LAND’S ENDPoems by Adil Jussawalla Copyright 1962 Adil Jussawalla WRITERS WORKSHOP books are published by P. Lal from 162/92 Lake Gardens, Calcutta 31. Land’s End’s printers are the Calcutta Job Press Private Ltd., binders Bharati of 13 Patwar Bagan Lane. LAND’S END Poems by Adil Jussawalla A WRITERS WORKSHOP PUBLICATION 1962 NOTE All the poems in this book were written in England, or some part of Europe ; that is, away from the land where I first learnt what a poem is, what poetry, and what brings both to fruition. The poems cover four to five years. They are not arranged in the order in which they were written. A. J. J. Now. Water in cupped hands was life by touch playing between fingers and running round the back of my palm. . the water is spilled killed on rocks. short time when a boy lived each moment anew.Seventeen T ime was short. and like a birth of flames one by one as candles are lighted things unseen before came to life and communicated. detached. and only a cold assumption of arrogance is mine. one by one the lights are snuffed dead things talk no more though I listen. stale and yellow Be swept into some gutter in the eye And burn there As this year’s funeral to futility . . So may I Cleaned of all my deaths Once more stand firm against A lifeless sky.November Day As outside my window Leaves fall faded from a tree So let me let fall my thoughts Gone yellow and dry So let my thoughts Mottled. But ah! this life! this year! That fountain! See the finger of water raised to Stop time Scattered in the swift haze of Pigeons in flight and spray. a paper star of Bethlehem Caps a Christmas commerical. Sucked dry in her three-sixty-odd dugs. . Useless the ritual’s massive complexity. . and from a steaming shell Rise mermaids with leaping boys and dolphins Prepared to take the plunge But . and lights. What is the timeless here ? See. . like the Discarded dates Of an expended calendar. after a Christian burial We’ll make merry Over her dead body. round its base Torn faces drift. And look. Now. useless the city With the old bitch dying in the shadows. She served her litter well.31st December ‘58 W aiting for the New Year A wary restlessness in the Shadow-crossed square Hovers between the two years. . Useless the carols. Useless against the minutes spinning with revelry Where water and bodies Swirl. Towards Building a Temple PLEBEIAN. . give straw to my stonecarrying oxen for redfaced beefy workmen are going to carve butterfly wings of thinnest turquoise from wall to wall of my temple and as for the naming you whores. Sang Blake. O Clouds unfold. chariots of fire. forgotten tribes — if you want any part in the naming give my oxen some straw form your bedding. and banged across Buckled iron plates Under which ragged sweeper urchins Gazed mutely At our singing. you — give my oxen some straw from your bedding. taut as strings. Sweating schoolboys yelled for golden Spears. On which educated Fingers play. broke.In Memory Of The Old School J erusalem rang some mornings in. the sun struck an asphalt Cricketpitch. Fingers storm the piano still. Outside. Medes Persians Phrygians Sassanians Sumerians Assyrians Phoenicians Lybians Etruscans Goths. SOPHIA. to reveal (among other things) Hammered faces. talk softly. Sour. Though old Lady Sea sleeps on horizons She’ll stride across the waves And batter you if you insult her : And the gulls will still be waving Like children as you sink. tangled hair of this Watercurled woman this Grey world-weary old Dame Our ship plunged through.Sea Voyage P arting the thick. she is Letting us brush her hair. But traveller. sick and ugly. . what love grows so dearly deep As self-love ? We kissed. while art And skill (perversely) lie not in revealing my hand But in bluffing it : in giving you what I label worthless Play an unguessed at game. keep what I hold most precious. but who did you see in my eyes ? Fool ! your King of Hearts has a double-edged sword And a double-face : the Joker laughs out his lies Before my silent King of Death. . But think it is merely at cards . I’ve told you now. strung your pauper’s cards With my sovereign jacks of knowledge. love for each other is out of it. as the one consummation Of self-love is Death — my one self-perfecting. . Think love is excluded from hands we hold—apart— As fate deals us. Think I could have packed The game before this. Think they are only discards. Should you be waiting for me tomorrow And I never come. my dark Lord. . Since what we keep To ourselves to grow to perfection we hold dearer Then what we give. perfecting my hand : Unsuspected. stacked Art against your ignorance . I hold the whole court. Yes. pretend that I know I’m in light : end of a game squarely packed in my heart Where all ends and kings and pretences start. It wasn’t hard To deceive you. that bring them together.Poker-faced I am deceiving you. But. Throw away rags. We’re quits and we must part. you were nearer My heart than its beat. Self-commanding Mentor — he’ll force a conclusion When he calls his card into play : the Black King Who governs my life and my art. the dead eye of a fish. treading . hangouts. you resurrect an image we may eat ( shirking the hard wine ) . ( The base of hot urns ringing their backs. like a stuff palm. Their feet treading. embassies and pubs. of things you chewed and spat on your last meal. Siamese. . . with all that remains of your leavened words this starved time and all we dare believe : punctured king. instead of moon and cloud at easter. you bless. . Bent slaves Carry their raw. ovens. scalding coals. dead christ. eruptions.The Moon And Cloud At Easter The glazed eye shines. No shouting now as satyrs creep Slowly down the sterile roads. spread clouds wing. And the fat burghers with the field-glasses Will think of forest-fires. Terrier. . The Suburb No shouting here : the beasts asleep. The drunkards in their homes. twitless canary. ) They will propitiate Zeus Klarios In the park with burning urns. a chewed duck’s wing. over stores and theatres. the underworld. I think of plenished. hung from working Fingers. seeing Mothers Blossom with washingpowder mixingbowls brasspolish backscrubbers doorknobs combs eggs mops olives insecticide frozenchicken roastchicken doormats onions tableclamps flour hoses toothpaste toothpowder beetroots hairsoftener hairspray hairdyes wasprepellant stockings deodorants tonic sanitarypads cacti spoons facepacks bread. slowly. holy mothers they dreamt of In confinement and wonder where they’ve gone. like dolls. Seeing children too. pull them apart.The Dolls P assing supermarkets. . there’s darkness on mine Time is the X between place and necessity Time is a bar on the old Shadow Line The hours are running like sand in my veins It’s striking midnight in my mind. When there’s frost on this island. what’s the time ? . what’s the time? Morning breaks from a young girl’s eyes But evening sallows the cheeks of another The little one sees a man with a scythe Shrieks and startles her elder brother Who darkens the room as the Reaper arrives Tea-time. The scythe and the pendulum cut her together. astray. there’s love on another Though there’s light in your day. mister. day in the Eastern As I travel. Time for the tigresses. hey. hey. Time and the Charioteer whistling behind : What’s the time. on the old Shadow Line. the cashier feels Tossing a match on his manager’s files Time I was happy. the shot whores cry Time I rebelled. There’s a way of ignoring the harassing Why.What’s The Time? A twisted smirk by a tongue-clicking watch A capsized grin by the jeweller’s sign A faceless O by the old church clock A trillion and one consmogonical time Night in the Western world. the glum judge think Doodling the face of the clerk on the sly. barn-boys dream Time for my money. thinks the frail grandmother. What’s the time. mister. 2. I see You aren’t worth a penny. To My Songs Rot. I have seen thwarted wrestlers go that way. my counterfeits—now that I’ve walked In the spring rain at dawn.Two Postcards 1. Bloat themselves on transubstantial food And plug Religion. my songs. To My Dreams You do not know how I fear you my dreams. rot. while women wailed about them. fibre. You do not know how you frighten me. At times I am quite terrified of you In case you lead me far from sinew. counterfeit or real. . Galaxies turn Complete in themselves . But what disturbance strokes the upturned sky. Apparition ! I am alive to-night. a greenshape spreads. Leaves unfurl through loam .Movements Of Spring R ural winds are rumbling through the pines . bustle of bush And rasping twigs chaffe in untidy clumps. Cherry and hawthorn tangled. I have no thirst To-night for private worlds. how bright The frosts burn The hollies. collects itself in drops? When will the songless kestrel clamber higher? What movement of spring will axe the hollow elm? When will the green reject the outcry “ Liar ! ” Frost T he stars will burst To-night . Single flame-pods twin . Branches sapped with gas shoot out their fires. Peels in vapours. The village clock Strikes . . back. the pines. smokes the nearby trees ? What mists the roof. twigs frill to flowers . Remorse. their pubic fan Of leaves knotted. dry Teeth chattering. . This is the steaming floor of Hell. I walk the sodden floor : eyes Gummed with sleep. fists clenched. Roots dangle. Before the April rain rinse The trees (like trunkless legs.March Smoking March. Without the drugging asphodel. Beech skins snap. for what though late rain feed? Giants know starved floors Burgeon on dregs. Terror. the wood drenched. Sex. trooped From ogrish hills . on rot they eat. pronged like spotted meat On twigs are offered rotten leaves To taste. Repentence. mouth fouled With clotted silence. mushrooms smell. webbed With coupling. carnage) — before the rains Wash. aloof. flash. and God know who. grand hotels keep their huge doors open. away. Under the weight of hills their tough boots once cracked. or moving. French poodles run wild in the grass. Here bored and exacerbated tourists fully expect to see their ‘ day-trip-convalescents ’ miracle. Under a cedar a faun sits. lie face upwards. like pieces of sun-blown silk. These are the women. Their feet paddle rings in a glaring lake. laughing. Under a summer sun. Wordsworth. inviting the summer. A ferry steamer divides the lake. sitting among the sheep-stones lodged on see-sawed slopes. Motorbikes lean on bridges. its men follow some vague. a strange remoteness.Westmoreland In this strange country I have entered the water is as clear as a bell tolling across the valley . sealed. Crimson parasols. . Wordsworth’s face is a cottage industry. and remote as the sound suspensions between hill and hill. Gaudy-winged butterflies flit about white houses hung on the hill face. Coleridge. His village loves him. withdrawn occupation. hour by hour To undermine my numbed and bulwarked ground. is this manna that you send The startled tourists showered where they sit ? Black crabs splatter hard against the wall. slump and shower Across the thrusted coastland . . pig’s footed country at last Where seas grip. Lord. yet fishers haul Against its tented pull . roil. No church stands on water . his planted footsteps fail . But neither sea nor Peter’s praising tower Holds Peter’s weight. though land sings Its consecrated rock. Atlantic breakers boom. It is finished : No man. to christen and to wreck . The sea renews itself as old rocks break. the slack waves drag and hit Their catch of sea-food against worn Land’s End. To form the rock. Lord. The funnel smoke is tattered like a veil. the airs kick and squall. Scuttle to landed fish in crevices on cliffs . Lord. where brine-wings beat The rooted perch of weeds and brine-grains bite Raw rock or nerve exposed to their brute power. the sea-gulls fall Downwind to sheets of spray. boats rock on springs . Land’s End or Faith’s — what must I call This faulted coast Atlantic breakers pound ? Wave after wave explodes. do you extend Your power to your wan and sleeping Son. the fast Seas race. your netted round of deep lifts Its sweet fish to our lips . the sea sang earlier. Atlantic breakers pound our ended power.Land’s End Here in the cramped. The sea has fastened on . Nor wind’s howl . beast or fowl But needs a rock’s assurance in this hour. Curled on a trawler troubled in that caul ? Will he walk your Tumults first creation ? Rock Peter wavers . His sloped arms gulp the bilge sea’s spurning flings . Cliff along cliff. Wildbloodstreams wreck our rooted facts. The river bucks with pairing fishes. primeval wishes Spawned from last year’s weedwrapped acts.A Letter In April These are the shifting days of weather When pods of blown. Drifts of winter half-forgotten. tickets returning Scribble around my knocking heels. Parallel buildings crowd together. Bobbin birches climb the slope. ignited clouds Float and dwindle like burning cotton Over the streetland’s roofhilled red. . windbaskets swing Their captured charms and doodles out . The lonely grip a bridge of crowds. The tongueless turtle finds its voice. rewinding reels Draw in their catch . These are the tempting minutes of hope When the darting eye must make its choice Between the slim. Fragments. And these are the sudden weeks of learning From spinning winds . letters. Fused to the railing like scraps of lead. tell me you’ll last the spring Shift this shifting weather out. Love. His future like a prophecy Of wrought-iron beds and egg-blue skies. With no one to blame but the changing wind.The Butterfly So he left with the power of flint in his eye. So he married into a Petroleum dream. And returned on the back of an affluent song. he went for a fall. but he was strong . His pa said ma And his ma said moo. She ran out of petrol. Surrounded by whys and horses and hows. They found him under the sandstone wall With a soothing letter tucked in his shoe : No one’s to blame but the changing wind. With no one to blame but the changing wind. He returned to his beige and piebald cows. With no one to blame but the changing wind. And shared her taste for clotted cream. . So he did the only thing he could do : He went for a breather. But went for swims in a dubious stream. he ran out of rows . With no one to blame but the changing wind. It took him a nightfall to know he was wrong Over birds and beds. Guarding the day’s unending apetites. they dream of a foodless heaven. pink-faced city. their darkness grew To insight in their day . all The long summers they abjured. kind. for chance Of better prospects. Polite of speech. Then closing time . As guardians of good taste. Blacker than mud their Tamil minds recall. . guarded. The rancid oils where sweeter dishes start. Stick in a language their clients won’t allow. Dark skins serving dishes to the sallow Sweat more night than grapesblood has . The jab.The Waiters Blacker than wine from the loaded grapes of France. Cooked. like a pick-up’s words. punctilious. Day’s ministry complete. Must button up their manners with the past. But slacken in their service after eleven. a sun of contrast. they stand aloof. the soot-black roof Behind our pasted smiles . change. Grow expert on the epicure’s stuffed heart. slip to their sleeping places In the threat of the feasted. the polish of our eating rites . Grow shift-eyed. their smudged eyes know The soiled and cluttered kitchens of the mind . Shrug of their coats like priestly coats of pity. avoid our munching faces . give notice to quit. sneak . decent. Shout. Test no beds. to-day. An expensive city is full of thieves. stay. Tenants to castle her lonely upkeep. their hands. Her blunt. she accuses the maid Of vulgarity . The lodgers.Landlady Mendelssohn Drab. whisper. . Discover their talents in the expensive city . Do not disturb. . with loosening talk. . who fidget no detail ajar. the expatriate landlady Mendelssohn. admits to a home Not hers. Accepts the uncoloured. punctually. but keeps her rents low Accepts on terms of decency alone. would fling the bowls. sagging. Time is a leakage somewhere. Outsized sackful of stones. sleep with the maid. Have no guests or pets or baths . where turrets serrate the breeze. Greets new arrivals . . Is uncertain of life on her gasringed mornings . But for a way of keeping decent. the less uneasy By stance. patriotic sexual knot. Circle in blenched clouds of spite Like pale poodles . burlesqued with breakfast. But for the decent lodgers. see she is paid In advance. She broods. her memories Housekeep solvently . breast. thigh . for an hour being Repulsive or true or false to different hands. or further complexity Wasting by dazed Golgotha for the sun. . halved apple. dust and sweat. Woman is soot. In soot and sweat she stands recovered : one The city sent birth-naked from its womb Becomes an essence : Venus from the sea. A vast complexity of flesh and bone relaxes Round a central lesson.The Model Among the naked sheets and unkempt faces Of sallow students a naked women stands . Wrinkled Medusa. Upon the nude sheets quick hands place Nape. dispassion tricks Second sight to fingers as they lift Her beauty from the city’s mauling hands And craft its lifelight from crushed charcoal sticks. Is the sign Auspicious ? Is The darkness good ? I confess These questions try My firm resolve To declare Eternal love For a bare Bald night. humped. She answers. Hunchbacked. But pray she hasn’t One : to stop A compromising Call to A red-eyed king For dubious dancers. The light goes out. Ostensibly To ask her for A penny.The Door My shadow sidles Up the door. Towards the door . . I knock. fluttering and waving poppies Pitch down a verge in tattered Ranks. Haystacks I watched the haystacks near Cambrai When the sun. revolts. where cartwheels crunched once Carrying arguing Whigs home. protest their ancient young. political field. But poppies in bloodstained times are rue For rememberance. uprisings : red flags Flutter and twist in paranthesis. Like a scarfdance by furious Cossack children. Like scales of a red dragon in Chinese streets. ugly Women with straw in their beards. With seeds the warm wind opened And puffed to every strawless quarter . With scythes in their teeth. to assault Threshers. They stood on their bossed field Like a row of bent. Spot the waving. . covered fields.Poppies For Marx Their redcoats cropped by the sustained sabres Of breeze. Stamped the round. yellow and tall. slouching. hulking. cackling. Flaunting. Flaunting. slouching. Pouting. Four ladies of Brussels.A Drinking Song For The Ladies One wore lace One drank gin One pressed moles One had scales. hinting. hulking. Sulking. Four ladies of Brussels. Four ladies of Brussels. Crowing. Three had breasts One talked shop One drank kisch One said merde ! Sulking. hulking. Flaunting. hulking. drinking. Flaunting. drinking. cackling. drinking. Two ate seeds. flouncing. . Crowing. One smoked rings One drank beer One wore gold Instead of teeth Sulking. One drank tonic One remarked Business was bad. Pouting. Sulking. drinking. flouncing. Four ladies of Brussels. flouncing. Pouting. Glinting. slouching. flouncing. passed Sulking. Crowing. Pouting. Glinting. drinking. slouching. hulking. . Flaunting. Leering. Four ladies of Brussels.Outside the cars Slunk away To sniff another Street . cackling. hinting. flouncing. steering. Keep. The sword falls dripping through the yellowing air. .Geneva Let me put out my welcome like a flag Of olive leaves to wrap you in my truce : Geneva : metropolis : one of the neutral cities Here to relax you. Smile. Peter’s. my vigil and valour. the streets darken . not one Built in a brickless desert of brick. as a souvenir. Let me console you. clockwork bear. mix in my cafes. or run With sores like children . sun-burnt backs Is all my shining citizens may (publicly) show. There are no clouds. by hands in bitterness. clockwork bear. nor stone From the sacked quarries of Greece . I wasn’t made between A sundown and sunrise in labour. fight A stuffed eagle and clapping. but spotless. in St. My fountain leaps a sixth of a mile in hope . And Peace a turbine humming in the deep . I do not rot. fertile. bless. love. A stuffed eagle and clapping. What do you see there ? A stuffed eagle and clapping. Or hands weeping over rubble . but over the dwarfed city. My museums — The voice cracks. Dwarfing the toy alps grotesquely. think of Jerusalem . eastern suns Breed maggots like brats . clockwork bear. The rest you may read in my eyes. my glazed shop-windows. but a white palace Sits on my green acres : from sheltered lands Troubled statesmen wear away its steps For you : I’ll bring you peace : I understand. streaked North like a startled bird.Evening On a Mountain The valley sunned itself all day. The ears straining at each rebound . . . A cloud. then the shadows Crossed like wings across its back . prows snipping . Deflecting the words stoned across the valley. . further. . far off. stitching Silk into its cotton. its span Curving up two foothills . How still it was then ! the sky thin and hollow. launched from a rock. Ferries embroidered a slim lake. wet and slack. Paris afternoons . While the hunched and huddled shapes Exude peculiar musky odours Of strongly acid piss and sweat. red. A woman propped against the calm Storehouse. Their mouths hang open. Three clochards prolonging night. Sqeaking in the fevered light. crooks a ragged arm Across the sleeper or her lap. gold and white Cadence by the huddled forms : Comme si elle voit en toute forme La lumiere et la douceur. Their faces capped against the sun Shine like full-moons. azure. Sleeping in the gaudy suns Of noisy. While women.Les Clochards Three figures Rodin might have carved Or Daumier drawn : three clochards Slouch on a shelf outside the Louvre. bloated. While baskets stuffed with straw and bread Squat around them : wasted ones. With sunlight tumbling down the black hollow in their toothless heads. . La Jocande ? Oui — and up the steps . Aspects of you.) This head you call delightful’s My last cornfield. And this cicatrixed car were best Forgotten. . And this. At best. At An Exhibition of Selfportraits By Van Gogh Black ties will be worn 27 of my aspects stare at you. as to a funeral. I will always remember certain dreams Associated with your serving the petite mademoiselle Un cafe au lait—for that was when you looked Most like God when He fell in love With Himself and Beauty and forget His uglier clients. These are burns in Provence. lady. And you come wearing black All over. mine was a troubled conviction (Not your fastidious kind. where the sharpened sticks Of sunlight stabbed against my face. savaged by crows. sir.A La Reine Blanche Garcon. Gauntlet The sun flayed to shreds by branches When fleeing through a birchwood : This barbarity seen in England through a coach. II Rain fell like a drizzle of fine slag On an anonymous town in smudged Derbyshire. . 5 o’clock. One senses danger. sidling dog. I counted sixty chimneys in a quarter The size of a burgher’s courtyard. No alighting or descending the steps of its drizzling doors. no pattering movement On roads of sliding newspaper. Pieces of smoke litter the huddled town — Card collage on felt . wondered at smoke Sliding edgeways through the dawn’s widening slats. checked. or why We broke our journey . Halt X I I do not know what station this is. A flock of pigeons dissolved in the viscid air Like a piece of mud in a current . here in Derbyshire. disquietude only. A streetlamp craned its neck for the spreading frogs. But children throwing stones. Violence is a culture found on playgrounds. Cities fall to let their children breathe. as I pass above their sardined tops. I would press my bones into the bony Shoulders of these scarred homes.A Bomb-site As if the broken stumps were a girl’s Starved shoulders . as if the dusty rubble Were her hair starfished across a pillow. trenched behind mounds. . I would push my fingers through its grit. Unsatisfied with spotless skies of peace. concealed . Holler and kill and crumple like stale newsheets. And I begin to count my enemies. Reach out and grasp and clean the greasy tin. . .A Prospect Of Oxford The roundabouts of shadow turn the domes And windows click and glitter in the light. And should some Terror pitch the towers down. the pale City’s made unreal by the height. open palm. .” camouflaged in leaves and sticks. Nervesprings snap and silent heads explode. This prospect will remain behind my eyes. The sundial cannot hold the spinning hours. Under an Autumn wheel of clouds. And I see things in quite a different light. our lives are timed. Towers crowd a broad. A river cut in black : coloured. A train goes cutting through the stones with smoke . calm Rafts flow up and down this asphalt Styx . our tongues run down. A sundial stares its signal from a wall . And “soldiers. The city made unreal by the height. . Trees and rooftops scribble up its fingers . . . Downstairs. Idle on hills or guard the chapel towers. Carpenter. Where the dog sniffs. I swim. Professor Dunbarton.Two Cuttings I. Collapsed ( but placidly ) over his Decline and Fall. track His sources. But please. please. retired from the University of Allahabad. from “The Times” II. Mr. . Obits. on leave from the University of Osaka. From book after book of the poet’s reading. would follow where he has gone. Was cut down by silent samurai on casual horses Before he could touch it. The Academician Where the fish swims through seas of books. not on the Acheron. Leaving his letters to inspect the Japanese fir on his lawn. so do I. David And was the palace empty when the boy. Grained in the planks of ceremony. Cleft on the dented javelin. distant sheep. Know what brought him here To see. brushed the harp With thumbs of wood. but the world. thudding dull. courtyard laughter.Fog grey grey grey the invisible tern cries When smoke hangs wet and rises painfully Lord. Squat in a clang the ringing room vibrated. Flesh and devil crowd in my skull like smoke. fall to the invisible river. Its film panicked to rings around its fear ? And did he hear those feet pace The hall. unwilling To light its wires . left in the cold courts of Saul. like charred paper Over the fuming stoke Furnaces. Saul’s cracked tear ? . his heart a jug of water. what vacant songs rise ? My songs. Supposing you and I ( connective. let me ( for your own health ) Withdraw behind my gaze and preach a homely Homily Empirically Logically Methodically On the analogy Of you and me And tea. DESPAIR ! Is this all we amount to ? To steam. Deep in the tea-pots streaming void I stare Like William Yeats into his youth and try To read the leaves — A Stranger. To make a brew For a vague mouth ( we. A monstrous joke has just occurred to me. knew ) For Love whose face we dare not see On pain of death : who sips his tea Serenely Contentedly Incumbently Buddha drinking tea-wine out of china ! . we ) Were nothing more than two young leaves of tea Being in hot water Continuously Excessively Dispensably We’d solve the age-old problems easily. to sweat to stew. though you hold the tea-pot nicely. once-kissed. and pour The brew precisely. Death.Tea In The Universities Dear. The sun plates our outside bright with silver ( Since were been up in space. . since I Maintain Consistently Persistently Precisely.While in time We line our habitation in with lime. Alan Shepard. 1961. we know we Look quite Heavenly Azurely Leisurely What a beautiful blue ! Maj. that People in hot water clung like tea. Book VI — line 309) — or His bloodhound Dante’s. Never again will I drink cups of tea Madly. ) Letting the Great Tea-Taster pour us out In boiling water from the spout Interlocked more Firmly Than Virgil’s damned — those Autumn leaves in Hell (ref. O so Gladly. May 5th. April 12th 1961. Boy! What a view! Mr. Gagarin. The sea broke its crust Across our newfound land Summer ended thin When jackboot traders crossed Our island babble through. Over the whistling wheat The sun danced on and on. II Some took the song to heart. The sea flashed like tin. As. Some went out to grass Midocean. Dispeopled. out of mind. at the Gates of Wrath. some blind.The Song I it was a winter’s song The bright sea brought. Stood in the sharp waves And scrawled the full say Of the grave. some woke To knowledge of the grain The settling tribe had sown. Found the sowers gone . crippled. through the ignorant years. Out went the tepid sun ! Some went dumb. Their wordseeds mouldered white About their lock-jawed tongues. Some. Their tongues’ grain. Muddled children : some woke Twisted. past all wit. confessing sea. rock . stone. . grew To scorn the marks . Some sailed out to gain Palms from the temperate grass. drinking miles Of death to a luminous floor. To each a winters death. Thundered. A piebald language stamped Presumptious hooves on green. Their field’s page. one crossing later. . Where no one land is true. Make music from their skins. Out by the lyrical bay.III Three years. Edge of day enrols me In a scroll of words And rolls me out at night. Deck my bones with theirs. I stop on all hundreds. Harboured in its spell. The siren-maddened. And all I would undo. And on and on I dance. Nick charms out of their ribs. confessing sea. Inlay rock with dust. all England. drowned . And I dance with the tepid sun ! Dance without rhyme or reason For the grave. All magnitudes. skins Of dead companies lie— Companions of the quest. teeth. Out by a crowded bay Where bones. Out of the shrill water Bobbing words stitch A furrow through my throat. it was The boat-tipping sea taught me : change of home. fought With sickles and knives in markets (my father working. Fingering a rough photograph of a burning train. The sky bunched and sprouted like a scissored paper-tree. the ill and crippled came to my father. further from speech. trained ( Who’s winning to-day ? Are we on the side of the Germans ? ) My enemy tongue to mark time silently while the rest spoke treason. shook Black peacock wood. A stream of glucose flowed through a rickety wood in my chest. devi. nearer a sea-change brought me. grey dragon-flies. Why should I praise your formalities ? School was a treason To bursting ! it was your street-cries and great-grilled palms. My head sucked at the stroke. blew away with shocks-a steamer explodes. devi. The sea-gulls dropped like spent metal in the hissing water. three reports of cloud Hit rooms musical with gramophone rhymes : ’44. like a bullock’s tongue bellowing War . I drew Fear and Love to my room : jerking straws of lightning snapped : the sky splashed on the sea .A Letter For Bombay April 14th . the red acrobat of my first circus fell to the floor. ’45 . Yellow triangles of butterfly. The eclipsed streets gave up their hovelled dead . then Partition. away) Afraid if he did not return before the curfew-bell tolled seven up the hill where I stayed. and the packed rain burst Against the clouding house in wave after wave of applause . Crowds rolled out on the street. . save That it drove me away. In a pouch wriggling against my ribs. I wander like a mediaeval apothecary Abroad. I unmake Manners : they say one does not return to an early romance Improperly conducted : and I believe it true. those careless. gardened days. divided city. . combine. And I shall return and pass beyond your storm. not wholly without potency. Of age That shapes me make of splash and grit. I make an end. next year’s children or the aged woods. Lacking a legendary muse. April again : Devi. Should you refuse—the rack of your hovels raising only your voice Still further—demand nothing . instruct me in my art. Manners maketh me UnMan. and whether The rain praised by performance. Manners alter. I carry a quintessence of you.Then I saw they were over. Away. give my chaos form. rocks like yours. I do not know. touch me only as far As the parted psyche can stand . I come of age. interior streams Invisible hands raise The accusing lights of the tattered blood’s flags. disordered. eagles. more beautiful than swan or waterbird.The Flags Wavering loads of winter are being whipped Off the flags as they whirr and flap On barges . whose blank masks gape out of season At the tiny. . creaking in their first Unparcelling this year. Denied their punctual withering . Surviving winter’s fractures. or bright anemone Against the thin green . relevant leaves. misapplied A frozen artifice on the natural will — Actors. colour of crocus. Brown pieces of sun. These only wandering. unchanging blaze of artificial things That cannot moult or die : like the broad flags. side by side . fat . and cracks. the stiff Cloth ripples in the chilly air. who. While all along their choked. Time for retribution : for the natural order to assert The bland. crosses. drab. Flying planes of colour flick the spring Trees. encouraged.The Spiders Spiders cower along the wall. There’s no trapped companion. will not bring. English Spiders. . Labourers far too suave to sing . There’s no silk to stuff the crack. Wind blow gentle. Who build and drop and build again . wind blow curbed between the window’s sparkling cracks Spiders must not be disturbed. For there’s no wool to stop the cold. They hear mere noises. disjointed. But webbed in English ironies I cough and note the beaded blue-green neck retracted against the wings . Yet the Chinese say these quaint boxes Play distinct melodies In tune with the hidden intricate stars the dipping dragon-flies. Floating. Like pedants gabbling. . Too bad for the ears England has plugged With its contempt four years now.Drake The Chinese would know how to paint it — This duck’s simple stillness — Sealed web of flesh and bone. Discordant. but playing no notable tune. charged with spikes. jarring. the rushes. the squat wooden shape compact as a walnut music-box. blind. We dropped like jackfruit by the hunters’ guns. beggars. Or tore like paper on your sizzling wires. . and shutting up your ears Scrambled for cover. while we dived and bombed Peasants. When she admonished Satan in her prayers. Manchild. Bats.Bats Shut in our jackets by the pale-green figs We clung a branch and slept. We flew away to give her peace of mind. rich fathers. We sensed her shadow trembling on the twigs . richer sons. remember what doctrinal fears Flapped up when you saw not flying-fox Nor dog nor mouse when hunting arms brought back So many pink-tongued babies in a box. till dawn exposed The town and your grandmother praying . bats you cried. shatter our pedantic calm With the stark. in the later season Of bees and chestnuts. as though Under your necks you were cats. You were so gentle. February. whether the cold Had cut your throats. your night’s cage. Watched your strengthening wing-bones flap and lift Your cut bodies into the flaying chestnut — Its bole of branches. unreal fire of your call So that our masks crack and mouths speak Against the clear poise of these pretending walls . albinos. Flames under the snow. or. pressed Over the warmth the sun in winter lays Deep in the shut. outcry the sun . in the opening month We heard your jarring cries Flash out like scratched steel. . even the snow frightened you As you squirmed for cover under Its impossible hail of grubs : their boxes Melted in your beaks. In the muted gardens steady sinking. .White Peacocks At first we wondered. . . March. as we watched you lie Like bales of unmelted snow. Terror smothered by grace. then. incubating earth. Now. Your glide back to earth. And the prevalence of coarser things. muscular flight. Why should a scribbler’s moral of silence and exile Enter our perfect relationship : your hundred eyes Dancing in Time and mine ? Sufficient the moral in my nearing departure. 1961 .As long as I see your swift. your fan of eyes.