Relic Environments Trilogy: Book II, Part 1.iv

from Book II, Part 1, Studies in Caesura

Replica

Off Funchal, a caravel −

replica sprigs of mast, of hanky sail, a silhouette

of raking lines, due east as it tacks −

Magellan took such toys around Good Hope.

Along the marina, a cruise ship’s bulk

provides deep berth for tourists, who

point to where the little craft

skims the tide, redefining

the lightness of warming seas.

Its keel’s a shallow draft, and clears

the stony beach a breaker’s depth from festival.

Flowers, gaudy tropicals cascading down

regimented, municipal iron:

each slow fuse of colour anticipates Assumption.

From hill villages, pilgrims

arrive for absolution, Nossa Senhora,

that she might prise from their throats

the grit of Christ.

Some, finishing the journey on their knees,

up, up the last steps to the church,

brush aside the blooms

children have strewn before them.

What was discovered, where seas gave way

to stranger lands, repeats itself

here, in rigging caught in chalk-streak rays,

and, on the righted sails of kings,

more plainly seen, the cross of blood,

hoisted to a sky they claimed.

Relic Environments Trilogy: Book II, Part 1.iii

from Book II, Part 1, Studies in Caesura

Last Days of Ishmael

Above the harbour, a hill house,

its coat of cracked paint binding

wet-rot in a frame − outside the window

a square of sky scrubbed blue: in a room

minded of winter he reads a little, on the table

a book of sea tales, shipwreck, the old routines.

Again, memory, considering nature

where it rose, and the time begun

to come to that business,

it was not, it is not, just one time, useful honestly.

It asks, it increases, recognising itself,

pulling oceans with it, above other lives

less deserving of memory.

At the open door, leaves the colour

of November leap as the wind wills, a jig

of jammy rinds along the porch planks.

Below, the town’s deserted quays − the ships

gone now, and fewer too those others

boiled down for lamplight

…that day, a grime in the mouths

of pagan stokers, the scald-pot seas

red as a cut heart, that day… a shadow

spooling fathoms, surfacing through iron spears

its white flukes trimmed to sounding cold

for Ahab, his last breath… salt… salt, swallowed

deep enough to make a ghost.

Relic Environments Trilogy: Book II, Part 1.ii

from Book II, Part 1, Studies in Caesura

Ground Zero

8:15

Beyond Mount Fuji, ritual heat.


And light − through paper screens, through eating-sticks

and bowls where the boiled pulse refused to cool,

through bone, and the heart

bound in the blood’s courteous habit − in the island chain

where the warrior cult rakes low over waves

towards the carriers,

raw, atomic air…


a child running, running,

face sliding down the jut of jawbone, the drip of fingertips

on the burning road,

from high, silver distance, a city sighted,

the crosshair the bridge and river made

marking blast ratios,

shadows, vapour where they stood, the thin

scrawl of their humanity across ransacked stars.


8:46/9:06

On impact,

the towers

ring, a tuning-fork skyline juddering, and people impossibly

flying, arms and legs out-stretched.


Tiny from upper storeys, letter Xs

repeated single-file or in throwaway clutches,

settling to craters where the streets had been, to what

remained of Mister Kurtz,

who had disappeared up-river, in a book we were reading

about the dark.


9:47

I am crawling through the centre of a scream

I am crawling through sirens

Through spatter of people

I am crawling through people taking charge

I am crawling through pictures on TV


I am crawling through the stations

That were closed, through people

Running, running after other people


I am crawling through ring-tones


I am crawling through the bang, the bus

In the air, I am crawling towards my friend

Who will never find me


Here, crawling through the centre of a scream

Relic Environments Trilogy: Book II, Part 1.i

from Book II, Part 1, Studies in Caesura

A Forward Position

As far as the village the road was clear.

We passed by a group of refugees, huddled

in a ditch, near the body of a man stopped by sniper fire, his hair

still soupy with blood.

They said the sniper had gone now, and one of them asked

did we know how far the fighting was; another asked

the time.

A man whose children were dead, said

this country’s a puppet with cut strings, and pointed

to a clearing, to a pitch of upturned clay.

He said, the rest of us are mostly there.

On the façade of the old hotel, across

the signs for Visa and Mastercard, an ellipsis of shell pocks

trailed towards the cellar,

where we found the others, stacked neatly

to the ceiling.

We radioed back.

In the afternoon,

a woman appeared from where a house

used to be, in her shawl

grenade-green, overripe fruit. We offered her a smoke,

but she said, I want to see a doctor.

The day was an oven, but orders were orders,

and we moved on.

Later, clearing a tripwire

from a blind-spot hedge, somebody thought maybe

we should have got the kid off her. 

Relic Environments Trilogy: Book I, Part 2.xxxxvii

from Book I, Part 2, Revelations of a Lesser Wife

The Beautiful Orphans

They are the south as we imagine it

Stunning, immaculate in their high room

Entertaining themselves with verses

About parrots

Sitting by turquoise windows

Repairing their trousseaus of phoenix designs

In their courtyard, leaves, smoky reds swirling

Cups of best wine passed among them

No matter how long I look on sacred waters

Men keep heaven for themselves

Banish me here

Comparing me to these gorgeous girls

My only comfort, four zither strings

Love songs plucked softly

In the mirror, I admire myself

In moonlight my jet hair pinned with white jade

My lover came to me from the past

A dead poet visiting in dreams

These creatures, what lives shall they know

Beyond beauty

Where the heart recovers

A willow net across the sky, everywhere, clouds

Changing

A simple flute note carries miles

Relic Environments Trilogy: Book I, Part 2.xxxxiii-xxxxvi

from Book I, Part 2, Revelations of a Lesser Wife

Warm Greetings to Li Jinren

I am content this morning

The chitchat magpies mirror my mood

Last night in lamplight, candles made ready

Incense smouldering

I stood by the door

Greeting my handsome guest

The girl weaving

Everyone knows

Makes eyes at the farm boy

For once

I’m not even a little jealous

Letter from the Province      

I live idle days, writing poems

Looking towards Wangwu Mountains

Thinking of our time there

I let my horse follow the water course, east

West

Confusing north with south

I was thinking of our nights together

A rainy time of shared feasts

And then as flowers emerged on the branches

I climbed the stairs alone

Later your return, so sudden I couldn’t speak

I was so happy

Our little house in the alley

So cosy

Now Xiangru’s lute has lost its strings

Swallows mate and separate

As autumn comes, remember me

Remember

The Yellow River

The reasons for visiting

A Poem in Reply to a Poem

 

Bloated crowds, burst vessels and clamour

I sing softly to myself

On my own again

Not thinking much about love

No one to read my poems       

No matter

Behind village walls, common flowers find light

I live in the back lane

Yan Yuan lived alone, cheerful in his own company       

I too am learning to be paths of roots

Pines in the mountains

Willows at West Hill

Another morning, another farewell

And tears

I made daisy chains for jewellery

A spring day, breezy

You and I walking on fallen willow wands

I keep thinking, if only this hill was bare of trees

Maybe I could stop sobbing

Relic Environments Trilogy: Book I, Part 2.xxxxix-xxxxii

from Book I, Part 2, Revelations of a Lesser Wife

Distant Views

From Jiangling, maples

So many leaves

And the boats evening frames by the river bridge

My lord Zian, aching for you here

The current turns against itself, all day

All night, as though time was forgotten

Poem for Zian

All the wine in the world

And still this sadness, not finding a way

To break a hundred knots of distance

Between us

The rarest flower disappears, returning in spring

The boats of travellers

Catch in willows east and west

So many shapes in passing clouds

Affection is a river

Everything with it, moving

I want someone who loves me for myself

It’s too lonely here in Jade Tower

My face in the wine pot

News of a Journey

Night after night

Snuggling beneath a bright marquee

I began to get ideas

Then                   

My love said to me

He must leave 

A journey

He said

And now I sleep alone

Not thinking of clouds at all

Their exact locations

By the faint lamp

Or the single moth

Circling

News of a Journey II

The water chases softly

Filling footprints

Never knowing a settled place

Clouds

Appear, from where

From where

No one can make them stay

Empty breezes

Twilight on the Yellow River

A wildfowl by the stretch of shore

Swimming alone             

Its flock already flown