Written by
Barry Tebb |
For Brenda Williams
La lune diminue; divin septembre.
Divine September the moon wanes.
Pierre Jean Jouve
Themes for poems and the detritus of dreams coalesce:
This is one September I shall not forget.
The grammar-school caretaker always had the boards re-blacked
And the floors waxed, but I never shone.
The stripes of the red and black blazer
Were prison-grey. You could never see things that way:
Your home had broken windows to the street.
You had the mortification of lice in your hair
While I had the choice of Brylcreem or orange pomade.
Four children, an alcoholic father and
An Irish immigrant mother. Failure’s metaphor.
I did not make it like Alan Bennett,
Who still sends funny postcards
About our Leeds childhood.
Of your’s, you could never speak
And found my nostalgia
Wholly inappropriate.
Forgetting your glasses for the eleven plus,
No money for the uniform for the pass at thirteen.
It wasn’t - as I imagined - shame that kept you from telling
But fear of the consequences for your mother
Had you sobbed the night’s terrors
Of your father’s drunken homecomings,
Your mother sat with the door open
In all weathers while you, the oldest,
Waited with her, perhaps
Something might have been done.
He never missed a day’s work digging graves,
Boasting he could do a six-footer
Single-handed in two hours flat.
That hackneyed phrase
‘He drank all his wages’
Doesn’t convey his nightly rages
The flow of obscenities about menstruation
While the three younger ones were in bed
And you waited with your mother
To walk the streets of Seacroft.
“Your father murdered your mother”
As Auntie Margaret said,
Should a witness
Need indicting.
Your mother’s growing cancer went diagnosed, but unremarked
Until the final days
She was too busy auxiliary nursing
Or working in the Lakeside Caf?.
It was her wages that put bread and jam
And baked beans into your stomachs.
Her final hospitalisation
Was the arena for your father’s last rage
Her fare interfering with the night’s drinking;
He fought in the Burma Campaign but won no medals.
Some kind of psychiatric discharge- ‘paranoia’
Lurked in his papers. The madness went undiagnosed
Until his sixtieth birthday. You never let me meet him
Even after our divorce.
In the end you took me on a visit with the children.
A neat flat with photographs of grandchildren,
Stacks of wood for the stove, washing hung precisely
In the kitchen, a Sunday suit in the wardrobe.
An unwrinkling of smiles, the hard handshake
Of work-roughened hands.
One night he smashed up the tidy flat.
The TV screen was powder
The clock ticked on the neat lawn
‘Murder in Seacroft Hospital’
Emblazoned on the kitchen wall.
I went with you and your sister in her car to Roundhay Wing.
Your sister had to leave for work or sleep
You had to back to meet the children from school.
For Ward 42 it wasn’t an especially difficult admission.
My first lesson: I shut one set of firedoors while the charge nurse
Bolted the other but after five minutes his revolt
Was over and he signed the paper.
The nurse on nights had a sociology degree
And an interest in borderline schizophrenia.
After lightsout we chatted about Kohut and Kernberg
And Melanie Klein. Your father was occasionally truculent,
Barricading himself in on one home leave. Nothing out of the way
For a case of that kind. The old ladies on the estate sighed,
Single men were very scarce. Always a gentleman, tipping
His cap to the ladies.
There seems to be objections in the family to poetry
Or at least to the kind that actually speaks
And fails to lie down quietly on command.
Yours seems to have set mine alight-
I must get something right.
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Written by
Matthew Prior |
[To the right honourable Mr. Harley]
Dear Dick, how e'er it comes into his head,
Believes, as firmly as he does his creed,
That you and I, sir, are extremely great;
Though I plain Mat, you minister of state.
One word from me, without all doubt, he says,
Would fix his fortune in some little place.
Thus better than myself, it seems, he knows
How far my interest with my patron goes;
And answering all objections I can make,
Still plunges deeper in his dear mistake.
From this wild fancy, sir, there may proceed
One wilder yet, which I foresee, and dread;
That I, in fact, a real interest have,
Which to my own advantage I would save,
And, with the usual courtier's trick, intend
To serve myself, forgetful of my friend.
To shun this censure, I all shame lay by,
And make my reason with his will comply;
Hoping, for my excuse, 'twill be confest,
That of two evils I have chose the least.
So, sir, with this epistolary scroll,
Receive the partner of my inmost soul:
Him you will find in letters, and in laws
Not unexpert, firm to his country's cause,
Warm in the glorious interest you pursue,
And, in one word, a good man and a true.
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Written by
Paul Laurence Dunbar |
I 've been watchin' of 'em, parson,
An' I 'm sorry fur to say
'At my mind is not contented
With the loose an' keerless way
'At the young folks treat the music;
'T ain't the proper sort o' choir.
Then I don't believe in Christuns
A-singin' hymns for hire.
But I never would 'a' murmured
An' the matter might 'a' gone
Ef it was n't fur the antics
'At I've seen 'em kerry on;
So I thought it was my dooty
Fur to come to you an' ask
Ef you would n't sort o' gently
Take them singin' folks to task.
Fust, the music they 've be'n singin'
Will disgrace us mighty soon;
It 's a cross between a opry
An' a ol' cotillion tune.
With its dashes an' its quavers
An' its hifalutin style—
Why, it sets my head to swimmin'
When I 'm comin' down the aisle.
Now it might be almost decent
Ef it was n't fur the way
'At they git up there an' sing it,
Hey dum diddle, loud and gay.
Why, it shames the name o' sacred
In its brazen wordliness,
An' they 've even got "Ol' Hundred"
In a bold, new-fangled dress.
You 'll excuse me, Mr. Parson,
Ef I seem a little sore;
But I 've sung the songs of Isr'el
For threescore years an' more,
An' it sort o' hurts my feelin's
Fur to see 'em put away
Fur these harum-scarum ditties
'At is capturin' the day.
There 's anuther little happ'nin'
'At I 'll mention while I 'm here,
Jes' to show 'at my objections
All is offered sound and clear.
It was one day they was singin'
An' was doin' well enough—
Singin' good as people could sing
Sich an awful mess o' stuff—
When the choir give a holler,
An' the organ give a groan,
An' they left one weak-voiced feller
A-singin' there alone!
But he stuck right to the music,
[Pg 40]Tho' 't was tryin' as could be;
An' when I tried to help him,
Why, the hull church scowled at me.
You say that's so-low singin',
Well, I pray the Lord that I
Growed up when folks was willin'
To sing their hymns so high.
Why, we never had sich doin's
In the good ol' Bethel days,
When the folks was all contented
With the simple songs of praise.
Now I may have spoke too open,
But 'twas too hard to keep still,
An' I hope you 'll tell the singers
'At I bear 'em no ill-will.
'At they all may git to glory
Is my wish an' my desire,
But they 'll need some extry trainin'
'Fore they jine the heavenly choir.
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Written by
Robert Burns |
GUID speed and furder to you, Johnie,
Guid health, hale han’s, an’ weather bonie;
Now, when ye’re nickin down fu’ cannie
The staff o’ bread,
May ye ne’er want a stoup o’ bran’y
To clear your head.
May Boreas never thresh your rigs,
Nor kick your rickles aff their legs,
Sendin the stuff o’er muirs an’ haggs
Like drivin wrack;
But may the tapmost grain that wags
Come to the sack.
I’m bizzie, too, an’ skelpin at it,
But bitter, daudin showers hae wat it;
Sae my auld stumpie pen I gat it
Wi’ muckle wark,
An’ took my jocteleg an whatt it,
Like ony clark.
It’s now twa month that I’m your debtor,
For your braw, nameless, dateless letter,
Abusin me for harsh ill-nature
On holy men,
While deil a hair yoursel’ ye’re better,
But mair profane.
But let the kirk-folk ring their bells,
Let’s sing about our noble sel’s:
We’ll cry nae jads frae heathen hills
To help, or roose us;
But browster wives an’ whisky stills,
They are the muses.
Your friendship, Sir, I winna quat it,
An’ if ye mak’ objections at it,
Then hand in neive some day we’ll knot it,
An’ witness take,
An’ when wi’ usquabae we’ve wat it
It winna break.
But if the beast an’ branks be spar’d
Till kye be gaun without the herd,
And a’ the vittel in the yard,
An’ theekit right,
I mean your ingle-side to guard
Ae winter night.
Then muse-inspirin’ aqua-vitae
Shall make us baith sae blythe and witty,
Till ye forget ye’re auld an’ gatty,
An’ be as canty
As ye were nine years less than thretty—
Sweet ane an’ twenty!
But stooks are cowpit wi’ the blast,
And now the sinn keeks in the west,
Then I maun rin amang the rest,
An’ quat my chanter;
Sae I subscribe myself’ in haste,
Yours, Rab the Ranter.Sept. 13, 1785.
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