Out of the Blue

Read Out of the Blue for Free Online Page B

Book: Read Out of the Blue for Free Online
Authors: Helen Dunmore
it.
    ‘End here, it’s hopeful,’
    says the poet, getting up from the table.

If no revolution come
    If no revolution come
    star clusters
    will brush heavy on the sky
    and grapes burst
    into the mouths of fifteen
    well-fed men,
    these honest men
    will build them houses like pork palaces
    if no revolution come,
    short-life dust children
    will be crumbling in the sun –
    they have to score like this
    if no revolution come.
    The sadness of people
    don’t look at it too long:
    you’re studying for madness
    if no revolution come.

    If no revolution come
    it will be born sleeping,
    it will be heavy as baby
    playing on mama’s bones,
    it will be gun-thumping on Sunday
    and easy good time
    for men who make money,
    for men who make money
    grow like a roof
    so the rubbish of people
    can’t live underneath.
    If no revolution come
    star clusters
    will drop heavy from the sky
    and blood burst
    out of the mouths of fifteen
    washing women,
    and the land-owners will drink us
    one body by one:
    they have to score like this
    if no revolution come.

A safe light
    I hung up the sheets in moonlight,
    surprised that it really was so
    steady, a quickly moving pencil
    flowing onto the stained cotton.
    How the valves
    in that map
    of taut fabric
    blew in and blew out
    then spread flat
    over the tiles
    while the moon filled them with light.
    A hundred feet above the town
    for once the moonscape showed nothing extraordinary
    only the clicking pegs
    and radio news from our kitchen.
    One moth hesitated
    tapping at our lighted window
    and in the same way the moonlight
    covered the streets, all night.

Near Dawlish
    Her fast asleep face turns from me,
    the oil on her eyelids gleams
    and the shadow of a removed moustache
    darkens the curve of her mouth,
    her lips are still flattened together
    and years occupy her face,
    her holiday embroidery glistens,
    her fingers quiver then rest.
    I perch in my pink dress
    sleepiness fanning my cheeks,
    not lurching, not touching
    as the train leaps.
    Mother you should not be sleeping.
    Look how dirty my face is, and lick
    the smuts off me with your salt spit.
    Golden corn rocks to the window
    as the train jerks. Your narrowing body leaves me
    frightened, too frightened to cry for you.

The last day of the exhausted month
    The last day of the exhausted month
    of August. Hydrangeas
    purple and white like flesh immersed in water
    with no shine
    to keep the air off them
    open their tepid petals more and more widely.
    The newly-poured tar smells antiseptic
    like sheets moulding on feverish skin:
    surfaces of bedrock, glasslike passivity.
    The last day of the exhausted month
    goes quickly. A brown parcel
    arrives with clothes left at the summer lodgings,
    split and too small.
    A dog noses
    better not look at it too closely
    God knows why they bothered to send them at all.
    A smell of cat
    joins us just before eating.
    The cat is dead but its brown
    smell still seeps from my tub of roses.

The deserted table
    Coiled peel goes soft on the deserted table
    where faïence, bubble glasses, and the rest
    of riches thicken.
    People have left their bread and potatoes.
    Each evening baskets
    of broken dinner hit the disposal unit.
    Four children, product of two marriages,
    two wives, countless slighter relations
    and friends all come to the table
    bringing new wines discovered on holiday,
    fresh thirtyish faces, the chopped
    Japanese dip of perfectly nourished hairstyles,
    more children, more confident voices,
    wave after wave consuming the table.

The writer’s son
    The father is a writer; the son
    (almost incapable of speech)
    explores him.
    â€˜Why did you take my language
    my childhood
    my body all sand?
    why did you gather my movements
    waves pouncing
    eyes steering me till I crumbled?
    We’re riveted. I’m in the house
    hung up with verbiage like nets.
    A patchwork monster at the desk
    bending the keys of your electric typewriter.
    You’re best at talking. I know
    your hesitant, plain vowels.
    Your

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