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 writerâs son
The father is a writer; the son
(almost incapable of speech)
explores him.
âWhy 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?
Weâre riveted. Iâm in the house
hung up with verbiage like nets.
A patchwork monster at the desk
bending the keys of your electric typewriter.
Youâre best at talking. I know
your hesitant, plain vowels.
Your