Glaucoma

 

Glaucoma

 

Eyesight’s going ...

 

Each year the lenses thicken

To unscramble the flurry of words

Either read or written;

 

A discursive Morse Code:

Pictograms, hieroglyphics,

Tattoos, graffiti, facebook, woad.

 

Though looking back seems clear enough,

If you don’t stare too hard

At all the peripheral stuff.

 

But one always glossed over the small print,

What the packet really contained:

Those illegible, inedible ingredients.

 

Still, it’s in the failure to deliver

That life takes our measure,

That and in the unsuspected depth of the mirror.

 

Yet, finally, the future’s focus is tight

On the oncoming darkness –

The tunnel at the end of the light. 

Legacy

Legacy: Take 1

 

In the scheme of things,

I go first:

fall off, pass away,

drag myself out,

leaving you with the job

of grief, resolution, euphemism,

platitudes and clichés;

the coming to terms with ...

this thing we call love:

the failure that is wrapped

in good intentions,

ribboned with guilt

(you’ll have turned away first -

a sleight of hand, a slight -

into another life,

leaving me

blind-sided).

 

You’ll understand one day,

when in what you believe

is your own life

you slip from its fingers

and you’re caught out,

not waiting

for the impact,

not remembering

how it comes in

                            sideways,

then remembering,

                                as it does;

reminding you of me,

of us.

 

Touché, you’ll say.

 

And  smile ...

And ... cut!

 

Déshabillé

 

Déshabillé

 

Saying goodbye, he kneels so they are eye to eye,

And then pulls her close, holding her tight, claiming

The shape of her bones with clumsy, clammy

Returning hands: clavicle, scapula, pelvis, thigh.

His fingers travelling, needing that haptic fix,

Unravelling geography and geometry;

Love like L-dopa, memory – synaptic tricks -

Awakening, shores and shapes rushing in,

The topography stretching out, the moment elastic:

History, anthropology, a religion of lust and sin.

 

(We want to touch children, and animals:

It’s our first response – to reach out, to pet,

To stroke, to hold, to groom – prelapsarian

In its simplicity, uncomplicated by sexual

Tension and implication. The primeval set

Of genes from which love evolved,

A reflexive action, boundaries dissolved;

Yet so fraught with danger, so easily confused

That one can nearly share the sentiments of …

That one can barely tell the difference between…

The abuser and the abused?)

 

He pushes his nose in under her jaw,

Wanting the smell of her to claw at his nerves;

Nothing unique, the stink of child, undeserving

Of the scented disguises that adults can flaunt.

He stands – needing again that height, that stature -

Turns and leaves. The air screams! The fabric tears,

Ripped at the seams down years and years…

Lives undressed, stripped; Oh the hate! The rapture!

Touched

 

Touched (by intention) - an extract

Her boyfriend’s tongue,

Tipped with promises,

Penetrates her mouth,

Loosens, unbuttons,

Unbuckles her being;

She slides off the edge

Of herself.

 

She moves through the cinema

Of the world,

Where strangers faces

Matinee porno movies,

Eyes panning like sleamy hands

Running amuck amongst

The folds and fissures

Of her undressing.

 

Her husband has an access

To her body she denies herself:

The piercing and eating

Of her flesh;

A gift, a right, she believes

She has freely given;

An invitation to ...

A movable feast,

A candle-lit supper,

A take-away dinner,

Finger food.

The napkin of her skin

Glistens.

 

One day,

He’ll push the plate away.

In Camera

 

In Camera

 

There is usually a queue,

So you take a number, and wait,

Pass the time of day -

There’s always something to say -

Talk about the weather; stew;

Count the cost, and hesitate ...

 

The line shuffles forward,

Though one appears no nearer.

Some try to push in front;

A few wonder, What’s the point?

Others linger over every word,

Yet the meaning is no clearer.

 

And when your time arrives,

Everything seems to fall away,

As if the you as a notion

Has always been in question;

And what of you survives

Will barely have a say.

Learning to swim

M and Me Swimming

Learning to Swim

 

I take you into the shallows,

back into the loose

embrace

of water,

and

release you;

 

Year after year.

 

Time is the treading of water,

the dancing of limbs:

that sculling of hands,

that scissoring of feet

to the rhythm of trust and faith

(a mimicry of drowning,

of prayer);

a simple belief in buoyancy

that keeps you afloat,

and waiting for the right wave

to carry you forward,

and just

out of

reach.

 

But the water always gets deeper

as you get further from the shore,

and the gap never closes

on the distant horizon

(about three miles of eternity -

enough to last a lifetime).

 

Still, you step into the water’s mouth

and allow it to swallow you whole.

And I release you

(Or is it that you struggle free,

welcoming the current?)

and you drift away;

 

then with strong,

clean

strokes

you begin to swim.

 

Your feet will never touch bottom again.

Click here to read about the artist Michael Andrews and his picture 'Melanie and Me Swimming'

Click here to read about Graham Swift's story collection "Learning to Swim".

Departure

 

Departure

 

She’s travelling on the back of a borrowed waggon,

Pulled by tired horses, being jolted along

A rutted but unbeaten track, into the hinterland

She had never imagined mapping,

But the landscape has become rugged,

Jagged and unchanging.

 

Her belongings are spilling

out of the boxes, are tumbling

over the tailgate, falling

by the wayside, into

the dirt, into

the ditches.

 

She no longer acknowledges the driver,

Just turns her head away, pulling

A blanket around herself and huddling

Into a corner, away from the dank air,

From the creeping fog of early morning,

Wrapping herself in the shrinking

World of herself, in the warm fug of herself,

Taking a desolate comfort

 

In arrival.

Engineers

Engineers

Their life together has been spent

Like the digging of the Fréjus Tunnel:

Two separate countries boring into a mountain,

Removing rubble, to meet in the middle -

Their wholes perfectly matched.

Blood, sweet with tears, spilt;

Hard labour, planning and years funnelled

Through an ill-lit half-darkness to maintain

A vision -both troubled and riddled -

The holes selectively patched.

Imagine the joy;

The detritus.

Refraction and Reflection

Refraction

A thought resolves itself – surprising and cruel -

Into something clear and hard and perfect:

This is it; this is all there is: you are a fool.

Hold the image for a moment – hope for defects –

Turn it over, study its sintered clarity,

Its sharp-edged and brutal simplicity.

But light is refracted and the truth held this way

Or that takes on other colours, other shapes,

Something added, something taken away.

The mirror in which we live our escapes

Is haunted, like the ghosting on a TV set:

We watch ourselves as ourselves … yet …

Deeper feelings happen quietly; they seep.

It’s the petty emotions that busy and fuss

Our lives. So, like children surrendering to sleep,

We give in to a darkness to which our eyes adjust,

Wake to a past gone stale and a future skimmed,

                   (While you feel the light is sharp, the light is focussed ...)

Our shadows paler, and our substance thinned.

                           (You sense the light has bent, the light has dimmed.)

This Life

This Life, Dear

This is a small thing - this life -

That fits into the palm of the hand,

That we turn over, poke with a stick,

And then parse with a dull knife

So that we can think we can understand

What it is that makes us tick;

                                                 But,

Listen carefully, dear, for this is all I’ve got:

Though you hear the heart still beating,

It’s a stopped clock.

Silence and Spillage, a poem

A Libation ... A Toast

To

This silence that has settled

Upon him like dust ...

To

This silence that has corroded

The skin of him like rust ...

This silence isn’t praying,

Though the hands mimic

A slow applause, or the paying

Out of rope –

Enough to hang himself –

A trick, a gimmick,

A sawing in half,

A laugh a minute,

A grope in the dark.

Mind the gap.

His voice a slur,

As he draws on a cigarette,

Sips a wine turned sour.

It’s a question begged

Of the lees, the dregs,

Not formed, not spoken yet;

He has his own way of betraying

What is bait in a trap.

This silence isn’t praying;

The hands don’t grasp or flap.

He takes another gulp, another drag.

The smoke from his mouth

Is kissed heavenward, a moue,

A whisper scented half grape, half-truth

That drifts like mist, misheard

Amongst the cavilling and gainsaying

Of the delusions he has peopled.

This silence isn’t praying,

Though the hands are steepled,

Though the hands are a crucible for tears.

This silence isn’t praying;

There’s nothing left worth saying:

The hands cup an empty glass.

Cheers ...

Evolution: an anniversary poem

Evolution

How much time does it take,

Love dying like that,

Giving away its heat

In exchange for hate?

Slowly; but how to measure,

How to calibrate for each erasure?

Do feelings simply evaporate?

A compound turning into air,

Disappearing, but ever there:

Elements adhere and separate -

Something finned cleaved in birth;

Something feathered cleft in death.

So how to configure one and one

Where we used to speak of two?

A pair, a couple, both, a duo

With voices soaring out of tune,

With hearts racing not keeping pace;

Those swans in flight becoming a brace.

Feast

Cannibals

Love demands its pound of flesh -

The body teased of muscle and fat,

The sinews, the glands, the organs:

A feast - without the letting of blood.

Remember now when it was fresh,

How need and desire together sat,

How the hunger was an emotion

Neither controlled nor understood,

With nothing sought, no redress,

Just that this was right and that,

That this went deeper than our skin.

But then this was just a prelude

To the flaying we could not but relish

With an avidity that hissed and spat;

Eating each other down to the bone:

Cannibals just playing with their food;

Loss of blood controlled and understood.

Sundial: a birthday poem

Sundial

Life is waiting;

It’s looking forward,

Staring into the sun,

A kind of hopeful blindness

Leading you on

Until,

At some point,

When the sun has somehow

Moved about the sky,

You find yourself looking away,

Looking backwards

Towards the better prospect,

Or looking down at that inkblot,

That personalized Rorshach test,

Your slope-shouldered gnomon

Has cast at your feet, knowing
That if you block the light
You will see the shadow,

Wondering when pareidolia

Slipped into apophenia.

And you’re waiting still,
For an eternal everywhere,
For an eternal nowhere, 

Beginning to understand 
What only too soon will come

Like a gathering cloud
To eclipse your sun.

Borrowed Light

Borrowed light

It’ll be dark soon and time to go.

Could you pass the dice,

I’d like another throw?

Oh, I understand.  Club rules:

Just the once, never twice.

Yes, you’ve got to be kind to be cruel.

Well, a present, long in the unwrapping

And the children like animals,

Not knowing then warping,

Bending with the truth of it;

The knowledge of an unsteady sentinel

Watching over an illness that is implicit,

With happiness a symptom that reckons a cost:

All too brief a candle,

All too much found then lost,

But a gift all the same;

One we bestow, simply, as a mantle

For the igniting and sheltering of our flame;

As if the heat carried a living debt,

Paid tomorrow so to honour us;

For what shines is a currency yet.

The moon has risen, the darkness at its back -

Its mountains shadows, its deserts dust,

With somewhere on its conquered land a flag.

And the moon, oh why is it so cold, so bright?

Such a false god robed in borrowed light.

Year of the Rat: a New Year poem for 2020

2020

This New Year’s Eve

brings an acuity of vision,

sharp as a bat’s echo:

the birth of a decade that

might likely see me crowned dead;

the simplicity of staring ahead

into the future,

with its simple lines,

its constructed disambiguation,

its sudden benign presence,

watching the past metastasized.

Is that the clarity I dread?

Some unstained happiness

shaken out and hung on the line,

a flailing dance in the breeze

of unhindered revision -

the words to a song

that spoke of sap

rising in a tree,

that speaks with the rasp

of leaves uncurling,

of the crisp dry leaves underfoot,

the unfurling of the hand

from around the throat?

And yet,

a last intake of breath

for a leave-taking

that no longer speaks

in wheezy Chinese whispers

but with the bitter-sweet tang

of longing and laughter,

a carousel, a carousal, a recital
of drunken midnight-death happiness

from the drunk and disorderly bards

wrestling with the squared circle,
for all joys want eternity;

not without a bang,

this New Year's song was sung. 

Listen to Zhou Long here

Poetry and plagues; A Ring a Ring o' Roses ...

The Bus Driver (or the virus bred)

The bus driver drives the bus

round and around his route.

He stops at every stop,

even at request stops,

where he stops without request,

opens the doors, closes the doors,

moves on,

round and around his route;

eight hours a day,

each day, every day

round and around his route.

And no one gets on

and no one gets off.

At lunchtime

he takes a break,

he takes a breather,

carefully unwraps

the foil-wrapped sandwich

his wife has prepared and wrapped

with care: the thin sausage slices

between thin slices

of homemade bread -

ah, the simple pleasures;

and he stares out the front window

of his empty bus,

at the empty streets,

chewing slowly,

chewing it over.

He likes his job:

The routine,

the familiarity of the route,

of the people he sees - they chew the fat,

pass the time of day;

and each day just that bit different,

but reassuringly the same.

And there’s the pension:

Something to look forward to.

At the end of his shift,

he parks up at the terminal,

and he gets off and he goes home,

walking down the empty streets,

past the closed school,

the deserted square,

the shuttered houses,

the blinkered offices,

the idle factories,

the unopened shops,

the forsaken restaurant,

the unpeopled bus stops,

the locked church

(though every day is a Sunday now)

enjoying the unseasonable sun,

the unexpected peace and quiet,

unexamined and knowing nothing,

just being, unessential,

he breathes the air,

just thinking of his dinner –

it’s come to that.

At home,

he kisses his wife,

kisses his kids.

They eat a frugal supper;

he passes the salt,

passes the bread ...

they share a glass of wine.

He says his prayers.

He says goodnight.

He dreams:

There is no air in his bus,

not even enough to scream;

and he is no longer the bus driver,

he’s only a passenger,

the lone passenger,

looking out of the back window

as the bus moves forwards,

and everyone is waving

as he goes round and around the route,

up the hill and down the hill,

to and fro, back and forth,

and everyone is waving

as he goes around, comes around

endlessly 

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