numa

I saw the moment
before death
last night

at least that’s
what I took it for

it was the last thing
I wanted to experience

and what I know
from it

is that there is
a particular judgement

that you administer it
to yourself

all lies are gone
there’s no time to argue
or make excuses

that we can feel
dread and despair
at this moment

struggle at
the closing brink

especially when
despair brought us there

or else love and hope
for the others
we leave behind

or believe -
for there’s no love
without belief

these don’t exclude
the stoic option

yes walk on still
in darkness
and fall like
one of the princes

however this requires
a disproportionate
investment of life

much familiarisation
study and training

a lot of nerve

for such a small
yet all-consuming moment

and even then
death surprises us

can cut us down
and make us quail

love fears
but can go on

I admit I felt
momentary panic
then dismay

that this
was happening to me

that that
is what it is like

that that
is all there is
to it

I must love
and let go then

Keble College Oxford
1 January 2004

Pablo Neruda’s old homes
have now shrunk
to a bottled ship
with a high view
onto a rainy port

poets can well end up
confiding poems
to time-capsules

but all historians do
is make model ships
inside bottles of different sizes

a four master could be laid down
within a condiment bottle
or a brig built in a massive flagon

the people who do history
like this and make
replicas out of it

must either be imprisoned
or greatly confined
in space or mind to
make constant footnotes
or parenthesize
their freedom this way

but if the flask is sound
and stopped up right
the ship will float off
just the same
or ride in dry-dock
indefinitely

carrying news of
what dictatorship’s
like for everyone
on board the torture
ship “Esmeralda”

that’s under weigh and
under full canvas
stranded in doldrum

Borders Cafe Oxford
23 May 2006

Lear-like Faust
crumpled on the beach

had he never been
when he never was
never should have been?

something’s missing
in the breakers’ noise

out of revolutions
in water and air

gusts vacuum
beached Faust
the sand

Keble College Oxford
2 March 2004

love bade me welcome
guilty of dust and sin

love
observing me grow slack
drew nearer to me

guilty of dust and sin
yet my soul drew back
guilty of

quick-eyed love
observing me grow slack
from my first entrance in
guilty of dust and sin
drew nearer to me
sweetly questioning

quick-eyed love
observing me grow slack
my soul draw back
from my first entrance in
drew nearer to me
sweetly questioning

guilty of dust and sin

if I lacked
anything?

A guest I answered
worthy to be here
Love said
sweetly questioning

ah my dear ah my dear
you shall be he
guilty of dust and sin
you shall be he

I cannot look on thee
the unkind ungrateful
let my shame go
where it deserves
if I lacked anything
questquestquestioning

love took my hand
and smiling did reply
who bore the blame
let go the shame
observing me grow slack
who eyes but I
who eyes but I

dear, then I
let my shame go
where it deserves
I the unkind ungrateful
will serve
guilty of dust and sin

you must sit down
says smiling did reply love
and taste my meat

guilty of dust and sin
from my first entrance in
who eyes but I
my soul drew back
my soul drew back
so I did sit
so I did sit
and eat/eat/eat/eat/eat

Dunedin New Zealand
August 2005

there was a young bishop called Talleyrand
who of euchre and whist was very fond
he dealt cards with great unction
but won with compunction
so nobody knew they were conned

Keble College Oxford
February 2004

imperative you

ache
some hake
with a dozen stolies

bake
and rake
The Cremation Follies

ark
the hark
over restive hollies

cark
a shark
into sullen volleys

bust
distrust
of frolicsome trolleys

rust
no lust
upon broken brollies

Gladstone Road
Dunedin New Zealand
August 2005

Holderlin’s swans would mate
then bless themselves

stoop into stoupwater
font of a lake

spongy land absorbing
any ripple

up in gales whirr
clattering weathercock

while groves go down
with fruit-lamps still burning

heaving up a
little darker each time

his swans kneel extinguished
in their nave

Osney Oxford
22 March 2006

(a variation on Friedrich Holderin’s “Halfte des Lebens” ( 1803) and on Michael Hamburger’s rather too ingenious translation)

lit houses in the night

their insides showing
their insides glowing

their people out of sight

Gladstone Road
Dunedin New Zealand
13 February 2005

my father
is singing in me

my dead
and unknown father

I am a house
my father is singing in

the unfamiliar house
of the son

I am a song
my father is singing

the song’s about
mother too

I can hear which room
he’s chosen to sing in

the house knows
no silence
from his singing

Gladstone Road
Dunedin New Zealand
25 March 2005

about my natural father whom I never knew about until April 2001 a bandleader who was killed in Sydney.