day,
If you dig down, you can still see a seam
Of burnt red clay, the destruction layer.
It’s the blood she spilt that makes the river
Colne run red, and it’s this river that
Encircles the campus and feeds the lakes,
One of which, as you have seen,
she still sails
in her coracle.’
Then I asked another thing that had been
Puzzling me: ‘Where is the river Lethe, then,
Of which MacGowan spoke?’
‘Hold your horses,’ said Berrigan, ‘we’ve still
Got a long way to go. You’ll see your Lethe
In good time, if we get out of this abyss.
That’s where the shades go to wash themselves
When their guilt is taken off by penitence.
Now it’s time to move on,
See that you follow me, and stick to the raised track.’
CANTO XV
As the Flemings between Wissant and Bruges,
In fear of the flood tides�
� constant threat,
Build strong dykes to repel the sea;
And as Canvey islanders,
Fearful of another flood like in ’53,
Raise up barrages against the estuary,
In like fashion were these banks built,
Though not so high or so large,
By Roman hands, from mud and oyster shells.
We had left the wood behind us,
So far back, indeed, that had I turned
To look I couldn’t have seen it,
When we met a troop of spirits
Who walked beside the bank, on the sand;
From where they’d come from, in the distance,
The eye could make out barbecues,
Which lit up the water’s edge,
Flinging sparks high into the air;
As they approached, each one peered at us,
As in the evening clubbers
Look at one another under the lamplight,
And as they drew level, one of their number,
Recognising me, grabbed me by the sleeve,
And said: ‘Well I never!’
And I, as he stretched out his arm,
Fixed my eyes on his sun-tanned brow,
And bending my face down to look him
In the eye, exclaimed: ‘Is this really
You here, Dr Moss?’ And he, laughing,
Exclaimed: ‘We’ve been having a barbecue,
A whole crowd of us, it’s such a lovely evening.
Shall I join you for a walk, if I’m not
Too drunk to climb up the bank?’
‘Be my guest,’ I said, lending him a hand.
Once on the bank, we sat down on a bench,
Sharing a cigarette with Berrigan, my guide.
‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ he said,
‘What brings you down here at this late hour,
And who’s this one showing you the way?’
‘This is the poet, Ted Berrigan,’ I said,
‘I bumped into him by the cash machines,
And he’s giving me a tour. How’s things?
How’s the novel going? The Book of Carthage,
Or was it Chiswick?’ ‘You remember that?’
He said. ‘Well, the title’s changed several
Times since then, but it’s pretty much done.
The market, though, is unforgiving these days.
If I’d finished it a few years back,
When novels about Muslims were still new,
It might have stood a chance – as things are,
I have my doubts.
How are things with you? Still doing poems?
How’s Ann? How’s the department?’
‘Oh, it’s OK,’ I said, ‘You know,
Nothing much changes.’ ‘Well, don’t let them drag
You down,’ he said, ‘these ungrateful
And malignant scholars will become,
For your good work, your enemies – and not
Without reason: among the bitter berries
Is no fit place for the ripe fig to bloom.
But if you keep writing, things will work out.
Steer a path between the mainstream and the
Experimenters, that way nobody can claim you,
You’ll always be your own man.’
‘Oh, if everything I wished had been granted,’
I replied, ‘they’d have made a chair for you.
My mind is still etched
With your early encouragement of my work,
When I showed you my first primitive efforts,
Playing about with Aesop – in fact I still have
Your copy of L’Estrange somewhere,
And I’m not about to give it back.
Your example first showed me how I might
Combine a job in teaching with the real
Work of writing, and while I live
I’ll always talk of my debt to you,
And of my gratitude. I’ll remember what
You tell me, and chew it over.’
Berrigan, hearing this, stood up, stubbing
Out his cigarette, then looked at me and said:
‘He hears the best who pays the closest heed.’
I didn’t answer him, but went on talking
With Dr Moss, asking him
Who of his company I might know of.
‘You might have heard of one or two of them,’
He said, ‘but I doubt it. About some of
Them, the less said the better.
Many are writers, some academics,
One of them’s a priest who works
Not far from me, in Kemptown.
Oh, and Jeff’s there, along with his partner –
Have you met that guy? I could go on, but
Time’s too short, there’s such a crowd.
I see another barbecue coming to an end,
And there are some people there I’d rather avoid.
Remember my Pink Pagoda,
That’s one thing I ask of you, and don’t forget
The Secret Life and Mysterious Death of Mr Chinn!’
Then he turned back, and he seemed like
One of those who race for the green cloth
At Verona, through the open fields, and like
The winner of the group, not the last man in.
CANTO XVI
As we made our way along the steep bank,
Bordering the river of blood,
We passed through a second wood, and when we
Emerged, we found ourselves in a place
Where the burning
flakes of flame
Fell fiercer than ever.
Distant, I could hear the clanking of some
Infernal engine, like the banging that
Car mechanics make, when three shades together,
Running, broke away
from a group toasting on the sands.
They veered towards us and, shouting as one, cried:
‘You there! Stop!’ Then one of them added as
Coda: ‘From the look of you, you’re from New York –
I’d recognise that face anywhere!’
As they drew closer, what wounds I saw
By the flames burned in –
It pains me yet, as I write these lines.
My teacher listened to their cries, then
Turning towards me, said: ‘Hold it;
These guys deserve a little respect.
In fact, if it weren’t for those burning flakes
Raining down over the sands, I’d suggest
You ran to greet them, not vice versa.’
We stopped, as they came up to the foot of the bank,
Where they stopped too, forming themselves into
A wheel;
It made me think of Matisse’s dancers
Whirling in a ring,
As if they were trying to make of their lives,
Of their deaths,
a work of high art.
Spinning around in this way, each one
Flung his head towards us as he whizzed past
So that their necks and feet appeared
To move constantly in opposite directions.
As they continued spinning, one of them began:
‘Ted Berrigan, it’s been a long time!
If the misery of these sterile sands
And our blotched and scorched demeanour
Doesn’t scare you off, talk to us a while;
And you there, who seem to be a living shade,
Walking unpunished through these torrid zones,
Let our fame persuade you to tell us who you are.
He in whose footsteps you see me tread,
All naked and peeling though he is now,
Was of noble station, more than you may know;
He was the grandson of the physicist,
Henry Lawrence, his name’s John Ashbery,
And in his lifetime he did much as an
Editor, teacher and writer.
The other one, that treads the sand behind me,
Is Joe Brainard, who left the world
His memories to read. I’m James Schuyler,
You’ll find me in New American Poetry,
I’m the one who taught these two to dance.’
If it hadn’t been for the burning sand
I’d have run down the bank to greet them;
As things were, I stood awestruck on the track.
Berrigan, my guide, then spoke:
‘That’s some dance you’ve got there, James,
Where did you pick that one up,
Is it Italian? This dude is another
Poet, I’m taking him on a tour of Hell,
He’s got AHRC funding –
That’s like having a Fulbright Scholarship.’
‘Is that so?’ said Schuyler, ‘Now, tell us about
New York, Ted, we were just talking about it.
David Plante, who recently joined our party,
Says it’s gone to the dogs. What’s the news?’