poems byAlan Reynolds

selected and recited byPeter Crofton Sleigh

Peter Crofton Sleigh

Reads

Alan Reynolds

All stories, poems and cover illustration

copyright © 2008 by Alan Reynolds

All rights reserved

including the right to reproduce this book or portions

thereof

in any form whatsoever.

Poems by Alan Reynolds are also published

in books

in US and UK magazines

and literary journals

and

on the Internet.

www.alanreynolds.nl

Preface

These are the poems by Alan Reynolds that Peter Crofton Sleigh selected and read on the now sold-out and legendary CD with the same title.

ACR

Monnickendam

Contents

Poems from the CD 2

Winter Fear 3

Our Song’s the Wind 4

Gold Rust 6

Killing Your Darlings 7

Found Sparrow 8

Two, Part Harmony 9

Afternoons Seem Early these Last Years 11

Mandean Sonnets 12

Solar Pact 14

Mediterranean Blue 15

Joining In 16

Beholder’s Eyes 18

Mud-flat Bat 20

Child Armies 21

Neighbourhood Imports 24

Fly’s Anointment 21

Padre among Men 26

Then 27

Shaded Statue 28

Sweet One-Hundred 29

Childhood’s Inn 30

Every now and then 33

Twenty Thirty 34

Two — in a Series of Six 36

The Heath, Stanza 1 37

The Poets’ Dilemma 38

Bienvenidos 39

Wayside 40

Old Dreams 42

Beauregard Afternoon 43

Cicada Song 44

Amazon Night Call 46

Dead Weight 47

Hymn of Veneration 48

Long Distance Blues 1

Mesozoic Prophecy 50

1

Poems from the CD

2

Winter FearIt’s harvest time in Hades. Fingers pluck

at collars turned in vain against the frost.

Iced chances treated as eternal luck

end up in boxes pencilled ‘Chances Lost.’

The neighbour’s plan to take up honest work

gets archived under ‘J’ for Jest and Jeers,

and my own hopes for hedonistic highs

run close to Cancellation. Winter fears

chill feet that slip on pavement ice, one jerk

sufficing to recall my soul. To shirk

one’s chances costs the earth and its best buys.

3

Our Song’s the WindWho will score the songs we sang together

in rooms we gazed from, hungry for the tide?

Who will sketch excitement as we met it

in each other out among the dunes?

Who’ll portray the passions we succumbed to

by shoreline bunkers bathed in sunset’s blood?

Who’ll inscribe the laughter we enjoyed

on mist-filled walks along the morning shore?

Who’ll recall the whispers we released in

those years we stayed together for their sake?

Who will freeze the tears we shed in statues

that capture blues left over when we fought?

Who will style the times we lay still frightened

at sentences completing dreams unsaid?

Who will set a tape on for recording

the games we once imagined were our work?

Who will note the secret names invented

exchanging hugs for kisses on the beach?

Who will paint in wind the way I wondered,

4

fingers teasing roses from your hair?

Who will write the music that we danced to

down these dunes and out across the sea?

There’s little left here words can’t bury under

paragraphs cementing how we were.

There’s little left here words can’t bury under

paragraphs cementing how we were.

5

Gold RustThe time that comes when gold will rust

is when I’ll want to leave.

Let’s argue then, enjoy now.

I’d rather hug than grieve.

6

Killing Your DarlingsRoot up your favourites, post them somewhere else.

The land where you first planted them has died.

New settlers hang your mysteries like pelts

of squirrels upon their handlebars, and ride

across the melting ice floes where you dwelt.

They tan your loves they want to hoard inside

their ugly houses built on IOUs.

They desiccate your secrets for their news:

Young commentators analyse your words,

and underscore the syllables you used,

as signs to rustle thoughts you kept in herds.

They’ve cowed you now. The branding’s left you bruised.

Old analysts trawl gems they make absurd

and quarter your last hobbyhorse. Amused?

Retrieve your darlings. Loose them in those cold

and empty places dreams can still take hold.

7

Found SparrowA sparrow sits upended in the bath.

Some cat has left it there, the aftermath

of too much catnip, a half jerry can

that, sad enough, became the Rubicon

for this poor bird. The cat took but one swallow

and left the rest unmerrily to wallow.

8

Two, Part Harmony

Investiture (she says)

It’s not the sex per se I am against,

but body heat, your weight, and how you yell.

I fancy breathing distance, violins,

discussions of the higher things; a well

of cosy friendship, cordial times we share.

I always try in my own way to please;

work hard to make us an attractive pair.

I trust in you and never mean to tease.

To me you are My Man. Our better friends

advise me age and long walks calm men down.

I’m pushing out all my, our, hopes to then.

When we turn forty (milestone and a crown)

we’ll be mature, together, and serene.

Come kiss my cheek. I’ve scrubbed it rosy clean.

9

Divestiture (his lines)

You asked me could I wait and, yes, I would,

while heartbeats we might share left in the night.

We waited while you sought the perfect mood.

I tagged along, pretending you were right.

I hoped you were. Near-blinded by your charms,

I tried to buy your proper world, its deeds

and charities. I crushed you in my arms,

apologized for being me. My needs,

you told me gently, coolly pulling free,

would bring us bliss when civilized. A kiss,

and I’d be left alone. Thin ecstasy,

I thought. I waited patiently. I miss

you less each day, and nights can let it rest,

for passion banked soon loses interest.

10

Afternoons Seem Early these Last YearsThe cleverness of Eco

and the grave

contest for equal time

this afternoon

as shadows chase the lizards

from the walls

and damp obscures the sun-cracked

mountainsides.

A writer writes a book

a reader reads.

A frightened smiling mother

seeks her child.

The circus tents fold early

in this town.

Menageries have lost

their post-war pull.

Closure in a model

life needs style

to generate a meaning

for its length.

Failing that, a

glorious sunset

provides ersatz atonement

for the dark.

11

Mandean SonnetsLife requires less consciousness than drive.

A baby, Aristotle, and a rock;

and all the bees in every extant hive;

and, through a closet, darkly, Mandy’s sock

employ simple compounds (CO2

and thinned glutaric acid or some such)

to set up store, and eat, and grow, and screw

encouragements to sticking points that much

resemble little souls as they ascend

the rills of time to rampage in the sun

and then to die. We watch their cells descend

to molecule and atom when they’re done,

their drives expired, their dreams returned to stock

for others’ use when others wind the clock.

The clock, call it Creation, or a curse,

ticks on for eons making no one wise

including those who notice it in verse.

Its whys elude the lawyers who advise

the rest of us, for money, about how

its bells toll telling tales we all ignore.

A moot point, Mandy. Stand, and take a bow

and pull another pint, then come and bore

12

your own way to eternity; come tell

us what you know of how the sweet life’s less

than permanent for people and for shells

while being still immortal. I confess

your wisdom shines, although you are inept

in finding terms for life I can accept.

Dawkins calls Creation ‘little steps’

that, building on each other, can progress

without a large Creator’s hand to schlep

evolving life along: the scary mess

of living things (old Greeks from CO2,

and rocks that talk, and mammals who eat eggs

of crows who eat the eyes of lamb and ewe,

and two-faced singers prancing on two legs).

Stop listing, Mandy. Dawkins made his case

and does not need our twitter to confirm

he might be right. But, when I watch your face

as you tuck in our children, I affirm

there’s more to life than science can discern

and love’s a gift no deeds can ever earn.

13

Solar PactDon’t rush

to write or paint

but watch the ageless rocks.

Ask ants and spiders what they know

of life

This rock

is not the same

as yesterday at dusk

when setting sun drained warmth and life

away.

The sun

comes up with life

it lavishes on ants

and spiders, stolid grateful rocks,

and me.

14

Mediterranean BlueDown here in the Midi

where the Med is crystal clear

and everyone has perfect teeth

though some have wrinkled toes

I take the sun and practice

how I will say good-bye.

Good-bye to love and summer

and to the sun down here.

Down here in the Midi

where the Camargue ponies run

and siestas are for loving

and the evenings are for wine

I forget the Calvinism

that the Jutes confused with God.

I’d say good-bye to home and hearth

if you would stay with me

Down here in the Midi

where the silver olive trees

love to hug each other

like you are hugging me

and the only thing a missing

is a reason for my blues.

and the only thing a missing

is a reason for my blues.

15

Joining In‘No member without member’

whimper men

who haven’t seen their own since

way back when;

and, scared of women’s bite,

attempt to bark

that only males can come

in from the dark

and break bread in this

sacred service club

you’d think was Heaven

from the way they dub

their fellows with grand

titles like ‘The Chair’

(who is, I note, grease-graced

with locks of hair

grown by his ears and

combed across his pate

and, when the wind blows,

oh-so-shiny pate);

or ‘Chairman’, who’s a master

of debate

on points scholastics

cherished long ago

that even now impart

an eerie glow

as ‘Sir’ and ‘Senior’ sit

16

to celebrate

that they’re inside (of what?)

and think they rate.

The women outside will,

succeeding, learn

that joining this club

cannot, will not, earn

them potions of the

earthly relevance

that men and women seek

in mortal dance.

17

Beholder’s EyesThis garden where the blackbird lightly reigns

has lured me out of bed before the dawn.

I occupy the dark green bench, see stains

of captured flies that spider webs have drawn

and spider teeth have quartered. What a yawn

to contemplate when you are fly-speck small.

The spider’s eyes, so many, may enthral

its mate, but mainly make me want to run,

retrieve some counterbalanced spider maul

or get a laser-sighted spider gun.

Remembering how bears approach their work

(They gather food the way their mothers taught

them to as cubs, dig where the best grubs lurk;

glean each wild green precisely when they ought,

learn lightning swipes by which the salmon’s caught.)

I lumbered through the Swedish marsh at ease

inside, in tune with ponds and broad-leafed trees

reflected in the shallow water there.

I might have lingered until winter’s freeze

had I not stood on menu of the bear.

18

Imagine if you will a standard foot,

say yours, or Sue’s. Most any foot will do.

Think of attire in which it can be put.

Forget the foot: fix focus on the shoe.

Imagine sitting quite alone, shoe hung

by laces from your neck, sole on your lap.

It moves a little and you see its tongue

protrude some more each timid time you tap

you finger on its toe. With some alarm

you feel its damp weight shift. It opens wide.

You make a fist to fit it on your arm

but just before you move to reach inside

the insole splits; threads fail to hold the seam.

A foot-size spider lumbers out. You scream.

19

Mud-flat BatThe crescent moon hangs south, above the sea.

Out here in the Camargue the mud-flat bat

flies higher now. The atmosphere, you see,

has lightened. Insects lift, ensuring that

the mud-flat bat’s own mouth and mine won’t splat.

He flew so low on Wednesday that I feared

I’d swallow him in darkness, furry-eared

and sonaring the night. It scared him too.

Mosquitoes, ones who Wednesday rudely jeered,

become his meal, malaria his stew.

20

Fly’s AnointmentThis silent spider’s legs are long and bent.

His body’s small. I sense he’s sentient.

I shudder but my dew-chilled wings prevent

my taking flight. Some sullen glint

from his eight eyes sedates me. It is meant

that he’ll have me for breakfast. Strangely spent,

I scarcely even struggle. There’s the scent

of sadness in these flowers. Sacrament.

21

Child ArmiesI am not well. My soul’s not dead but sick.

It cries for leeches; bloating, would be bled,

or freed in modern fashion from the toll

extracted here by Caesar’s rule; and there

by children scratching at the scabs they grow,

or would, would warlords let them once just be.

These children! They should sit in school or be

away at summer camps: get cramps, feel sick

a bit from biting melons that still grow

along the edge of fields. (When these fields bled

young brother’s blood filled up that ditch, and there

lay sister’s hand, she’s eight years old: the toll

of yet another spat.) These days the toll

of burial bells rings every noon, let be

at dawn, at dusk, at night. And over there,

across the cove on neighbours’ ground, the sick

hunch down: they’re scratching out the stumps of bled

and blasted fruit trees blown away. Here grow

no more the shady tops and trunks. Here grow

instead cracked rocks, some not tilled crops. The toll

among the children’s even worse. Who bled

their eyes of tears, daubed out where there should be

a sparkling glint of healthy fun? Eyes sick

and cynical: lies Lucifer in there,

22

where babies harboured happiness? It’s there,

among these baby brawler minds we grow

(yes, ‘we’) as fodder for a farce more sick

than serious or grand, I hear the toll

of hope’s demise, of what these tots could be.

Their bodies grow in spite of us (who bled

resources, poisoned what was left; who bled

these children’s humanness away). Is there

no place they can retreat, no crèche to be

created in once more, and, cuddled, grow

in graciousness, avoid the warrior’s toll

that levies suffocation, makes them sick?

These children warriors we have bred are sick.

Beheading them lets us postpone the toll

that nature wants as populations grow.

23

Neighbourhood ImportsWhen Lisette came to live here as au pair

our neighbour’s wife was furious we’d dare

import a beauty (and Lisette’s nineteen).

Her husband managed soon to tear our screen,

insisted he would fix it, brought his tools,

and talked ‘their’ language to Lisette. The fool.

Had schools, he asked her, changed since he had left?

Was nicking bikes still not considered theft?

Like me a decade older than this girl,

he as a writer has the time to whirl

around Lisette, take our kids to the lake

accompanied by her, hot dogs and cake.

When we come home at six, or eight, or nine,

she tells us how ‘Monsieur’ has been so kind

to hold a ladder while she saved a cat,

or pump a tire he showed her had gone flat.

His wife, who works in Fairfield selling art,

has told us she’s considering a part

in Westport’s next production of ‘The Shrew’.

She can rehearse at home and be with Hugh,

the Labrador her husband gave her when

24

he had no time to train it anymore.

I hear that he’s inspired and writing more.

His newest work is foreign: ‘Je t’adore’.

25

Padre among Men‘That’s not the way we men make love, my friend.’

The Captain’s words on open intercom

astound the crew at Mass, make Padre’s thin

hair stand on end as if a whistling bomb

had whispered up his nape. His famed aplomb

recedeth like his part. ‘The knave is pissed,’

he hisses loud but rising winds persist

and hurl his words to God above who bids

the Padre’s mind know peace: it seems he’s missed

that the Captain but harangues his tank of squids.

26

ThenI believe there is something important

beyond this universe we see.

And that it is our purpose in life

to unite with that Something.

I can’t see that Something, but when

I try to talk to it —- to think with it —

Then Something happens, and flows

into our universe, and gives

it and me some Peace.

Then, I feel Good, and kick up my heels

and dance joyfully to

heart-filling, beautiful tunes.

Even while I feel, and am, in that moment,

Serious and Brave and, humbly, Wise.

Then, when that Something is sensibly for me happening

Well, then —

Well, then, and why, then, I know I am safe

and my restless head is at peace;

And all those people and animals and trees

and rocks and sun and snow and sea and stars,

I love them all!

Then, and only then.

Amen

27

Shaded StatueDry tears

that no one sees

crack furrows, fragile lines

in cheeks that no one touches with

kind hands.

28

Sweet One-HundredOur geriatric acrobatic dance,

our subtle art, goes sometimes undiscerned

by passers-by. And by you too. Your glance,

pale pilot flame from passions banked, has turned

my head for decades, and today. The trance

the nurse assumes I’m in is one I’ve learned,

to masquerade my yearnings. They run sweet,

while I doze sitting, silent and discreet.

29

Childhood’s InnIt was without relish that he disrobed the whore,

saw flash burns scarring flesh that had

ignited senior hearts and been a sign

of what the wretched Tigers wished to win.

‘She’ll live,’ he thought, turning attention

first briefly to the bearded dead

ambassador and then back to David.

David bled from bent-back fingers,

through the fingers. Bombs had found

here oh so many men by now, in meetings that were cause

of nothing but agendas acted on by agents

filling diaries for decades now it seemed.

The doctor stitched, staunched where the digits

joined, jammed iodine, juxtaposed

a nail against a naked joint.

The whore, Sri Lankan, wiped his eyes

and asked when Clarke had called to check.

‘He hasn’t,’ the doctor hesitated.

He wondered should the worst be told,

that neither would knighthood be Clarke’s

nor were whores welcome at the wake

of reputation of the resident surgeon’s favourite,

the writer who raised readers’ minds

to Jupiter, jump-started juvenile brains,

inspired the Argosies of astronauts,

30

and gave the globe great pleasure

with more than HAL — this was Hell.

‘It isn’t fair,’ the whore said, fainting

half away and haltingly returning.

‘He had it all, and less, and now these lies!’

The doctor thought the truth may never out,

remembered flights in twice forty books.

Could clandestine Clarke count

on amnesty, amnesia of the world?

Had he done nothing harmful? Was it hate

accusing him falsely of fancying boys?

The crime of paedophilia, so perverse

its practitioners should be paid in pain

and penalized with penitentiaries,

could Arthur answer his accusers?

The doctor hoped devoutly so.

‘Here for forty years we’ve loved his yarns,

our people,’ the whore said, pathetically.

‘Only one newspaper, nosing evilly

even hints wrong-doing. Wrongly!

‘You’ve learned I am no girl!’ he lapsed

back in the world of the internally injured.

31

‘David, you’re dying,’ the doctor said,

but softly, knowing sayings hurt.

The whore, not hearing, head back, hurried,

adding that Arthur actually was innocent,

was almost worshipped in Platonic ways.

‘We, our people, knew him perfectly

as thinker, writer, wonderful being.’

Night caught his words: ‘I never knew him as a man.’

32

Every now and thenEvery now and then I do feel Irish.

Every now and then I am alive.

I think of the music called Irish.

I think of celestial jive.

And I dance my small own roundelay — oh —-

I dance then my own celebration.

33

Twenty Thirty

Twenty

‘I spooked your dad there, saying I must score.’

‘He’s read of drugs. Don’t say that anymore.’

‘What must I say, I’m going ‘to make my mark’?’

‘Who cares? Dad drinks. Let’s go down to the park.’

‘I’m serious. We got what, five years more?’

‘Perhaps you do. I’ll just be twenty-four.’

‘I’m two years older. Betty, I’m a man!’

‘I know you are. I learned that with my hand.’

‘Time’s flying, Beth. We’ll get a Porsche next year.’

‘Or front porch. Babies. Get on over here.’

‘I’m good in Sales. Chet says I’m boss as gold.’

‘Chet’s thirty, love. Don’t ever trust the old.’

‘I love you, Beth. Your body. God, you’re grand.’

‘I love you too. I want to start our clan.’

34

Thirty

‘Thirty-two? That’s not an age. A calibre!’

‘A small one, too. My man, you’re not Excalibur.’

‘That’s cool, like you. Watch me romance the stone.’

‘Go start without me. ‘When you’re all alone…’’

‘‘Call Rotor Rooter.’ God, you’re funny, Beth.’

‘It helps to stop my crying. I fear death.’

‘I’m thirty-two. Big deal. I got the raise.’

‘Cindy’s got the measles. Jeff broke his maze.’

‘When she recovers, they go to my folks.’

‘I like the baby-sitting, hate Dad’s jokes.’

‘We’ll get away, like bandits, in our Ford.’

‘I’m thirty, too. Who should I blame, the Lord?’

35

Two — in a Series of SixHole in a wall, holy you all,

I think like a buzzard

I’m just gonna fall

Up, down, back, through

And all over you.

I took down your name, I’ll bring you some fame,

Eight seconds foreplay then burn like a flame

Up, down, back, through

And all over you.

Love you so much, thrilling your touch,

I need your sweet hugs like a gimp needs a crutch

Up, down, back, through

And all over you.

Smoke in your eye, it looks like you cry,

I can’t say good-bye ‘cause I think I would die

Up, down, back, through

And all over you.

Frog in the well, oh bloody hell,

I know I should leave but my love starts to swell

Up, down, back, through

And all over you.

36

The Heath, Stanza 1The old man’s sing-song whistling empties night

of promise, hope and passion, even breath.

Inside his skull, his left brain tries to right

itself, remember when her lisping ‘yeth’

had brought him rapture. Rupturing his sight,

a scythe recovers moonbeams. He meets Death.

But Death for this old man holds no more fears.

He’s walked here whistling for Him forty years.

37

The Poets’ DilemmaA cri de coeur can’t be a work of art.

Its zealousness drives sense away, pulls rhyme

to moon at June and here (I’m sorry) ‘heart.’

From paucity some poets may try on ‘clime.’

Aboard the wagons of the criers’ band,

the preacher’s prattle petrifies the mind

that tries to get away with sleight of hand.

We throw away the melon, eat the rind

when’ere we ‘press a thought down for the counts.

Because, as poets, we’re prone to masquerade:

we lose our raison d’être in petty flounce,

or lose our audience — it’s quick to jade.

We could express ourselves in prose that’s terse,

but then we’d be believed, and that is worse.

38

BienvenidosThe last day of the first month of this year.

The oranges growing outside boost my cheer.

The olive branches fuelling cooking fires

contribute to the haunting haze that spires

from chimneys to the cemetery’s plots -

that thicken in the evening’s dream — that clots

imagination. I’m a Moor in Spain,

my family’s loss the Latin Christian’s gain.

Today, returning after many years,

I sniff familiar soil. Birds prick my ears

with song they taught to prototypes of me.

I’ll stay next month out. Look and listen. See.

39

Wayside‘You must believe enough to kill, or else

it’s not a faith with content you profess.’

He praised his gods and roasted flesh and bones

of passers-by the odds had sent his way.

‘Pass-over bread’ he called the grim meal ground

from pilgrims shriven, freed of soul and baked

to slake the hunger of his tribe. They lived

among us not so long ago, his tribe;

in fact, their ways instruct us still: we kill

for oil, and other reasons we invent

to justify existence, on the wayside, in our tent.

‘I differ. I won’t let it be that way,’

my Esther tells me, angry-eyed in Ghent

abhorring all the gore that’s eulogized

in this cathedral’s stained glass panes. Yes, ‘stained,’

a word that’s perfect to explain the tales

these windows glorify, these escapades

of lopping limbs for Lords that favour blood

to irrigate paths to the Holy Grail.

We call them High Crusades on Holy Days

and glorify their crimes in history books. ‘That’s wrong,’

my Esther tells me fiercely, ‘we’re not like that anymore.’

40

We cared enough to kill still in Kuwait,

with rockets, rifles, flames: bulldozers shoved

hot sand and buried boys stashed far from home

in ditches they hand-dug to stop our tanks.

I’m sure somewhere some parson offered thanks

to Mammon or more modern names of gods

whom we invent to take our garbage out.

‘You said we should!’ My troops are sick with rage.

‘You said Hussein must lose no matter cost,

or else, like Hitler, he would kill us all.’

‘Of course I did,’ I answer, from the wayside, in my tent.

41

Old DreamsWhat dreams survive the dustiness of age?

Why, all of them! In ageing they go prime.

While teenage angst is best at muffled rage,

and young adults excel at hustling time,

it’s old decrepitude that’s fit to climb

beyond the cage of flesh and sniff the stars.

Dim-eyed beholders see best what is wild,

anticipate where wheelchairs outpace cars.

It takes the wear of years to free the child.

42

Beauregard AfternoonA French breeze teases through the garden trees

that shadow half-done paintings standing here,

where I, who would learn drawing, take my ease.

I should be working: What to do is clear,

but How and Why elude my grasp this year.

I say ‘this year’ as if some future day

I’ll yet discover how I too can play

the magic notes real painters all can hear

and capture on stretched canvas or in clay.

I take my ease and tell myself, ‘Next year.’

43

Cicada SongI hear old news: each new cicada’s song

repeats scraped notes with no change I can hear.

Fidelity a million years can’t wrong

rings through the muted trills that reach my ear.

When dinosaurs watched forest birds appear,

cicadas sang this song. These are the notes

that serenaded Celts who shaped these moats

in years when Rhone and Nîmes had Stone-Age names.

While I react to terror’s newest ‘votes’

cicadas string their chants on ancient frames.

I’ve read a plane’s been downed, all fliers dead;

each death a tragedy surviving news

that seeks and signals madness, till it’s read

and superseded. Widows take first views

of loneliness, and red-cold rage pursues

newly-childless parents as they wait,

unseeingly, at the arrival gate

for this, another flight that won’t arrive.

Cicada song and human news both grate

upon my ears, and ask why I’m alive.

44

I walk alone into the careless wood

and claim some shade, sit on a rough-stone wall

I share with ants and katydid. I should

find peace. It’s hot. Cicadas call

in rhythms in which angry bombers could

imagine calls to action; or a parent might

hear announcements cancelling that flight

her children should have missed. They’re dead.

Old news. Cicadas stop their song at night:

the silent time that we survivors dread.

45

Amazon Night CallCreaking! Central heating or her husband?

She kept eyes shut and tuned in on the sounds.

Radiator? Knuckle pop? FM band?

Perhaps her middle-ear bones. Coffee grounds

that gurgled in the drain? Sleep slipped away

and Susan gave up, sat up, switched the light on.

She wished she hadn’t when she saw what lay

much on the rug and more still on the transom:

an anaconda lounging in the light.

It didn’t speak, she thought, but Susan heard words

and Geoffrey wasn’t anywhere in sight.

Back home, where snakes were smaller and slurped songbirds,

had never seemed so far away. She screamed.

Would Geoffrey reappear and say she dreamed?

46

Dead WeightThe women wander chained here, in no queue

but loosely shackled, they all whirl in drifts

of thwarted rage that’s punctuated through

with laughter, love and dreams: quick sudden shifts.

Their chains (not foisted on their sex as ‘gifts’ —

all men must wear them too) will never rust,

yet there will come a day when they, now trussed

(and all the men) will slip away, fly free:

escapees catching up on wanderlust,

unfettered by iron bonds of gravity.

47

Hymn of VenerationIf suns set into graves and did not rise

or if they hung continuously in skies

we’d think them less than we this moment do,

impressed as we are how our Sun swings through

its constant orbit that revolves round us.

For fifty-thousand years, old human tribes

wrote history picture books in which the scribes

inked pens with blood of brothers killed for wealth

they redistributed by force and stealth

but we’re enlightened now and so we’ve stopped.

Today democracy is how we rule

and every girl and boy enjoys perfect school

and learns exactly what they need to know

and finds in happy work their chance to grow

so they all end their long sweet lives fulfilled.

We’ve learned that judges settle our disputes

so everyone finds fairness and recruits

his colleagues for endeavours and high pay

in satisfying jobs we do each day

now no one is too rich and no one’s poor.

48

Now everyone of us resembles God

as we portray Him: He’s well-dressed and shod

in golden slippers that reflect the Sun.

He shows His Face and makes sure everyone

is never sick or lonely or afraid.

We study history to remind us how

the animals: the horse, the dog, the cow,

were made for us by God so we could eat;

and every sundown sees us singing sweet

songs celebrating how our deeds are good.

49

Mesozoic ProphecyWe stand,

proud dinosaurs

in grass. The asteroid

that will obliterate our reign

locks on.

Look on.

Attend that Roach

who waits, wrapped in black wings,

to dog our doom. You think he waits

his turn?

His turn

requires more time.

He’ll bide, while mammals teem

this earth and steam our place with their

hot blood.

Odd, blood.

It’ll course in veins, emend

to humans’ time: they’ll chime

the knell for all they’ve left to board

their Ark.

50

Fair spark

from reddest eyes

of Earth’s unknown true god,

the Roach, will call in friendly fire,

as now.

51

Long Distance BluesWhen I think of all those times I called long distance,

all those words I said and meant along the wires:

a love with such emotion that it choked on its own motion.

I’m going to paint my next truck blue, named after you.

Silly me, consuming credit renting ‘phone lines,

bubbling happy like the gargling of a goose.

In your quiet I got the notion that we had the magic potion.

I’m going to paint my next truck blue, named after you.

We had a lot of liking, love; lots of longing

for a magic world each thought the other knew.

At our best we were a Nation! Now we’re mutual sedation.

I’m going to paint my next truck blue, named after you.

When I think of all those times I called long distance,

all those words I put on picture postal cards —

not aware what we were riding was a train stuck on a siding.

I’m going to paint my next truck blue, named after you.