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It is the way I breathe through chronic terrifying ferns through a black ungracious stoma it is this uranium rejoinder this impact pointing backwards & when witnessed causes observers to panic to blur & forget & to flee they can’t see my approach my wayward dorsal looming my lettering in black drizzle it is my approach my weaving my sigil as curved embankment therefore I can never name myself or plot myself according to the sparks or the splinters from the work bench dazed ruthless with salivation with my awkward insular roaming I am like a few darkened eaglets riveted against the moon then I am brought to a table by deafness feasting with herons which spins me by embranglement by in-circular abatement always seeking to have me neutered beneath my derma so as to talk to myself so as to cancel my structureless scrutiny they speak of me as lawless as despicable as a typhoon in a sea well as to morals as to fixed & accelerated combination they fix me as deserted bereft as a fragment from a starving lion’s compendium I am considered as pointless positron without image as hieroglyph as sundial as martyr being leakage from a barbarous index province

make you aching upwards of a teenage broken phone come to hear underwater libraries up the side of the dinner plate a little too fast not ungrateful like some of  these bastards around here can’t tap out a tune with you looking away genies of not enough sleep a happier location for the war not the easiest thing you realize beautiful architecture refreshing beverages our signs read hello love us for

The owner smiles as if she knows me and pulls out a chair. Beside the doorway a copper basin lies on its side. Nana Ross had one just like it, in the kitchen, behind the grocery shop. As a child I imagined my soul was that color and sanctifying grace was red, dripping rosary-like, a kind of divine sweat that smelt of frankincense, myrrh, milk and straw. By age nine I had committed a mortal sin, let Nicki Walshe touch me there and didn’t tell, made a bad confession, took communion paper thin and white on my black-spotted tongue. Nana sprinkled us with holy water, gave me a blessed rosary from Lourdes, all blue and purple it was, but I lost it like I lost the library book, sins mounting up; the row over contraception with a priest in the confessional box in Stillorgan. Sister Anne, white musty face, those thin lips “How dare you, a girl, question holy men.” Lying bare-breasted in the long grass with Ciarán, drinking Guinness followed by Harvey Wallbangers, vomiting it all up on Pearse Street, a guy from Tuam holding my forehead. Walking away from my father’s house, my marriage, my job, to dance barefoot in a circle of women who prayed with wrists, hips, feet and drums, bellies painted gold, Magdalene red. In the Duomo di Firenze the air stinks of old blood, paintings heavy with pigment and suffering. I rinse my mouth with the Signora’s wine and that copper basin is only a basin, a thing.

It is half past ten in Stonington. The trees droop apprehensive of the heat And the sky has turned that pale suspicious colour That means that it cannot support more light. Here on the terrace I and a companion Each pretends to read. The papers say That it is 90 in New York today. Across the street work is going forward On the abominable house that once I fancied, Half, might be mine, and which was in fact the home Of the anonymous couple I used to hear At night arguing in their unhappy bedroom. Now they are throwing out another wing And the site of overlooked love is changed beyond recognition. What will the day, what will the summer bring? Psychic storms or calm productive doldrums? Our neighbours are no saner than ourselves. Perhaps it is time to give the Stones a ring Or to complain of the view from the gallery tower Falling like a shadow across the calm veranda Rich with malice and the threat of accidental meeting. This is not a house but a collection (The largest in private hands?) of sacred objects, A spiritual boutique where anyone, Even the wrecker who had come to spoil, May find himself spending more than he expected On something he cannot quite identify. Here the little horrors become the household gods. For the work of love requires a rule of thumb, Not no laws in particular but its own Whose pseudonym, at least here and now, is pleasure: The morning wasted in work and misquotation, A light but leisurely lunch, then reading Walking or just watching the sun all afternoon Till, hungry, we draw to evening and ombre. Who are we to thank for all of this? The greatest favours are conferred in absence Sometimes, as a syllable gives comfort Dependent on the time and place and person. When pleasure and reality occur Is there room for extra contemplation Or the lyrical promenade? It is enough To know (and this is surely recognition) That the world is spherical and perfect. Now I wish to introduce the copper beech We saw on our walk, English and native here as I am, Whose shade is not the green of contemplation But the imagination’s rich metallic colour Wherein, under libido, we live.

The Twenty-fifth is imminent And every known expedient Designed for making Christmas pay Is getting swiftly under way. Observe the people swarming to And fro, somnambulating through The stores in search of ties and shirts And gloves to give until it hurts. They're eyeing gifts in Saks' and Hearn's And Macy's, not to mention Stern's, While earnest copywriters are Hitching their copy to the star Of Bethlehem quite shamelessly, For they are duty bound to see That Peace On Earth Good Will To Men Gets adequate results again.

What is thy thought of me? What is thy feeling? Lov'st thou the veil of sense, Or its revealing? Leav'st thou the maiden rose Drooping and blushing, Or rend'st its bosom with Kissing and crushing? I would be beautiful That thou should'st woo me, Gentle, delightsome, but To draw thee to me. Yet should thy longing eye Ever caress me, And quickened Fantasy Only, possess me, Thus thy heart's highest need Long would I cherish, Lest its more trivial wish Pall, and then perish. Would that Love's fond pursuit Were crownèd never, Or that his virgin kiss Lasted for ever!

One tiny tree frog with big eyes sings happily, “Kokee! Kokee!” His brother comes to bother. Coquí doesn't push him. Coquí doesn't bite him. Coquí tells him, “Kokee-Kee! Kokee-Kee!” Two tiny tree frogs with big eyes sing happily, “Kokee! Kokee!”

O heart of hearts, the chalice of love's fire, Hid round with flowers and all the bounty of bloom; O wonderful and perfect heart, for whom The lyrist liberty made life a lyre; O heavenly heart, at whose most dear desire Dead love, living and singing, cleft his tomb, And with him risen and regent in death's room All day thy choral pulses rang full choir; O heart whose beating blood was running song, O sole thing sweeter than thine own songs were, Help us for thy free love's sake to be free, True for thy truth's sake, for thy strength's sake strong, Till very liberty make clean and fair The nursing earth as the sepulchral sea.

To those who kiss in fear that they shall never kiss again To those that love with fear that they shall never love again To such I dedicate this rhyme and what it may contain. None of us will ever take the transiberian train Which makes a very satisfactory refrain Especially as I can repeat it over and over again Which is the main use of the refrain. I with no middle flight intend the truth to speak out plain Of honour truth and love gone by that has come back again The fact is one grows weary of the love that comes again. I may not know much about gods but I know that Eros is a strong purple god. And that there is a point where incest becomes Tradition. I don’t mean that literally; I don’t love my brother or he me. We have been mutually avoiding each other For years and will continue to do so. Even I know about cross words— Something. The word you want is Dante. He said he loved Beatrice. Whatever he did He didn’t love Beatrice. At least the Beatrice Portinari whom history gives. He knew her and the point about all these Florentines is that they all were Killing each other or dying of rapid Consumption. Beatrice died; Rossetti painted her Cutting Dante in the street. Botticelli Painted the rest: Simonetta Vespucci Died of a rapid consumption (age 23) Giuliano dei Medici murdered by the altar rail (age 19) Guido Cavalcanti died in exile (age 35) Dante dei Aligeri died in exile (age 90) Lorenzo dei Medici who lives for ever Since he stayed there and commissioned The paintings, and poems and statues And if he also commissioned the deaths I don’t blame him. He didn’t feel Very magnificent when his brother Was murdered in sanctuary. Do you realise whoever did that Would be excommunicated if, that is, if He hadn’t also murdered the papal legate, His best friend. I have lived long enough having seen one thing; That term has an end. It was getting dark on the platform of nowhere When I who was anxious and sad came to you Out of the rain. Out of the sound of the cold Wind that blows time before and time after Even Provence knows. And as for this line I stole it from T.S. Eliot And Ezra Pound and A.C. Swinburne. All very good Poets to steal from since they are all three dead. The love that is must always just contain The glory of the love that was whatever be the pain. We played at mates and mating and stopped up the drain. Hear me. O Mister Poster I know You have burnt me too brown you must boil me again You simply have no notion how delightful it will Be when they pick us up and throw us with the lobsters out to sea. It is the lark, my love, and not the nightingale. None of us will ever take the trans-siberian train. She wanted to and was collecting people who did I thought I did but now I know I don’t. It is the lark, my love, and not the nightingale. In fact I’ve never heard either bird But people say they sound very similar. And what the devil were Romeo and Juliet About wasting their last moments Listening to birds. Hah. I like kicking up larks or Larking up kicks. So do most poets Including J.H. Prynne, the memorable poet Who is happy to say that the U.L. Has got his middle name wrong. He claims it stands for Hah But there is a limit. I know it all. Riddle me riddle randy ree Round and round in the snotgreen sea When they pick us up and throw us With the Joyces out to sea. Tell us tale of Troy’s downfall We all would have liked to have been there. The infernal Odyssos. He it was whose bile Stirred up by envy and revenge destroyed The mother of womankind. And Swinburne Got a kick out of pain but I don’t I just get kicked. I wish I didn’t keep sounding like Richard the Third Except that if I don't I tend to sound Like Richard the Second. And who wants that. I suppose I must sound like Richard the First. What did he do? Nothing I take it I get a kick out of larking up nightingales. Prynne says that if I don’t come back Safe from Sicily by the thirtieth April They will send a posse. March is the cruellest station Taking on bullying men And were you really afraid they would rape you? No. I thought there would be grave difficulties. Not just that I was actively opposed And so was every other man, woman and child On that there train. I was afraid they would kill me. I may look stupid but I’m not So simple as to think your name Is Elizabeth Brown. Well. All right My name is Veronica Forrest-Thomson. Agamemnon was King of the Achaians at the time, Priam, of the Trojans, Theseus, of the Athenians. And like all Good Kings, they are dead. In my day it was the done thing to side With the Trojans for no better reason Than that they lost. But me I back Winners every time. Mary Shelley may go to hell As she thought she was going to anyway And take Frankinsense with her. I want her husband, alive and well. Who, of course, also got killed. Hardly surprising if he made a habit Of reading Aiscylos while sailing. He wasn’t reading Aiscylos when he drowned. Got cremated like a pagan king. Not Agamemnon who, as I said, was king at the time And lost, murderer of his daughter Killed by his wife and (other) daughter. Killed by his death killing his life. Stabbed in the back in his bath. I think of it every time I have a bath. Though I have no sympathy at all For that daughter and son. I think it is unfair that Helen Had everything, immortal beauty, Lovers, cities destroyed and battles Fought about her. And she just came home And calmly went around being Menelaus' wife While her twin sister, Clytemnestra Was murdered by her son and daughter. And the Athenians acquitted them. They would do, a nation of sophists. Always betraying their allies and torturing Women and children and enslaving people. They even killed Socrates, their one good man, Then Plato tried to be a philosopher king. And got enslaved for his pains. I wish they had kept him enslaved. He escaped, of course, and wrote books About how he would do it better If he was in charge. All poets do that. They are just as incompetent as the rest If they try to organise things. As witness my own efforts in that direction Or those of my avatar, Agamemnon, Who, as I say came home and was killed in his bath Killing his wife and his daughter. And if you don’t know about this you ought to. Read it in the Iliad, read it in the Odyssey, Do not read it in Freud who is always wrong Although even Freud didn’t deserve a son like Lacan. But first and last read me, the beloved Who was killed in the general slaughter. But rise again like John Donne (read him too) I, Helen, I Iseult, I Guenevere, I Clytemnestra and many more to come. I did it, I myself, killing the King my father Killing the King my mother, joining the King my brother. It is the kick, my love, and not the nightingale I like larking up kicks myself But not kicking. They that have power to hurt and do so Should not be blamed by Shakespeare or anyone else For hurting though such is the race of poets That they will blame them anyway. However it is a pretty productive process Especially if one may be plumber as well as poet And thus unstop the drain as well as writing Poetic Artifice“Pain stopped play” and Several other books and poems including 1974 and All That(seriously though) I, Veronica did it, truth-finding, truth-seeking Muck-raking, bringing victory. It was a horse, of course, in which the warriors hid Pretending to bring peace And they wouldn’t speak to me, crouching in the dark Like a lot of fools, hearing the voice of the goddess In an alien city, I speak your tongue in my own city: Cambridge or Camelot and you won’t listen to me Advised, of course, by Odyssos, solicitor, betrayer. And when they had killed all the men, raped all the women etc. Agamemnon came home and, as I said, was stabbed by his wife In his bath. Anyway it is the lark, my love, And not the nightingale. I follow the sacred footsteps of Hippolyta, the blest, the best That has been said or spoken well in any tongue Read John Donne—the memorable dun. Don’t read Matthew Arnold; he’s a fool I am not Prince Thomas Aquinas F.H. Eliot I am not an attendant lord either. I am the king who lives. Spring surprised us, running through the market square And we stopped in Prynne’s rooms in a shower of pain And went on in sunlight into the University Library And ate yogurt and talked for an hour. You, You, grab the reins. Drink as much as you can and love as much as you can And work as much as you can For you can’t do anything when you are dead. The motto of this poem heed And do you it employ: Waste not and want not while you’re here The possibles of joy.

Get up, get up for shame, the Blooming Morne Upon her wings presents the god unshorne. See how Aurora throwes her faire Fresh-quilted colours through the aire: Get up, sweet-Slug-a-bed, and see The Dew-bespangling Herbe and Tree. Each Flower has wept, and bow'd toward the East, Above an houre since; yet you not drest, Nay! not so much as out of bed? When all the Birds have Mattens seyd, And sung their thankful Hymnes: 'tis sin, Nay, profanation to keep in, When as a thousand Virgins on this day, Spring, sooner than the Lark, to fetch in May. Rise; and put on your Foliage, and be seene To come forth, like the Spring-time, fresh and greene; And sweet as Flora. Take no care For Jewels for your Gowne, or Haire: Feare not; the leaves will strew Gemms in abundance upon you: Besides, the childhood of the Day has kept, Against you come, some Orient Pearls unwept: Come, and receive them while the light Hangs on the Dew-locks of the night: And Titan on the Eastern hill Retires himselfe, or else stands still Till you come forth. Wash, dresse, be briefe in praying: Few Beads are best, when once we goe a Maying. Come, my Corinna, come; and comming, marke How each field turns a street; each street a Parke Made green, and trimm'd with trees: see how Devotion gives each House a Bough, Or Branch: Each Porch, each doore, ere this, An Arke a Tabernacle is Made up of white-thorn neatly enterwove; As if here were those cooler shades of love. Can such delights be in the street, And open fields, and we not see't? Come, we'll abroad; and let's obay The Proclamation made for May: And sin no more, as we have done, by staying; But my Corinna, come, let's goe a Maying. There's not a budding Boy, or Girle, this day, But is got up, and gone to bring in May. A deale of Youth, ere this, is come Back, and with White-thorn laden home. Some have dispatcht their Cakes and Creame, Before that we have left to dreame: And some have wept, and woo'd, and plighted Troth, And chose their Priest, ere we can cast off sloth: Many a green-gown has been given; Many a kisse, both odde and even: Many a glance too has been sent From out the eye, Loves Firmament: Many a jest told of the Keyes betraying This night, and Locks pickt, yet w'are not a Maying. Come, let us goe, while we are in our prime; And take the harmlesse follie of the time. We shall grow old apace, and die Before we know our liberty. Our life is short; and our dayes run As fast away as do's the Sunne: And as a vapour, or a drop of raine Once lost, can ne'r be found againe: So when or you or I are made A fable, song, or fleeting shade; All love, all liking, all delight Lies drown'd with us in endlesse night. Then while time serves, and we are but decaying; Come, my Corinna, come, let's goe a Maying.