Refuge (3 page)

that tight-packed quarto in coat pocket

or clutch and swing it to announce

the Lord’s Day and where you’re duly bound.

Unspectacular you scatter gravel

beside chequered, boldly-buttoned coats

and very practical handbags, filing in

by the narrow way, eye of the needle

into the fold of sheep the shepherd knows.

Not prepared for no-nonsense white-wash?

No hymnal, nothing to bow to, no pulpit

to declaim the Word interpreted.

A monitor displays the first hymn.

You’ll sound like an over-piped organ.

All about you, sedate on creaking chairs

a genial crowd whose tucked-in postures

and hairdos bristle against airs and graces.

A modest book-rest on chrome pillar

awaits you with your fancy notions,

you with God’s word and rows of patient faces

whose muscles would scarcely twitch if

Cretans and Arabians spoke in their own

day-to-day tongue the Lord’s mighty works.

Be thankful for your words. Mouth them well.

One of the crowd at last you sing

a hymn with gusto till a shirt-sleeved preacher

preludes with glosses, then performs

from a Cockney New Testament

the miracle at the feast in Cana of Galilee.

OUR MAN IN THE OBERLAND

Kein weltlich Getümmel

hö
r
t man nicht in Himmel!...
(Des Knaben Wunderhorn)

Soon to move on to another resort

he calls
Greendelvowelled
, he’s solo

at a patio table picking at a punnit

of raspberries. “Hard to deal with

heavy meals here. So good

to sit with alpine panoramas. I get

strains from Mahler’s 4
^th
. You know the one

with that last song about
Heaven
?...”

We like his easy-care, sober dinner suit,

robust yet understated hiking kit,

his cool demand for consultation,

launching into schemes of ‘heading out’

with such troubled doubt and rigour,

we’re in the unknown and
he’s
a pioneer.

Bleary-eyed at breakfast we’re presented

with his 3D model relief map.

“Take it to plan your high-level trek

above that
tuna-whatsit
lake.” (That’s

the ice-blue expanse of
Thünersee
)

“Appreciated your filling me in

on ways down from that viewpoint

and how to take that quaint funicular

from the rail station by the river.

Noticed it’s upgraded year by year!

So what do you guys do back home?”

Retired!
We can’t be serious! Active couple

like us must be mid-40s at most!

Farewell circumstantial buddy,

our own
Quiet American
!

There’s no side to you. How come

you make us feel everything we say

opens up a whole new dimension?

NOTE Epigraph taken from the song mentioned in line 8:

you hear no worldly hubbub in heaven...

DINING

A threesome hogs sash windows that overlook

glabrous lawns, Friesans grazing their shadows,

distant cars glinting like trinkets in low sun.

Club-Blazer-and-Tie breathes heavily over

his chins, seldom exceeds a phrase in rich, slow voice,

defers to his melon with a gentle forking,

lets wife and female crony make the pace.

Queen Pin scintillates through blue-tinted specs,

emits chill fire at what she wants to see or hear.

Dressed down tight as disapproving lips

she wields a burnished hairdo set against dissent,

while flabby Number Three rumbles in agreement.

One tale ends with masticating nods, and

You’d think her parents would have had more sense
,

then with melodious
quite right, quite right!

perspiring Drop-Jaw fuels the next assault

with another round of Côte du Rhone.

Can the main course douse incessant talk

of who’s who and others’ mess and muddle?

Chewing adds relish to the moral. Every forkful

perfects the verbal stab and makes conviction

piquant till it hardens like the arteries.

Copper beeches blacken, mist creeps up,

haloes distant processions of lights,

while an agitating choice of suites is followed

by Remy-Martin, Grand Marnier, and Crème de Menthe.

Chatter shuffles to the hall, solid slams resound,

and gravel crunches under heavy wheels.

SPENT

White, uniforms converge bright-eyed

to coax, change and adjust him.

Young, eager to show no holds are barred,

they manipulate his bulk like navvies,

find purpose in sores, faeces, tubes,

maintain this flaccid mechanism,

once cock of the walk who reckoned to tread

every hen that fluttered across his path.

Now he sucks on each rationed cigarette

like a salving last request, wastes

his stock of words on what’s served up

as food and who can’t be
arsed
to visit,

swivels pale eyes up and down

these ayahs who rearrange his fragments.

EGO

You’re
Alright Jack
passing moochers

who surely put on age like protective gear.

Wait till all those aches and niggles

entertained as passing blips, take root

and shoot

with mechanical precision.

Then try to get smartarse Jack

off your back.

Feel him tug when you hobble to

the coach after yet another toilet stop,

trying to spot your partner’s hairdo.

If you’re lucky and she’s still there,

helping you trudge unlikely extra miles

on brittle bones and muscles drained of blood.

TOGETHER

Couples should fill us with hope,

walking with that assured clasp,

children again, wandering anywhere,

whimsical in their surprising leisure.

Such meanders, such pleasure in each other,

such florid dreams that cannot wilt or wither.

Forget those routine stairs their feet

will tread, rooms that seem replete

with cluttered memories and trinkets,

assumed like the bond of debt and habits.

IN THE CAFÉ OF YOUR CHOICE

She’s half listening but I broach my fear

that options keep displacing one another.

“I’m doing X, and beyond return, knowing it

could have been Y, had I considered

as I now need to,
α
and
β
. Or even Z,

given the advantages I begin to suspect

of accounting for X,Y,
α
and
β
, not to

mention
θ
which has just occurred to me.”

(Wait, though. The ageing gent over there

stares painfully at a cocksure trendy.

Why do I think he might object to fairisle

tanktops, slicked-down hair or a partner

having to listen to one or two notions

repeated in a hundred and one guises

over several capuccinos ?) “Perhaps,” I resume,

“this shows my days are numbered and I’ll lose

my appetite for taking algebraic stock.”

“You’ll get over it. It’s tension,”

she says. “And too much isolation.”

Now let me consider this very carefully
,

I think I say, or am I mumbling ? “Next time,

and not just at one of these plastic tables,

I’ll begin as I mean to go on:

setting out to find a solution.”

Clearly though she’s not impressed.

GOLD & SILVER

I.

She censures our unruly world

with every step, and bourgeois gold

kindles her hair tossed here and there

to say
Try me! As if you’d dare!

II.

Marigold open to noon-day sun,

this is your now. You need not

be seed, shoot, bud or rot.

Unlike ours your cycle’s just begun.

III.

When her hair’s thinned and silver

she’ll look back and think proudly:

I found my own man and lover

and not a murmur disturbed me.

IV.

Known mainly for tepid social grace,

she breaks out in sudden praise

for the lovely sound of silver and bell,

her tongue tingling with their spell.

POET BROADCASTS

1.
ME

I’m all about myth re-explored.

You can’t exhaust myths: everything itself

yet something else. Who needs empiricism!

I’ll match A with B and see what arises:

lab.-work without a book of formulae.

I’m after anti-drama, coolly playing down

the awaited in a world that’s
mezzo-forte,

mezzo-relievo, mezzo-just-about-the-lot!

2.
IT

Take this geranium stewing in its pot:

it brews aromas of damp nightfall

on the edge of woods over which a disappointing moon

hesitates in butterfly clouds that once

soared over the skies of your brittle childhood,

or maybe it was after you stepped from the car

in which Orpheus drove away from his terrible loss,

stung by the memory of a serpent in long grass

and of a swaying light, once a promising train

that resounded with half-forgotten melodies

before he’d lost his metro ticket...

Meeting a shadow of what she was

he’d noticed a slight twist to her mouth,

lobe-less ears, a high, glacial forehead,

how her left forefinger itched the air.

Was it worth encountering those monstrous guards

and officials with references and excuses in triplicate,

agreeing to ridiculous conditions for her release?