502 War poems

A famous battle happened in this valley. You never understood the nature poem. Till now. Till this moment—if these statements seem separate, unrelated, follow this silence to its edge and you will hear the history of air: the crispness of a fern or the upward cut and turn around of a fieldfare or thrush written on it. The other history is silent: The estuary is over there. The issue was decided here: Two kings prepared to give no quarter. Then one king and one dead tradition. Now the humid dusk, the old wounds wait for language, for a different truth: When you see the silk of the willow and the wider edge of the river turn and grow dark and then darker, then you will know that the nature poem is not the action nor its end: it is this rust on the gate beside the trees, on the cattle grid underneath our feet, on the steering wheel shaft: it is an aftermath, an overlay and even in its own modest way, an art of peace: I try the word distance and it fills with sycamores, a summer's worth of pollen And as I write valley straw, metal blood, oaths, armour are unwritten. Silence spreads slowly from these words to those ilex trees half in, half out of shadows falling on the shallow ford of the south bank beside Yellow Island as twilight shows how this sweet corrosion begins to be complete: what we see is what the poem says: evening coming—cattle, cattle-shadows— and whin bushes and a change of weather about to change them all: what we see is how the place and the torment of the place are for this moment free of one another.

(Life and Contacts) “Vocat aestus in umbram” Nemesianus Ec. IV. E. P. ODE POUR L’ÉLECTION DE SON SÉPULCHRE For three years, out of key with his time, He strove to resuscitate the dead art Of poetry; to maintain “the sublime” In the old sense. Wrong from the start— No, hardly, but, seeing he had been born In a half savage country, out of date; Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn; Capaneus; trout for factitious bait: “Idmen gar toi panth, os eni Troie Caught in the unstopped ear; Giving the rocks small lee-way The chopped seas held him, therefore, that year. His true Penelope was Flaubert, He fished by obstinate isles; Observed the elegance of Circe’s hair Rather than the mottoes on sun-dials. Unaffected by “the march of events,” He passed from men’s memory in l’an trentiesme De son eage; the case presents No adjunct to the Muses’ diadem. II The age demanded an image Of its accelerated grimace, Something for the modern stage, Not, at any rate, an Attic grace; Not, not certainly, the obscure reveries Of the inward gaze; Better mendacities Than the classics in paraphrase! The “age demanded” chiefly a mould in plaster, Made with no loss of time, A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster Or the “sculpture” of rhyme. III The tea-rose, tea-gown, etc. Supplants the mousseline of Cos, The pianola “replaces” Sappho’s barbitos. Christ follows Dionysus, Phallic and ambrosial Made way for macerations; Caliban casts out Ariel. All things are a flowing, Sage Heracleitus says; But a tawdry cheapness Shall reign throughout our days. Even the Christian beauty Defects—after Samothrace; We see to kalon Decreed in the market place. Faun’s flesh is not to us, Nor the saint’s vision. We have the press for wafer; Franchise for circumcision. All men, in law, are equals. Free of Peisistratus, We choose a knave or an eunuch To rule over us. A bright Apollo, tin andra, tin eroa, tina theon, What god, man, or hero Shall I place a tin wreath upon? IV These fought, in any case, and some believing, pro domo, in any case ... Some quick to arm, some for adventure, some from fear of weakness, some from fear of censure, some for love of slaughter, in imagination, learning later ... some in fear, learning love of slaughter; Died some pro patria, non dulce non et decor” ... walked eye-deep in hell believing in old men’s lies, then unbelieving came home, home to a lie, home to many deceits, home to old lies and new infamy; usury age-old and age-thick and liars in public places. Daring as never before, wastage as never before. Young blood and high blood, Fair cheeks, and fine bodies; fortitude as never before frankness as never before, disillusions as never told in the old days, hysterias, trench confessions, laughter out of dead bellies. V There died a myriad, And of the best, among them, For an old bitch gone in the teeth, For a botched civilization. Charm, smiling at the good mouth, Quick eyes gone under earth’s lid, For two gross of broken statues, For a few thousand battered books. YEUX GLAUQUES Gladstone was still respected, When John Ruskin produced “Kings Treasuries”; Swinburne And Rossetti still abused. Foetid Buchanan lifted up his voice When that faun’s head of hers Became a pastime for Painters and adulterers. The Burne-Jones cartons Have preserved her eyes; Still, at the Tate, they teach Cophetua to rhapsodize; Thin like brook-water, With a vacant gaze. The English Rubaiyat was still-born In those days. The thin, clear gaze, the same Still darts out faun-like from the half-ruin’d face, Questing and passive .... “Ah, poor Jenny’s case” ... Bewildered that a world Shows no surprise At her last maquero’s Adulteries. “SIENA MI FE’, DISFECEMI MAREMMA’” Among the pickled foetuses and bottled bones, Engaged in perfecting the catalogue, I found the last scion of the Senatorial families of Strasbourg, Monsieur Verog. For two hours he talked of Gallifet; Of Dowson; of the Rhymers’ Club; Told me how Johnson (Lionel) died By falling from a high stool in a pub ... But showed no trace of alcohol At the autopsy, privately performed— Tissue preserved—the pure mind Arose toward Newman as the whiskey warmed. Dowson found harlots cheaper than hotels; Headlam for uplift; Image impartially imbued With raptures for Bacchus, Terpsichore and the Church. So spoke the author of “The Dorian Mood,” M. Verog, out of step with the decade, Detached from his contemporaries, Neglected by the young, Because of these reveries. BRENNEBAUM The sky-like limpid eyes, The circular infant’s face, The stiffness from spats to collar Never relaxing into grace; The heavy memories of Horeb, Sinai and the forty years, Showed only when the daylight fell Level across the face Of Brennbaum “The Impeccable.” MR. NIXON In the cream gilded cabin of his steam yacht Mr. Nixon advised me kindly, to advance with fewer Dangers of delay. “Consider ”Carefully the reviewer. “I was as poor as you are; “When I began I got, of course, “Advance on royalties, fifty at first,” said Mr. Nixon, “Follow me, and take a column, “Even if you have to work free. “Butter reviewers. From fifty to three hundred “I rose in eighteen months; “The hardest nut I had to crack “Was Dr. Dundas. “I never mentioned a man but with the view “Of selling my own works. “The tip’s a good one, as for literature “It gives no man a sinecure.” And no one knows, at sight a masterpiece. And give up verse, my boy, There’s nothing in it.” *        *        *        * Likewise a friend of Bloughram’s once advised me: Don’t kick against the pricks, Accept opinion. The “Nineties” tried your game And died, there’s nothing in it. X Beneath the sagging roof The stylist has taken shelter, Unpaid, uncelebrated, At last from the world’s welter Nature receives him, With a placid and uneducated mistress He exercises his talents And the soil meets his distress. The haven from sophistications and contentions Leaks through its thatch; He offers succulent cooking; The door has a creaking latch. XI “Conservatrix of Milésien” Habits of mind and feeling, Possibly. But in Ealing With the most bank-clerkly of Englishmen? No, “Milésian” is an exaggeration. No instinct has survived in her Older than those her grandmother Told her would fit her station. XII “Daphne with her thighs in bark Stretches toward me her leafy hands,”— Subjectively. In the stuffed-satin drawing-room I await The Lady Valentine’s commands, Knowing my coat has never been Of precisely the fashion To stimulate, in her, A durable passion; Doubtful, somewhat, of the value Of well-gowned approbation Of literary effort, But never of The Lady Valentine’s vocation: Poetry, her border of ideas, The edge, uncertain, but a means of blending With other strata Where the lower and higher have ending; A hook to catch the Lady Jane’s attention, A modulation toward the theatre, Also, in the case of revolution, A possible friend and comforter. *        *        *        * Conduct, on the other hand, the soul “Which the highest cultures have nourished” To Fleet St. where Dr. Johnson flourished; Beside this thoroughfare The sale of half-hose has Long since superseded the cultivation Of Pierian roses. Envoi (1919) Go, dumb-born book, Tell her that sang me once that song of Lawes: Hadst thou but song As thou hast subjects known, Then were there cause in thee that should condone Even my faults that heavy upon me lie And build her glories their longevity. Tell her that sheds Such treasure in the air, Recking naught else but that her graces give Life to the moment, I would bid them live As roses might, in magic amber laid, Red overwrought with orange and all made One substance and one colour Braving time. Tell her that goes With song upon her lips But sings not out the song, nor knows The maker of it, some other mouth, May be as fair as hers, Might, in new ages, gain her worshippers, When our two dusts with Waller's shall be laid, Siftings on siftings in oblivion, Till change hath broken down All things save Beauty alone.

1920 (Mauberley) I

Nothing but hurt left here. Nothing but bullets and pain and the bled-out slumping and all the fucks and goddamns and Jesus Christs of the wounded. Nothing left here but the hurt. Believe it when you see it. Believe it when a twelve-year-old rolls a grenade into the room. Or when a sniper punches a hole deep into someone’s skull. Believe it when four men step from a taxicab in Mosul to shower the street in brass and fire. Open the hurt locker and see what there is of knives and teeth. Open the hurt locker and learn how rough men come hunting for souls.

—by way of what they say From back when it was Nam time I tell you what.

I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air— I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair. It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my eyes and quench my breath— It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill, When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear. God knows 'twere better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep, Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear ... But I've a rendezvous with Death At midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous.

I have a seat in the abandoned theater in Beirut. I might forget, and I might recall the final act without longing ... not because of anything other than that the play was not written skillfully ... Chaos as in the war days of those in despair, and an autobiography of the spectators’ impulse. The actors were tearing up their scripts and searching for the author among us, we the witnesses sitting in our seats I tell my neighbor the artist: Don’t draw your weapon, and wait, unless you’re the author! —No Then he asks me: And you are you the author? —No So we sit scared. I say: Be a neutral hero to escape from an obvious fate He says: No hero dies revered in the second scene. I will wait for the rest. Maybe I would revise one of the acts. And maybe I would mend what the iron has done to my brothers So I say: It is you then? He responds: You and I are two masked authors and two masked witnesses I say: How is this my concern? I’m a spectator He says: No spectators at chasm’s door ... and no one is neutral here. And you must choose your part in the end So I say: I’m missing the beginning, what’s the beginning?

— Bahram (Pakistani 14-year-old held in an Afghan prison) Like the pied piper the mullah drives his battered truck through dusty villages, his loudspeaker singing:Join the battle against the infidels. Fight for Jihad and live eternally with Allah. Lift up your guns for Him and you shall never die.

I saw a man this morning Who did not wish to die I ask, and cannot answer, If otherwise wish I. Fair broke the day this morning Against the Dardanelles; The breeze blew soft, the morn's cheeks Were cold as cold sea-shells. But other shells are waiting Across the Aegean sea, Shrapnel and high explosive, Shells and hells for me. O hell of ships and cities, Hell of men like me, Fatal second Helen, Why must I follow thee? Achilles came to Troyland And I to Chersonese: He turned from wrath to battle, And I from three days' peace. Was it so hard, Achilles, So very hard to die? Thou knewest and I know not— So much the happier I. I will go back this morning From Imbros over the sea; Stand in the trench, Achilles, Flame-capped, and shout for me.

The Barbados Advocate , Thursday, January 19, 1995, page 4 MILDRED COLLYMORE told the No. 3 Supreme Court yesterday that when she recovered from an attack with a stone she found herself "washed-way" in blood. Collymore said also that accused Philamena Hinds came back to move the rock but she would not let her. The complainant said that on the day of the incident she left her home and went over to her daughter's on the other side of the road to cut the grass from around the place. When she got to the spot she said dirt was on the grass and she took the hoe and raked it away. While she was doing this, the witness said, Hinds' son, Gline , came and spoke to her and then went back up the road. She said Hinds came next and spoke to her but she did not hear what she said. The witness added that she was holding down, and on looking up she was struck suddenly with a big rock in her right forehead. "I tumble down and when I come to myself I was wash-way in blood." she testified... Collymore told the court [that] after she found out she was bleeding she went to a neighbour's home and called the police. She was later taken to   the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and detained for three days, she said Asked by prosecutor Ms Donna Babb if she had quarrelled with   Collymore before the incident she replied no. The witness also told the prosecutor that  she did not interfere with the accused. Babb asked her if she had attacked the accused with a hoe but she said she was not given a chance to do so. Cross-examine When defence lawyer Dr Waldo Waldron Ramsey's turn came to cross-examine Collymore, he asked her how long she knew the accused and she said it was since childhood. She also said she and Hinds once worked together in they understand each other. Waldron-Ramsay suggested to the witness that on the day of the incident, marl was on the accused woman's property and she was pulling it down to make a road for her daughter and son-in-law. She denied the suggestion. He further told Hinds that she told the accused that she cold not stop her from pulling down the marl, and this she denied. Waldron-Ramsay put it to the witness that when she refused to stop moving the marl the accused left her and went back home, but Hinds said this was not < true. Continuing his cross-examination, Waldron-Ramsay suggested to Hinds that Collymore came to her a second time and told her to stop racking away her dirt but the witness [the accused!] again denied this ever took place. The witness further denied the suggestion that this second time she became more vicious and told the accused [Hinds] that if she did not move her " X X X X she would lick her to X X X X down." Waldron-Ramsay also suggested to Collymore that she had the hoe in the air ready to lick down Hinds, but she denied this. DATE TREE HILL CASE The crown will call its third witness this morning in the trial of 48-year-old Philamena Hinds, before Mr Justice Frederick Waterman in No. 3 Supreme Court. Hinds, a machine operator, of Date Tree Hill, St Peter, is charged with causing grievous bodily harm to 65-year-old Mildred Collymore, of Date Tree Hill, on December 13, 1993, with intent to maim, disfigure or disable her... Hinds, who pleaded not guilty... is represented by attorney-at-law Dr. Waldo Waldron Ramsay while the Crown's case is being put by Acting Crown Counsel Donna Babb. Collymore's 45-year-old-daughter, Linda, is acting as her interpreter, because the witness has a hearing problem.