Poems from Service
For Paul, c1917
If you think that God is watching, look away
don’t catch his eye
don’t smile in his direction
don’t think he’s charmed by indiscretion
or will indulge peculiar strays
we’re sinners, you and I
cover my face with don’t-care kisses
eventually he’ll turn away
When you cry out – at that moment
when the bed yields to the fastness of sand
if you feel you might be dying
hold onto me
it’s best we drown
When you’re killed
and if they find you
I want you brought home, laid out in my place
I’ll keep a vigil, weave a rose through your fingers
as flickering church candles cast doubt on your face
Armistice, for Adam
Surrender
hold up your hands, palms out, eyes front
I kill my prisoners sometimes
no false moves then, please
Lie still
keep your eyes, your mouth, your memory shut
I know our history backwards
no more talking, please
Sleep
learn from the chaos of well-trod dreams
I’ll watch your breathing breathlessly
no more dying, please
What’s left?
Let me hold you in blind-man darkness
I know my way too well
I know the answers, all of them
no more questions, please
Service of Remembrance
I waited until the widows had gone
the fathers and mothers and little children
the Bishop, the mayor, the dumb-struck heroes
I waited until all the words were said
the hymns sung, the names recounted
So I wasn't there to think
I knew that boy, and that one too
Went to school with,
Lived next door to,
Kissed in a mother’s dark doorway
a hundred deaths ago
When the plaque was finally shown
I wasn’t there to bow
or hold my hat against my heart
or count dull seconds down
Standing shoulder to shoulder with other,
bare-headed men
I might have caught an eye
might have sighed, or worse
might have thought of you
naked,
sleeping,
in my bed
such thoughts know their place
After the widows, in an empty church
I trace the measured inch of stone
where your name
– lately tripped from a Bishop’s tongue –
is blank verse carved in gold
Day Trip
Me-Ian-and-Andrew
in the back of the van
can still smell the bones
their sacks
knobbly as knuckles
that yesterday filled this space
between driver’s seat and rear doors
In the back of the van
we sit on old bedroom curtains
a print of hunted beasts
and cavemen running
spears poised
the ancient scene
failing to cover
the unchanged smell of bones
Me-Ian-and-Andrew
know not to mention bones
that anyway are forgotten
as Daddy drives
and the wind blows
Redcar’s rotten-egg-stink
yellow as last year’s sand
whispering amongst the buckets-and-spades
and the canvas candy stripes
of seaside paraphernalia
*
I found innards
once
in the coalscuttle
Dad laughed
I think I did, too
Two World Wars
You never rated Vera Lynn
you said the Italians were great lads and
the Yanks won the war
you remember Yanks in a gum-chewing accent
you never chewed real gum
only Yanks, with fat wallets and good dentists, chewed gum
You had an idea about war
war was letters home to Mother:
thanks for jam and mittens and soap; war was
being eaten by lice, buried in mud, missing
presumed dead
Mother never presumed
The bastard’s alive in sin
in Bruges or Brussels
You had your own ideas. They couldn’t remember everyone
mud is so secretive, after all
This war is someone else’s idea.
In this war the minaret’s song is more foreign than the enemy
in this war you are close to God’s places,
Bethlehem, Jerusalem
his gardens and his tomb
The Virgin bows beneath her weight in gold
beggars pester
you keep your money,
make a little. Remember
beneath Ginger’s shirt is a stencilled crucifix,
lily white against flame red
you think it should be enough for anyone. But
palm crosses are good business
you send him off in the water truck
protected by his talisman
You see it in your mind’s eye,
that surprised leap
that nose-dive of metal
You see the exploding water like a plume from a fountain
You think of Ginger
not knowing what hit him
You think of Mother
and the garden going to seed
