the key left behind
and longing for May:
the fall will unwind
the shrivelling day.
More love's in your eye
More love's in your eye
than I can remember,
than stars in the sky.
More love's in your eye
than blackberries, high
in lanes in September.
More love's in your eye
than I can remember.
The smoke of your hair
Asleep in your bed
with the smoke of your hair
where dreams lie unsaid
asleep in your bed;
the fires in your head
who create and prepare
asleep in your bed
with the smoke of your hair.
The smoke of your hair
in your sleep, in your bed
is strewn through the air.
The smoke of your hair
from the fires within, where
new worlds will be bred:
the smoke of your hair
in your sleep, in your bed.
Ballades (and attempts)
Dear Sir…
Dear Sir:— This application form,
from one potential employee,
will tell you how I should perform.
I have a first-class B.Sc.,
ten years of writing ANSI C,
some Java; Perl with DBI;
and tendencies to wander free
and gaze, all wordless, at the sky.
I know perhaps it's not the norm
to mention this on one's CV.
I wonder if you'd just transform
the job I'm asking for, to be
not writing code, but poetry.
Do ask your boss. It's worth a try.
He'd sing, himself, when he was three,
and gaze, all wordless, at the sky.
I'd stay till ten beneath a warm
duvet, and then I'd climb a tree,
my face upheld towards the storm,
or paddle barefoot in the sea.
Perhaps a friend comes round for tea.
Perhaps among the corn we'd lie
in silent solidarity
and gaze, all wordless, at the sky.
Sir, I enclose an S.A.E.
I wonder if you might reply
and leave your desk to run with me,
and gaze, all wordless, at the sky.
Stations of the Cross
I watched from Farringdon as Satan fell;
I've battled for my soul at Leicester Square;
I've laid a ghost with Oystercard and bell;
I've tracked the wolf of Wembley to his lair;
I've drawn Heathrow's enchantment in rotation;
at Bank I played the devil for his fare;
I laugh at lesser modes of transportation.
I change at Aldgate East because it's there.
The Waterloo and City cast its spell;
I watched it slip away, and could not care,
the Northern Line descending into hell
until King's Cross was more than I could bear;
he left me there in fear for my salvation,
a Mansion House in heaven to prepare:
so why return to any lesser station?
I change at Aldgate East because it's there.
Three days beneath the earth in stench and smell
I lay, and let the enemy beware:
I learned the truth of tales the children tell:
an Angel plucked me homeward by the hair,
to glory from the depths of condemnation,
to where I started long ago from where
I missed my stop through long procrastination.
I change at Aldgate East because it's there.
Prince of the buskers, sing your new creation:
the change you ask is more than I can spare;
a change of spirit, soul, imagination.
I change at Aldgate East because it's there.
Ballade of Adventure
Go north. Go east. Get lamp. Get food. Get key.
Get sword. Examine sword. It's glowing blue.
Say plugh. You watch the world around you flee.
You're standing near a boulder marked Y2.
Put Auntie's thing in bag. It doesn't fit.
(By Infocom. Wherever games are sold.)
Such antics are the price for us to sit
where Thorin sits and sings about his gold.
You're standing west of house again. You see:
a robot and a door. The door sees: you.
You're carrying some fluff, some shades, no tea;
Be careful. You'll be eaten by a grue.
Oh, now you've gone and fallen in a pit.
You're carrying as much as you can hold.
In Bedquilt. You see shadows through the slit,
where Thorin sits and sings about his gold.
But Activision's little shopping spree
had turned the world to wanting something new.
It's sad, but still, I think we'd all agree
the Z-machine's demise was overdue.
The day when all the world went sixteen-bit
the era died. I think they broke the mould
when pictures took the place of words and wit,
where Thorin sits and sings about his gold.
Prince of the numbers, worlds have watched you knit
the memories of processors of old;
you've made a better planet, I submit,
where Thorin sits and sings about his gold.
I measure out my life with kitten toes
A dozen years, the length of feline days:
compared to human lives it may appear
the cats lose out. To be a human pays.
I think on this, and on companions dear:
Successive cats whose whiskered lives touched mine
Have lain upon my lap... do you suppose
Their tiptoe through the years is but a sign?
I measure out my life with kitten toes.
As they and I pursue the hilly ways
that fill our lives, “Beware! The end is near!”
“Your death is nigh!” or some such friendly phrase
will tell me that it's all downhill from here.
And soon the slope more steeply will incline,
And drop away as quickly as it rose.
You trace the arc? My life is on the line:
I measure out my life with kitten toes.
Though now, my cat, we feel the sunshine's blaze...
your windowsill is warm, the skies are clear...
yet still I feel the sun's all-seeing gaze
remind me of the coming day, I fear...
the coming day I cannot feel it shine,
and on my face the smiling daisy grows.
I only have the one, where you have nine:
I measure out my life with kitten toes.
Prince, lord of cats, may endless meat be thine!
O grant that thine immortal princely doze
may evermore upon my lap recline!
I measure out my life with kitten toes.
Odds and ends
Here deep in the city it is always night
Here deep in the city it is always night.
As I walk each street it is always night.
The men in their mansions drink their delight.
For those in the streets it is always night.
Those in the doorways step out to fight.
They slip to where it is always night.
Each plays a game to increase his might.
Each keeps his brother where it is always night.
We laugh, and lie about the lands of light.
I still light candles where it is always night.
The Caller
“Is there anybody there?” said the Caller,
“Six ten eight oh one two four
three nine?”
And his ears attuned to the empty hum
Of the long-forgotten line;
And an LED on the handset
Flashed, for a moment, red,
And he dialled the number a second time:
“Is there anybody there?” he said.
But no one replied to the Caller,
No sound but the dialling tone
Came drifting into his waiting ear
As he held that haunted phone;
But only a host of phantom listeners,
Of spectres weak and strange
Stood hearkening to that human voice
That echoed around the exchange;
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
And his heart was afraid and nervous,
With his hand on the final digit
Of that number not in service;
For he suddenly tapped the receiver
And spoke on that line of dread:
“Tell them I called, and no one answered,
That I kept my word!” he said;
Ay, they heard him replace the receiver,
And his mumbled cursing later,
With the usual subdued but enthused delight
Of the switchboard operator.
* * *
After The Listeners by Walter de la Mare.
Storytelling
A dragon was the beast to fear,
With shining, perfect teeth,
And deadly spines upon its back,
And scaly skin beneath.
You'd see them fly across the sky
With dreadful wings unfanned,
In far-off days of long ago
When dragons ruled the land.
And as they flew they'd watch the ground,
With eyes devoid of pity,
They'd follow humans to their homes
And breathe upon their city.
The dragon's breath was instant death,
No houses still could stand,
In far-off days of long ago
When dragons ruled the land.
Then someone had a wise idea:
King Arthur and his Knights.
They travelled round the countryside,
And held great dragon-fights.
Each dragon's heart was split apart,
So triumphed Arthur's band;
And now no dragons linger
Any longer in the land.
* * *
From Not Ordinarily Borrowable.
Storytelling — ii
When Merlin looked upon this land,
he knew by magic arts
the anger in the acts of men,
the hatred in their hearts:
he saw despair and deadly things,
and knew our hope must be
the magic when the kettle sings
to make a pot of tea.
When Galahad applied to sit
in splendour at the Table,
he swore an oath to fight for good
as far as he was able.
But Arthur put the kettle on,
and bade him sit and see
the goodness that is brought anon
by making pots of tea.
When Arthur someday shall return
in glory, with his knights,
he'll rout our foes and bless the poor
and put the land to rights.
And shall we drink his health in ale?
Not so! It seems to me
he'll meet us in the final tale
and share a pot of tea.
* * *
From Order in West Room.
This is the poem
This is the poem with something to say
that shows you the human condition.
This is the poem both deep and banal,
a triumph of juxtaposition.
This is the poem they'll write on a plaque
to show I was born somewhere near.
This is the poem that folks will recite
whose minds fill with worry or fear,
a poem to take in a book to the park
and ponder for passing the time.
This is the poem that classes recite
for children to learn about rhyme.
This is the poem those children will learn
that sticks evermore in their head.
This is the poem they'll print on a card
for people to buy when I'm dead.
This is the poem that changes mankind,
and teaches the world not to fight.
This is the poem that stands in the place
of one I intended to write.
Three saints
St Henry was for Finland, and before he took the land
He wandered through Uppsala with a beer-mug in his hand.
For through his understanding of the Finns and what they are
If you should serve him sahti, it must be in a jar.
St Patrick was for Ireland, and before the snakes were out
He ate a steak, and washed it down with pints of Guinness stout.
For since he was from Ireland, people shouldn't make mistakes:
Unless you give him Guinness, then you mustn't give him steaks.
St Louis was from France, and before he was the king,
He bought champagne and cheeses and he ate like anything.
For since he was from France, I must say it once again:
Unless you give him cheeses, then there must be no champagne.
* * *
After The Englishman by G. K. Chesterton.
Translation
Ah, would I were a German!
I'd trouble my translator
With nouns the size of Hamburg
And leave the verb till later.
And if I were a Welshman
My work would thwart translation
With ninety novel plurals
In strict alliteration.
And would I were Chinese!
I'd throw them off their course
With twelve unusual symbols
All homophones of “horse”.
But as it is, I'm English:
And I'm the one in hell
By writing in a language
Impossible to spell.
Turing's sword
See you our server farm that hums
And serves HTTP?
It's spun its disks and done its sums
Ever since Berners-Lee.
See you our mainframe spewing out
The Towers of Hanoi?
It's moved recursive discs about
Since Babbage was a boy.
See you our ZX81
That prints the ABCs?
That very program used to run
With Lovelace at the keys.
Magnetic floppy disks and hard,
And tape with patience torn,
And eighty columns on a card,
And so was England born!
She is not any common thing,
Water or Wood or Air,
But Turing's Isle of Programming,
Where you and I will fare.
* * *
After a poem in Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling.
Two creatures
Two creatures' eyes have seen the sun,
and now their lids are filled with dust.
But if their eyes were blue, or brown,
I cannot tell, and yet I must.
St Claire's an Amiable Child
who sleeps secure and snug as Grant,
but who can tell me of his eyes?
(The city parks curator can't.)
And Johnson had a cat named Hodge
who fed on oysters, and was fine;
his coat was black, but not his eyes,
whose shade I cannot now divine.
Two creatures hold me in their gaze,
and thoughts of it I can't dislodge:
the nature of your eyes, my friends,
your sleeping eyes, St Cla
ire and Hodge?
* * *
I believe this poem started when thinking about Two Men by Edwin Arlington Robinson.
Welcome
Welcome to the adult world!
Feel a clumsy failing fool.
Living is a tricky game,
Harder than they tell at school.
Every day beyond your means:
Hide it from the public view.
All around must never guess
What it is they're hiding too.
Conquer bedrooms, conquer boardrooms,
Build your mountain to the sky.
Have a résumé to die for:
When you get it, then you die.
Yet the children play in dirt,
Heedless of a pointless star:
“Never ask us what we'll be:
Know that we already are.”
Funeral
I don't intend to die, for I have much to finish first.
But if you plan my funeral, if worst should come to worst,
I want some decent hymns, some Love Divines, and Guide me, Os.
Say masses for my soul (for I shall need them, heaven knows),
And ring a muffled quarter-peal, and preach a sermon next
(“Behold, that dreamer cometh” should be given as the text),
Then draw a splendid hatchment up, proclaiming my decease.
And cast me where the lamp-post towers over Parker's Piece
That I may lie for evermore and watch the Cambridge skies...
I'll see you in the Eagle then, and stand you beer and pies.
Because I could not wire a plug
Because I could not wire a Plug,
It wired itself to me.
The carriage held but just ourselves,
And Electricity.
We passed the school, where children strove
To gain some erudition.
Ah! what a shame I did not learn
To be an Electrician.
For who would think a wire called live
The life of humans halts?
My wiring style contains, I fear,
Two hundred forty faults.
Since then 'tis centuries, and yet
We drive for all we're worth;
The eternal heavens seem so live;
So neutral seemed the earth.
* * *
After Death by Emily Dickinson.
Complements
When good hot tea
Encountered cream;
When passioned truth
Met passioned dream;
When all the sky
Met all the sea…
And I met Katie;
She met me.
When good fried fish
First met with chips;
When longing lips
Encountered lips;
When squirrel once
Met silver fir…
Katie met me.
I met her.
Tell me, O shell
Tell me, O shell,
what have you heard?
Into my ear
floats the cry of a bird,
and also I hear
pebbles, sea-stirred.
Tell me, O shell,
what did you see?
Into my eye
floats a glimpse of a tree,
a palm, on an island,
surrounded by sea.
Englyn
I have a dream I almost dare— to tell
a spell, a tale to share,