Sasha Dugdale

And then came the ten moons Full in the sun’s glare, and the seraphim, And it was light all night in the orchards And on the plains and even in the towns And mankind rejoiced, because it was now the case That the wrecking and equivocating could carry on The pale night long. Mankind rejoiced And went forth to those places twelve hours of light Had not made it worth the while to despoil And gamboled collectively on the cliff tops And regarded the night-broiling of the sea Hitherto forbidden, but now opened in festival. Half the world’s time unpeeled and exposed So fruit might ripen faster and trees flourish higher And forced photosynthesis green all the land. Then night ramblers, night-sun-worshippers, Night-motorists fanned out and made the most Of spectral light, which bleached out stars and even The cozy old moon herself, who had Once held a sickle broadside to the sun, and now Was a hollow daytime shadow. Only a few old believers slept Hand in hand, shoulder to breast, As if their lives depended on it, knowing yet That the morning would bring nothing Because the day knew no beginning And had no end.

March 29, 2010 Every morning since the time changed I have woken to the dawn chorus And even before it sounded, I dreamed of it Loud, unbelievably loud, shameless, raucous And once I rose and twitched the curtains apart Expecting the birds to be pressing in fright Against the pane like passengers But the garden was empty and it was night Not a slither of light at the horizon Still the birds were bawling through the mists Terrible, invisible A million small evangelists How they sing: as if each had pecked up a smoldering coal Their throats singed and swollen with song In dissonance as befits the dark world Where only travelers and the sleepless belong

For Marina You say the old masters never got it wrong, But when Goya painted the death of the imagination It was a lost dog against a usurious yellow sky And the dog, a hapless creature who had drawn itself Ten miles on two legs, stared in amazement To see the man who once fed him from his plate Reduced to this. So I felt this week, the vile soil and everything upon it— The beggar guest kicked from the table Before his own dog, and even the honest unpicking Of art performed nightly and in seclusion. Like any Penelope my armor is resignation Although I thought I would lift the bow myself And draw. By the morning he is gone And what to make of this? The prostitutes hang from a beam like mice The suitors are piled unburied in the yard. And some say that it is now much better And others, that it is worse. So order was restored I stared in amazement • Perhaps Akhmatova was right When she wrote who knows what shit What tip, what pile of waste Brings forth the tender verse Like hogweed, like the fat hen under the fence Like the unbearable present tense Who knows what ill, what strife What crude shack of a life And how it twists sweetly about the broken sill: Pressingness, another word for honeysuckle But housewives? Has poetry Ever deepened in the pail Was it ever found in the sink, under the table Did it rise in the oven, quietly able To outhowl the hoover? Does it press more than the children’s supper The sudden sleepless wail? Did it ever? It lives. It takes seed Like the most unforgiving weed Grows wilder as the child grows older And spits on dreams, did I say How it thrives in the ashen family nest Or how iambs are measured best Where it hurts: With the heel of an iron On the reluctant breast Of a shirt? • MICHAEL BLANN There was a hush, then Michael Blann Stepped out onto the stage. Michael Blann, with his pipe and his jukebox head Oh, he’s your man. He has a song for all weathers, a pipe And a voice, and he sings and he roams He sings to the wind and a dog of how The trees are all bare and Jack’s come home. He’s a thin voice, like a spider thread On days when the sun is late and fine Live and let live, sings Michael Blann The wind yields not, but the hills is mine. He’s no call for fate passing over His sheep are all angels, the stars are his Lords He’ll play any part the clouds should fancy To humble tunes and hand-me-down words The acts are written in briar strands And the Pharisees are leaves in the air I likes a drop pipes Michael Blann Sing follow hark forward the innocent hare. He wore to his end a clutch of sheep’s wool To show the gods that Michael Blann Went alone, alone for most of his years But crossed the hills a singing man.