Written by
Philip Larkin |
In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be.
High above the gutter
A silver knife sinks into golden butter,
A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and
Well-balanced families, in fine
Midsummer weather, owe their smiles, their cars,
Even their youth, to that small cube each hand
Stretches towards.
These, and the deep armchairs
Aligned to cups at bedtime, radiant bars
(Gas or electric), quarter-profile cats
By slippers on warm mats,
Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares
They dominate outdoors.
Rather, they rise
Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam,
Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes
That stare beyond this world, where nothing's made
As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home
All such inhabit.
There, dark raftered pubs
Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs,
And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents
Just missed them, as the pensioner paid
A halfpenny more for Granny Graveclothes' Tea
To taste old age, and dying smokers sense
Walking towards them through some dappled park
As if on water that unfocused she
No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near,
Who now stands newly clear,
Smiling, and recognising, and going dark.
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Written by
Barry Tebb |
Arriving for a reading an hour too early:
Ruefully, the general manager stopped putting out the chairs.
“You don’t get any help these days.
I have
To sort out everything from furniture to faxes.
Why not wander round the park? There are ducks
And benches where you can sit and watch.
”
I realized it was going to be a hungry evening
With not even a packet of crisps in sight.
I parked my friend on a bench and wandered
Down Highgate Hill, realising where I was
From the Waterlow Unit and the Whittington’s A&E.
Some say they know their way by the pubs
But I find psychiatric units more useful.
At a reading like this you never know just who
Might have a do and need some Haldol fast.
(Especially if the poet hovering round sanity’s border
Should chance upon the critic who thinks his Word
Is law and order - the first’s a devotee of a Krishna cult
For rich retirees; the second wrote a good book once
On early Hughes, but goes off if you don’t share his
‘Thought through views’).
In the event the only happening was a turbanned Sikh
Having a go at an Arts Council guru leaning in a stick.
I remembered Martin Bell’s story of how Scannell the boxer
Broke - was it Redgrove’s brolly? - over his head and had
To hide in the Gents till time was called.
James Simmons boasted of how the pint he threw
At Anthony Thwaite hit Geoffrey Hill instead.
O, for the company of the missing and the dead
Martin Bell, Wendy Oliver, Iris and Ted.
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Written by
Vernon Scannell |
The bar he went inside was not
A place he often visited;
He welcomed anonymity;
No one to switch inquisitive
Receivers on, no one could see,
Or wanted to, exactly what
He was, or had been, or would be;
A quiet brown place, a place to drink
And let thought simmer like good stock,
No mirrors to distract, no fat
And calculating face of clock,
A good calm place to sip and think.
If anybody noticed that
He was even there they'd see
A fairly tall and slender man,
Fair-haired, blue-eyed, and handsome in
A manner strictly masculine.
They would not know, or want to know,
More than what they saw of him,
Nor would they wish to bug the bone
Walls of skull and listen in
To whatever whisperings
Pittered quietly in that dark:
An excellent place to sip your gin.
Then---sting of interruption! voice
Pierced the private walls and shook
His thoughtful calm with delicate shock.
A waiter, with white napkin face
And shining toe-cap hair, excused
The oiled intrusion, asking if
His name was what indeed it was.
In that case he was wanted on
The telephone the customers used,
The one next to the Gents.
He went.
Inside the secretive warm box
He heard his wife's voice, strangled by
Distance, darkness, coils of wire,
But unmistakably her voice,
Asking why he was so late,
Why did he humiliate
Her in every way he could,
Make her life so hard to face?
She'd telephoned most bars in town
Before she'd finally tracked him down.
He said that he'd been working late
And slipped in for a quick one on
His weary journey home.
He'd come
Back at once.
Right now.
Toot sweet.
No, not another drop.
Not one.
Back in the bar, he drank his gin
And ordered just one more, the last.
And just as well: his peace had gone;
The place no longer welcomed him.
He saw the waiter moving past,
That pale ambassador of gloom,
And called him over, asked him how
He had known which customer
To summon to the telephone.
The waiter said, 'Your wife described
You, sir.
I knew you instantly.
'
'And how did she describe me, then,
That I'm so easily recognized?'
'She said: grey suit, cream shirt, blue tie,
That you were fairly tall, red-faced,
Stout, middle-aged, and going bald.
'
Disbelief cried once and sat
Bolt upright, then it fell back dead.
'Stout middle-aged and going bald.
'
The slender ghost with golden hair
Watched him go into the cold
Dark outside, heard his slow tread
Fade towards wife, armchair, and bed.
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