Four poems

All / those who / come as guests

In Antwerp he asks the truck drivers

but in vain. The day starts fading

& they, without being trapped by

retrospective, exert no influence upon

judgements of distance. He walks away

 

from them. All totalitarian dystopias,

in life & in art, seem to be obsessed

with the everyday crimes of the

middle classes. The Texas Chain-

saw Massacre keeps looping in

 

his mind. Incongruous in it is

the figure of Beatrice as Dante saw her,

in shadows, lighting them, diffusing

them, her hand raised, frozen. In time

the opacities may affect his vision.
    

 

The Ox-bow incident

Heavy floods. Build-

up of silt. Eventually

the meander is almost

separated from the

river’s main flow. Only

the owl’s head moves. Man-

groves grow. Their spores

are haploid. Originally

sent to Egypt to fight

the French they were

eventually converted

into a porcelain factory

to supplement the

warm wet winters as

a means of providing

warmth for incubation.

So much violence. The

fission of uranium was

inadvertently achieved

& the resultant pollution

brought hot dry summers.

Non-motile, the ova

were fished to the verge

of extinction. “They’re

deader than a Paiute’s

grave,” said the local

undertaker just before the

fallout metamorphosed

him into a gametophyte.

 

 

Chalk Songlines

The destination decided; & even for those who have never been this way before                                                                                                        

the directions demonstrated — not by road map or sat nav but by song. Handed                                                                                                 

down, learnt. Many generations passed. But who the first? & how determined?

 

Start with the sky, the passage of the sun, the patterns of the stars. Add on the

patterns of the landscape, shaped by the totem of the local nation. Those things

known, become the backbone for new journeys. Direction decided by the elders,

investigated by the young, who mark their trailblazing with ochre or chalk.

 

The elders follow those marks, decide what words to use to describe the

identifying features, what forms the songs should take to incorporate those words,

what songline the future traveller should follow to get to where they wish to go.

 

The Room

Nobody knew about the room. It was one of the advantages of wealth, to be able to bring

tradesmen in from somewhere distant, tell them what he wanted, have them build it, then leave

with their silence well & truly bought. No planning permissions. No records anywhere.

 

Nobody knew about the paintings he had there, that he hid there. Nor would they believe it

should they have heard. Why would a blind man have paintings?

 

Wealthy & blind. Or, chronologically, blind & wealthy. An open mind, that allowed him to

conceptualise small gadgets that would help the visually impaired, one of which, a vibrating

pager on which he held several patents, continued to prove popular in the sighted market.

Royalties, riches.

 

Thus the room. & the paintings. Somewhere he had read about Guernica, how it screamed

with the pain of the aerial bombing that had prompted it. He coveted it, paid a significant part of

his fortune — though that was soon replaced — to have it stolen, to have it for himself.

 

Others followed. Works by Grosz & the German expressionists. Magritte’s The Rape.

Munch’s The Scream. A strident collection, silent to the outside world, that was his alone,

to which he would make his way each night, to listen, by himself, surrounded.