Tag Archives: poetry

Week 33: Rising Damp, by U.A.Fanthorpe

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Rising Damp

At our feet they lie low,
The little fervent underground
Rivers of London

Effra, Graveney, Falcon, Quaggy,
Wandle, Walbrook, Tyburn, Fleet

Whose names are disfigured,
Frayed, effaced.

These are the Magogs that chewed the clay
To the basin that London nestles in.
These are the currents that chiselled the city,
That washed the clothes and turned the mills,
Where children drank and salmon swam
And wells were holy.

They have gone under.
Boxed, like the magician’s assistant.
Buried alive in earth.
Forgotten, like the dead.

They return spectrally after heavy rain,
Confounding suburban gardens. They infiltrate
Chronic bronchitis statistics. A silken
Slur haunts dwellings by shrouded
Watercourses, and is taken
For the footing of the dead.

Being of our world, they will return
(Westbourne, caged at Sloane Square,
Will jack from his box),
Will deluge cellars, detonate manholes,
Plant effluent on our faces,
Sink the city.

Effra, Graveney, Falcon, Quaggy,
Wandle, Walbrook, Tyburn, Fleet

It is the other rivers that lie
Lower, that touch us only in dreams
That never surface. We feel their tug
As a dowser’s rod bends to the source below

Phlegethon, Acheron, Lethe, Styx.

U.A. Fanthorpe

Ursula Fanthorpe once said that using rhyme and strict form in poetry was like writing in corsets, to which I say fine, so long as the lack of corsets doesn’t result in flab everywhere. Well, no flab on this one: a brilliant idea for a poem brilliantly executed.

Week 32: Birkett’s Eagle, by Dorothy S. Howard

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Birkett’s Eagle

Adam Birkett took his gun
And climbed from Wasdale Head;
He swore he could spare no more lambs
To keep an eagle fed.

So Birkett went along the Trod
That climbs by Gavel Neese
Till on his right stood Gavel Crag
And leftward fell the screes.

The mist whirled up from Ennerdale
And Gavel Crag grew dim,
And from the rocks on Birkett’s right
The eagle spoke to him.

‘What ails you, Adam Birkett,
That you have climbed so far
To make an end of Lucifer
That was the Morning Star?

If there’s a heaven, Birkett,
There’s certainly a hell;
And he who would kill Lucifer
Destroys himself as well.’

The mist whirled off from Gavel Crag,
And swept towards Beck Head,
And Adam Birkett took his aim
And shot the eagle dead.

He looked down into Ennerdale
To where its body fell
And at his back stood Gavel Crag,
And at his feet lay Hell.

Birkett scrambled off the rocks,
And back onto the Trod,
And on his right lay Ennerdale,
And on his left stood God.

‘What was it, Adam Birkett,
That fell onto the scree?
For I feared it might be Lucifer
That once was dear to me.

‘And from Carlisle to Ravenglass,
From Shap to St Bees Head,
There’s nobody worth vanquishing
If Lucifer is dead.’

Birkett’s dogs leapt all about
As he came off the fell,
But he said ‘I have killed Lucifer
And I am dead as well.’

But Lucifer the Morning Star
Walked thoughtfully away
From the screes beyond the Gavel
Where the eagle’s body lay.

And as he went by Black Sail Pass
And round below Kirk Fell,
He looked like young Tom Ritson
Who knew the Birketts well.

And he came down to Wasdale Head,
Young Ritson to the life,
With an apple in his pocket
Which he gave to Birkett’s wife.

Dorothy S. Howard

I have been quite unable to find out anything about Dorothy S. Howard nor whether she wrote anything else, but if this enigmatic ballad is a one-off it strikes me as remarkably accomplished. The place-names belong to the English Lake District.

Week 31: Woak Hill, by William Barnes

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Woak Hill

When sycamore leaves wer a-spreadèn
    Green-ruddy, in hedges,
Bezide the red doust o’ the ridges,
    A-dried at Woak Hill;

I packed up my goods all a-sheenèn
    Wi’ long years o’ handlèn,
On dousty red wheels ov a waggon,
    To ride at Woak Hill.

The brown thatchen ruf o’ the dwellèn,
    I then wer a-leävèn,
Had shelter’d the sleek head o’ Meäry,
    My bride at Woak Hill.

But now vor zome years, her light voot-vall
    ‘S a-lost vrom the vloorèn.
Too soon vor my jäy an’ my childern,
    She died at Woak Hill.

But still I do think that, in soul,
    She do hover about us;
To ho vor her motherless childern,
    Her pride at Woak Hill.

Zoo–lest she should tell me hereafter
    I stole off ‘ithout her,
An’ left her, uncall’d at house-riddèn,
    To bide at Woak Hill–

I call’d her so fondly, wi’ lippèns
    All soundless to others,
An’ took her wi’ aïr-reachèn hand,
    To my zide at Woak Hill.

On the road I did look round, a-talkèn
    To light at my shoulder,
An’ then led her in at the door-way,
    Miles wide vrom Woak Hill.

An’ that’s why vo’k thought, vor a season,
    My mind wer a-wandrèn
Wi’ sorrow, when I wer so sorely
    A-tried at Woak Hill.

But no; that my Meäry mid never
    Behold herzelf slighted,
I wanted to think that I guided
    My guide vrom Woak Hill.

William Barnes

The beloved wife of the Dorset poet William Barnes died in early middle age, leaving him with several young children. The Dorset dialect may make it look odd at first, but I think that in its aching purity of loss this poem along with his ‘The Wife A-lost’ are two of the great poems of grief in our language.

Week 30: Commuter, by P.J.Kavanagh

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Commuter

Deaf and dumb lovers in a misty dawn
On an open railway platform in the Dordogne
Watched each other’s hands and faces,
Making shapes with their fingers, tapping their palms,
Then stopped and smiled and threw themselves
Open-mouthed into each other’s arms

While the rest of us waited, standing beside our cases.
When it arrived she left him and climbed on the train
Her face like dawn because of their conversation.
Then she stepped down, grabbed his neck in the crook of her arm,
Gave him the bones of her head, the bones of her body violently.
Then climbed on again alone. Her face hardened
In seconds as we moved away from her island.
Tight-lipped she looked around for a seat on the sea.

P.J.Kavanagh

A complex, beautifully observed poem: there is reticent compassion here but more than that an almost envious acknowledgment of an unshared intimacy.

Week 29: To The Etruscan Poets, by Richard Wilbur

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To The Etruscan Poets

Dream fluently, still brothers, who when young
Took with your mothers’ milk the mother tongue,

In which pure matrix, joining world and mind,
You strove to leave some line of verse behind

Like a fresh track across a field of snow,
Not reckoning that all could melt and go.

Richard Wilbur

Some poets can say more in six lines than others manage in six hundred…

Week 28: The Coiner, by Rudyard Kipling

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The Coiner

(Circa 1611)

Against the Bermudas we foundered, whereby
This Master, that Swabber, yon Bo’sun and I
(Our pinnace and crew being drowned in the main)
Must beg for our bread through old England again.

For a bite and a sup, and a bed of clean straw,
We’ll tell you such marvels as man never saw,
On a Magical Island which no one did spy
Save this Master, that Swabber, yon Bo’sun and I.

Seven months among Mermaids and Devils and Sprites,
And Voices that howl in the cedars o’ nights,
With further enchantments we underwent there.
Good Sirs, ’tis a tale to draw guts from a bear!

’Twixt Dover and Southwark it paid us our way,
Where we found some poor players were labouring a play;
And, willing to search what such business might be,
We entered the yard, both to hear and to see.

One hailed us for seamen and courteous-ly
Did guide us apart to a tavern near by
Where we told him our tale (as to many of late)
And he gave us good cheer, so we gave him good weight.

Mulled sack and strong waters on bellies well-lined
With beef and black pudding do strengthen the mind;
And seeing him greedy for marvels, at last
From plain salted truth to flat leasing we passed.

But he, when on midnight our reckoning he paid,
Says, ‘Never match coins with a Coiner by trade,
Or he’ll turn your lead pieces to metal so rare
As shall fill him this globe, and leave something to spare…’

We slept where they laid us, and when we awoke
’Was a crown or five shilling in every man’s poke.
We bit them and rang them, and, finding them good,
We drank to that Coiner as honest men should!

Rudyard Kipling

I don’t go much for the more strident side of Kipling, but I do like his ventures down the byways of English history, such as this idiosyncratic take on the possible genesis of ‘The Tempest’.

Week 27: Epitaph for Anton Schmidt, by Thom Gunn

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Epitaph for Anton Schmidt

The Schmidts obeyed, and marched on Poland,
And there an Anton Schmidt, Feldwebel,
Performed uncommon things, not safe,
Nor glamorous, nor profitable.

Was the expression on his face
‘Reposeful and humane good nature’,
Or did he look like any Schmidt
Of slow and undisclosing feature?

I know he had unusual eyes
Whose powers no orders might determine,
Not to mistake the men he saw,
As others did, for gods or vermin.

For five months, till his execution,
Aware that action has its dangers,
He helped the Jews to get away,
– Another race at that, and strangers.

He never did mistake for bondage
The military job, the chances,
The limits; he did not submit
To the blackmail of his circumstance.

I see him in the Polish snow,
His muddy wrappings small protection,
Breathing the cold air of his freedom
And treading a distinct direction.

Thom Gunn

I don’t think this fine poem needs any comment from me.

Week 26: The Dying of a Long Lost Lover, by Geoffrey Grigson

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The Dying of a Long Lost Lover

Your mother slept with me – I daresay you regard that
As peculiar, I daresay she is old (and so am I,
But I’m less your affair). Think. She was young.
Imagine her. I see still her long fingers round her belt.

Which is her myth, her past, or her reality?
Young, did not foretell this old I do not know.
I know she is the hand which stroked both me and you:
various the occasions, and the kinds, of love she felt.

You touch that vehicle of extinct heat. But love
that she loved, and was the call of love. With some
distaste you soon may close her eyes: love
that I see her young long fingers at her belt.

Geoffrey Grigson

Geoffrey Grigson as poet and critic was distinguished by a tart independence of mind; this poem, perhaps my favourite among his work, shows that he also had a capacity for tenderness. 

Week 25: Tor House, by Robinson Jeffers

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Tor House

If you should look for this place after a handful of lifetimes:
Perhaps of my planted forest a few
May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast cypress, haggard
With storm-drift, but fire and the axe are devils.
Look for the foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers had the art
To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.
But if you should look in your idleness after ten thousand years:
It is the granite knoll on the granite
And lava tongue in the midst of the bay, by the mouth of the Carmel
River-valley, these four will remain
In the change of names. You will know it by the wild sea-fragrance of wind
Though the ocean may have climbed or retired a little;
You will know it by the valley inland that our sun and our moon were born from
Before the poles changed; and Orion in December
Evenings was strung in the throat of the valley like a lamp-lighted bridge.
Come in the morning you will see white gulls
Weaving a dance over blue water, the wane of the moon
Their dance-companion, a ghost walking
By daylight, but wider and whiter than any bird in the world.
My ghost you needn’t look for; it is probably
Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not dancing on wind
With the mad wings and the day moon.

Robinson Jeffers

A beautiful temporal perspective, haunting in its vision of what goes and what stays. Maybe one small flaw: the choice of epithet ‘mad’ in the last line doesn’t seem quite right to me, but perhaps I am missing something.

Week 24: It is near Toussaints, by Ivor Gurney

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It is near Toussaints

It is near Toussaints, the living and dead will say:
‘Have they ended it? What has happened to Gurney?’
And along the leaf-strewn roads of France many brown shades
Will go, recalling singing, and a comrade for whom also they
Had hoped well…

On the night of all the dead, they will remember me,
Pray Michael, Nicholas, Maries lost in Novembery
River-mist in the old City of our dear love, and batter
At doors about the farms crying ‘Our war poet is lost.
Madame, no bon!’ – and cry his two names, warningly, sombrely.

Ivor Gurney

The poems of the First World War poet Ivor Gurney dance on the edge of disintegration – it could be argued that not many of them achieve completeness, but they are brave and vulnerable and usually offer some memorable quirk of observation or language.