Poems

ON THE DIFFICULTY OF LEARNING CHINESE

My father met my horse when he was 19.
She was 12, but you only had to see them together.
He was handsome and she was incomparably beautiful.

She also had the most wonderful singing voice.
Father said she could sing the stars out of the sky.
My friends would come round just to be with her.

She was like a second horse to them.
When I was eleven she gave me my horse scarf.
Such a wonderful texture; cool in summer, warm in winter.

She made it from an old shirt belonging to my father.
He would never throw anything away.
But he was so angry. It was the first and last time

that I ever heard him use the word linen.

from Henry’s Clock (Smith/Doorstop, 1999)

.

TONIGHT IN KIDDERMINSTER

begins under streetlights and their word is Speed.
Two of them, chewing gum with their mouths open,
thumbs in their pockets and feet tapping.

The tall one sees me first, sees the hat. This hat
goes with the hair, the desert boots and jeans,
the shabby raincoat and ripped gold lining.

It goes with the sky before rain and just after,
and with one unforgettable night on Kinver Edge,
eight of us in the back of a mini van.

This hat is my dad’s and I wouldn’t sell it for fifty pounds.

*
They chased me for it  and lost, turned left
into another story. Fiction.
It begins up an entry, shaking hands

full of someone’s prescription.
Eyes that are needles
sewing the hem on tomorrow’s shroud……

*
Or gramophone needles. The first record
is Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale.
The devil’s guest, Private Faust,
has forgotten The Silent Princess.

He hums along to the drum solo
and dreams only of the fiddle
he traded for a book;  words
he could not read, words he can’t remember.

*
Next it’s 4’ 33” (for any instrument),
a bootleg of David Tudor
live in Woodstock, New York 1952.

The duff tape missed the rain
on the roof, traffic in the distance,
people angrily rising and leaving,

but detected the silence, four years
in the making. Listen; no
sound but the lid of the piano.

Tonight in Kidderminster our audience
is the night. The agitated stars cough less
and less discreetly, by the third movement

programmes flutter like moths. Barely visible
to the naked eye, the devil jigs
to the soldier’s fiddle while The Silent Princess

wheels the plough across the night sky
and the pole star stays where it is.

from Henry’s Clock (Smith/Doorstop, 1999

.

LEAVES ARE JUST THIN WOOD

No, I don’t read French.
Do you have a translation?
I’m from Birmingham.
Let’s go for a walk in the woods. It’s raining.

Bring the billiard table.
I have the balls in my trouser pockets.
Can you manage?
Here, let me hold the door.

Yes I agree, the rain. Did I mention
the importance of parks in the black country?
It’s not that interesting. Mind
the rosa rugosas, their thorns,
and the climber with the orange hips.

All the other woods are memories
preparing us for this one.

If I tell anyone she’ll kill me.
No, really – a dart through the forehead.
Look at my hands – people call it stigmata
but really it’s darts.

We quarrelled in the autumn.
We quarrelled about the milk.
In the morning she left, took the bed with her.

from Frank Freeman’s Dancing School (Salt, 2009)

.

SHOES

I could make him, possibly
but I’m tired of arguing, and besides
there are worse places to be
than on the back step in the sunshine
ten o’clock Sunday morning.

I grieve for them on the long winter evenings

First the hard brush for the mud. Let
the dust settle, then a dishcloth
dipped in the galvanised bucket
of rain water. So cold my fingers
would ache if I let them.

Jenkins with his clear blue eyes

They’ll dry smeared so I drag
the brush through the blacking
like my dad showed me, not dab it
so it dries out, and brush into the leather
between the sole and the upper.

Smith with his indomitable spirit

Next the soft brush. Skim
lightly across till they shine. Like new
but not like new: Luke’s shoes, size twelve.
An old towel to finish off.
See – he won’t recognise them.

 Jones with his laugh like a horse.

from Frank Freeman’s Dancing School (Salt, 2009)

.

HÔTEL DE L’ANGLETERRE

No thanks I don’t want a Sandwich Americana.
I’m turning yellow, maybe it’s the noodles.
What do you think, should I start

feeling ill? She said my headache’s enough
for both of us. I said, what about
my toothache? She said what toothache?

Birds sing in French; massage énergétique
on a lamppost. What a city, what a language!
I have an owl sandwich, an owl shower.

Man on the Metro with one arm does a crossword
in a pink shirt; two men on crutches
in the same carriage. A convention, perhaps.

Picasso knew some strange-looking people:
large nude in red armchair,
large bather with book.

Two profiles for the price of one
and the hat’s the only thing straight.
The hat’s not straight.

A boy throws a small cardboard
box at a pigeon. What we need here
is a thousand-piece jigsaw.

from Frank Freeman’s Dancing School (Salt, 2009)