Written by
Elizabeth Bishop |
Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
that cross the sky from cinder star to star,
coupling the ends of streets
to trains of light.
now draw us into daylight in our beds;
and clear away what presses on the brain:
put out the neon shapes
that float and swell and glare
down the gray avenue between the eyes
in pinks and yellows, letters and twitching signs.
Hang-over moons, wane, wane!
From the window I see
an immense city, carefully revealed,
made delicate by over-workmanship,
detail upon detail,
cornice upon facade,
reaching up so languidly up into
a weak white sky, it seems to waver there.
(Where it has slowly grown
in skies of water-glass
from fused beads of iron and copper crystals,
the little chemical "garden" in a jar
trembles and stands again,
pale blue, blue-green, and brick.
)
The sparrows hurriedly begin their play.
Then, in the West, "Boom!" and a cloud of smoke.
"Boom!" and the exploding ball
of blossom blooms again.
(And all the employees who work in a plants
where such a sound says "Danger," or once said "Death,"
turn in their sleep and feel
the short hairs bristling
on backs of necks.
) The cloud of smoke moves off.
A shirt is taken of a threadlike clothes-line.
Along the street below
the water-wagon comes
throwing its hissing, snowy fan across
peelings and newspapers.
The water dries
light-dry, dark-wet, the pattern
of the cool watermelon.
I hear the day-springs of the morning strike
from stony walls and halls and iron beds,
scattered or grouped cascades,
alarms for the expected:
***** cupids of all persons getting up,
whose evening meal they will prepare all day,
you will dine well
on his heart, on his, and his,
so send them about your business affectionately,
dragging in the streets their unique loves.
Scourge them with roses only,
be light as helium,
for always to one, or several, morning comes
whose head has fallen over the edge of his bed,
whose face is turned
so that the image of
the city grows down into his open eyes
inverted and distorted.
No.
I mean
distorted and revealed,
if he sees it at all.
|
Written by
Barry Tebb |
It brings to mind Swift leaving a fortune to Dublin
‘For the founding of a lunatic asylum - no place needs it more’.
The breathing beauty of the moors and cheap accommodation
Drew me but the total barbarity of the town stopped me from
Writing a single line: from the hideous facade of its railway
Station - Betjeman must have been drunk or mad to praise it -
To that lump of stone on Castle Hill - her savage spirit broods.
I remember trying to teach there, at Bradley, where the head
Was some kind of ex-P.
T.
teacher, who thought poetry something
You did to children and his workaholic jackass deputy, obsessed
With practical science and lesson preparation and team teaching
And everything on, above and beneath the earth except ‘The Education
Of the Poetic Spirit’ and without that and as an example of what
Pound meant about how a country treats its poets "is a measure
Of its civilisation".
I once had a holiday job in a mill and the
Nightwatchman’s killer alsatian had more civilisation than
Huddersfield’s Deputy Direction of Education.
For a while I was granted temporary asylum at Royds Hall -
At least some of the staff there had socialism if not art -
But soon it was spoilt for everyone when Jenks came to head
English, sweating for his OU degree and making us all suffer,
The kids hating his sarcasm and the staff his vaulting ambition
And I was the only one not afraid of him.
His Achilles’ heel was
Culture - he was a yob through and through - and the Head said to me
"I’ve had enough of him throwing his weight around, if it comes
To a showdown I’ll back you against him any day" but he got
The degree and the job and the dollars - my old T.
C.
took him
But that was typical, after Roy Rich went came a fat appointee
Who had written nothing and knew nothing but knew everyone on
The appointing committee.
Everyday I was in Huddersfield I thought I was in hell and
Sartre was right and so was Jonson - "Hell’s a grammar school
To this" - too (Peter Porter I salute you!) and always I dreamed
Of Leeds and my beautiful gifted ten-year olds and Sheila, my
Genius-child-poet and a head who left me alone to teach poetry
And painting day in, day out and Dave Clark and Diane and I,
In the staffroom discussing phenomenology and daseinanalysis
Applied to Dewey’s theory of education and the essence of the
Forms in Plato and Plotinus and plaiting a rose in Sheila’s
Hair and Johns, the civilised HMI, asking for a copy of my poems
And Horovitz putting me in ‘Children of Albion’ and ‘The
Statesman’ giving me good reviews.
Decades later, in Byram Arcade, I am staring at the facade of
‘The Poetry Business’ and its proprietors sitting on the steps
Outside, trying to look civilised and their letter, "Your poetry
Is good but its not our kind" and I wondered what their kind was
And besides they’re not my kind of editor and I’m back in Leeds
With a letter from Seamus Heaney - thank you, Nobel Laureate, for
Liking ‘My Perfect Rose’ and yes, you’re right about my wanting
To get those New Generation Poets into my classroom at Wyther
Park and show them a thing or two and a phone call from
Horovitz who is my kind of editor still, after thirty years,
His mellifluous voice with its blend of an Oxford accent and
American High Camp, so warm and full of knowledge and above all
PASSIONATE ABOUT POETRY and I remember someone saying,
"If Oxford is the soul of England, Huddersfield is its arsehole".
|
Written by
Amy Lowell |
Bath
The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is
a smell of tulips and narcissus
in the air.
The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and
bores through the water
in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white.
It
cleaves the water
into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of
the water and dance, dance,
and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir
of my finger
sets them whirring, reeling.
I move a foot, and the planes
of light
in the water jar.
I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white
water,
the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me.
The day is
almost
too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright
day.
I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots.
The sky is blue and high.
A crow flaps
by the window, and there is
a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.
Breakfast Table
In the fresh-washed sunlight, the breakfast table
is decked and white.
It offers itself in flat surrender, tendering tastes, and smells,
and colours, and metals, and grains, and the white cloth falls over
its side,
draped and wide.
Wheels of white glitter in the silver
coffee-pot,
hot and spinning like catherine-wheels, they whirl, and twirl --
and my eyes
begin to smart, the little white, dazzling wheels prick them like
darts.
Placid and peaceful, the rolls of bread spread themselves in the
sun to bask.
A stack of butter-pats, pyramidal, shout orange through the white,
scream,
flutter, call: "Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!" Coffee
steam rises in a stream,
clouds the silver tea-service with mist, and twists up into the
sunlight,
revolved, involuted, suspiring higher and higher, fluting in a thin
spiral
up the high blue sky.
A crow flies by and croaks at the
coffee steam.
The day is new and fair with good smells in the air.
Walk
Over the street the white clouds meet, and sheer
away without touching.
On the sidewalks, boys are playing marbles.
Glass
marbles,
with amber and blue hearts, roll together and part with a sweet
clashing noise.
The boys strike them with black and red
striped agates.
The glass marbles spit crimson when they are hit, and slip into
the gutters
under rushing brown water.
I smell tulips and narcissus
in the air,
but there are no flowers anywhere, only white dust whipping up the
street,
and a girl with a gay Spring hat and blowing skirts.
The
dust and the wind
flirt at her ankles and her neat, high-heeled patent leather shoes.
Tap,
tap,
the little heels pat the pavement, and the wind rustles among the
flowers
on her hat.
A water-cart crawls slowly on the other side of
the way.
It is green and gay
with new paint, and rumbles contentedly, sprinkling clear water
over
the white dust.
Clear zigzagging water, which smells
of tulips and narcissus.
The thickening branches make a pink `grisaille'
against the blue sky.
Whoop! The clouds go dashing at each
other and sheer away just in time.
Whoop! And a man's hat careers down the street in front
of the white dust,
leaps into the branches of a tree, veers away and trundles ahead
of the wind,
jarring the sunlight into spokes of rose-colour and green.
A motor-car cuts a swathe through the bright air,
sharp-beaked, irresistible,
shouting to the wind to make way.
A glare of dust and
sunshine
tosses together behind it, and settles down.
The sky
is quiet and high,
and the morning is fair with fresh-washed air.
Midday and Afternoon
Swirl of crowded streets.
Shock and
recoil of traffic.
The stock-still
brick facade of an old church, against which the waves of people
lurch and withdraw.
Flare of sunshine down side-streets.
Eddies
of light
in the windows of chemists' shops, with their blue, gold, purple
jars,
darting colours far into the crowd.
Loud bangs and tremors,
murmurings out of high windows, whirring of machine belts,
blurring of horses and motors.
A quick spin and shudder
of brakes
on an electric car, and the jar of a church-bell knocking against
the metal blue of the sky.
I am a piece of the town,
a bit of blown dust,
thrust along with the crowd.
Proud to feel the pavement
under me,
reeling with feet.
Feet tripping, skipping, lagging,
dragging,
plodding doggedly, or springing up and advancing on firm elastic
insteps.
A boy is selling papers, I smell them clean and new from the press.
They are fresh like the air, and pungent as tulips and narcissus.
The blue sky pales to lemon, and great tongues
of gold blind the shop-windows,
putting out their contents in a flood of flame.
Night and Sleep
The day takes her ease in slippered yellow.
Electric
signs gleam out
along the shop fronts, following each other.
They grow,
and grow,
and blow into patterns of fire-flowers as the sky fades.
Trades
scream
in spots of light at the unruffled night.
Twinkle, jab,
snap, that means
a new play; and over the way: plop, drop, quiver, is
the sidelong
sliver of a watchmaker's sign with its length on another street.
A gigantic mug of beer effervesces to the atmosphere over a tall
building,
but the sky is high and has her own stars, why should she heed ours?
I leave the city with speed.
Wheels
whirl to take me back to my trees
and my quietness.
The breeze which blows with me is fresh-washed
and clean,
it has come but recently from the high sky.
There are
no flowers
in bloom yet, but the earth of my garden smells of tulips and narcissus.
My room is tranquil and friendly.
Out
of the window I can see
the distant city, a band of twinkling gems, little flower-heads
with no stems.
I cannot see the beer-glass, nor the letters of the restaurants
and shops
I passed, now the signs blur and all together make the city,
glowing on a night of fine weather, like a garden stirring and blowing
for the Spring.
The night is fresh-washed and fair and there is
a whiff of flowers in the air.
Wrap me close, sheets of lavender.
Pour
your blue and purple dreams
into my ears.
The breeze whispers at the shutters and
mutters
***** tales of old days, and cobbled streets, and youths leaping
their horses
down marble stairways.
Pale blue lavender, you are the
colour of the sky
when it is fresh-washed and fair .
.
.
I smell the stars .
.
.
they
are like
tulips and narcissus .
.
.
I smell them in the air.
|