Nowhere More Than This

It is written

soundlessly in air

as the sky draws

a humming cloth

over all the houses'

white facades

before it slips to earth

in the begonia beds

pampas grass and cedar,

in the young girl

doing head-rolls,

handstands and cartwheels

in red trousers

for her father

applauding on the long,

flat stretch of mown

and manicured grass;

it is written soundlessly

in air in the shouts the boys

in turbans, playing

interracial polo

off the backs of bikes,

let drift across the river,

road and grass that this

is the undetermined

and eternal hour.

Lines Written in Hyde Park

This moment lives without you and with me.

It is peculiar to feel that I am alive

and it is not possible for me to see

you. How is it that separate we can live?

How is it that that betrayal we can share?

Me, I'm sitting in the middle of Hyde Park.

A man is kicking dust on a dappled grey mare,

the light around him is already growing dark

even as the horse hooves kick high and free.

So all your moments without me still exist.

Your life goes on separate from me.

In so ordinary a world of dust and mist,

if thought could be the very touch of love

I think this moment fully in the instant that it dies.

To you I've offered all I have to give.

I pray the thought will reach you where you lie.

Luscious Couplets

i

Pale orchid lips of Himalayan Balsam,

dark with tonguing scent and thrum.

White dead nettle, honeyed lips

where the black bee dips.

Blue-bottles, hairy horse-flies,

conjoined turquoise dragon-flies.

Bay Willow, Meadow Cranesbill

luscious, mounding day to fill.

ii

Dry river banks of last year's oats,

plunged by the prows of wooden boats.

Ice on the frozen fields is glass,

massive horse rumps crop the grass,

a chestnut and a pale white one,

tough fur steaming in winter sun.

To want little more than these

dark-cleaved flanks beneath shaded trees.

14 Preludes

i.

Younger, in odd clothes,

and with its hair different,

the past always smells

funny, looks innocent.

ii.

Life lives us out

and leaves us emptied

before we know anything

of its game.

(There is no game)

iii.

Sadness is a serious illness

because it can be enjoyed.

iv.

Ducks, like happy acrobats,

fly into the air

they know will always wait

to catch them there.

v.

Whatever we are

we must learn to be.

vi.

In the long black night

we are becalmed ships

suckled by the old long boats -

fear, penance, innocence.

vii

When they come to again

my thoughts always surprise me

by not being where they were

put down

viii.

Sleep empties memory

so it can be filled again.

ix.

Now I feel

like a wicker garden chair

the frost has sat

long hours in.

x.

I should like the power

to unite the smile

I can adopt later

with the moment of pain.

xi.

Even quickening my pace

through mud, I can't shake off

grey footprints

that run after me.

xii.

When I speak

I sometimes say things.

xiii.

I am a clown in big shoes:

every time I walk towards something

I kick it away from me.

I can only laugh.

xiv.

Though now I know too

another thing of grief.

It grows into itself;

into bones, into mouths,

into eyes, into smiles;

and quietly desists

The "masculine" rhyme will strengthen the line

where the "feminine" rhyme brings weakness.

In English the roles have long been assigned.

The "feminine" offers a sweet indirectness,

sometimes it is strongest, sometimes weakest,

but where the "masculine" gives bite to the text

the "feminine" will instead offer softness.

What I'm saying has nothing to do with sex.

It applies only in line-endings in rhyme

where it's "masculine" to end on a syllable of stress,

such as bed, war, hope, kill, love, dove, divine;

and "feminine" to offer a supple contour of supineness.

"Feminine" rhyme, in a sense, clothes or dresses

the "masculine" body. If the "masculine", in this context,

is God the "feminine" is revealed of Godliness.

What I'm saying has nothing to do with sex.

I speak of sameness and difference that combine

in a world of words that, if it cares how to be honest,

knows the moon can suck its own shadow in sunshine.

As light shades dark and strength possesses weakness

if the "masculine" is great the "feminine" has greatness.

If the "masculine" can remain genuflexed

beneath arms that bless, it is the "feminine" that blesses.

What I'm saying has nothing to do with sex.

It is the English language that I address,

that blood-soaked quilt, that complex

interlocking organism of male and femaleness.

What I'm saying has everything to do with sex.