Rosin-Dust Under the Bridge

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ROSIN-DUST UNDER THE BRIDGE

LAURENCE JAMES

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Belfast

Lapwing

ROSIN-DUST UNDER THE BRIDGE

�

Poems

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LAURENCE JAMES

�

Belfast

LAPWING

First Published by Lapwing Publicationsc/o 1, Ballysillan DriveBelfast BT14 8HQ

[email protected]://www.freewebs.com/lapwingpoetry/

Copyright © Laurence James 2013Cover Image and Photograph Copyright © Joy Dee 2013

All rights reservedThe author has asserted her/his right under Section 77

of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988to be identified as the author of this work.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.A catalogue record for this book is available from

the British Library.

Since before 1632

The Greig sept of the MacGregor Clan

Has been printing and binding books

All Lapwing Publications are

Hand-printed and Hand-bound in Belfast

Set in Aldine 721 BT at the Winepress

ISBN 978-1-909252-32-5

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements are due to the editors of the following:Yellow Crane, Outlaw, Tears in the Fence,

Fire, Pennine Platform, Rialto, Obsessed with Pipework, Other Poetry, Poetry Wales.

My thanks to dear Joy Deefor her cover image and portrait photograph;

alsoThom Mascia and Carlise Starrett

from Hobart William Smith College, USA,visiting students at the University of Wales (Carmarthen)

for their ‘tidy’ work on the proof-stages.

iii

CONTENTS

41THE WHEELBARROW… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

40MAINTAINED MAINTAINED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39LOOK! IT CAME BACK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37SAYS MY BROTHER… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35JUST GENTLE PADRE GENTLE… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

34TOGETHER YOU WILL WARD OFF… . . . . . . . . . . . .

33INTO THE PULSE IN PADRE’S ASHES . . . . . . . . . . . .

30TO WHERE THE FARE IS GOOD… . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28NOW AND THEN THE NIGGLING… . . . . . . . . . . . . .

26NEAR AS DAMN IT… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

24MEANWHILE SPARKS… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

23A MYTH THESE SKYLIGHTS SET… . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

22ALREADY HE IS TALKING… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21THE FARE THE AIRPORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

20A PYRAMID OF HUGE DARK GREEN FRUITS . . . . . . .

18AND THIS IS ONLY HALF THE PICTURE . . . . . . . . . .

14WITH FIRST ROSIN-DUST… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13LAYING ON OF PRACTISED HANDS . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11A PAPYRUS IS UNDERSTOOD TO BE SAYING . . . . . . .

10GROUNDED SO TO SPEAK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8AS SEEN ON HD TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7INVOCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

iv

68CURTAIN WALL OF A RIDGEFORT… . . . . . . . . . . . .

67SEA DISTANCING ITSELF… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

66YAY! FATSALMONPINK INGRATIATING ITSELF… . . .

65A FLOCK EVERY ONE OF WHICH… . . . . . . . . . . . . .

64A GYPSY MILKY WAY… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

63IN NO TIME TAKEN TOO LONG IN THERE… . . . . . . .

62FETCHED DOWN IN THE NIGHT… . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

61SOME IRONIC CANDLE… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60MYTHOLOGY THAT IS UNTIL… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

58IF EVER THE PLACE IS FOR SALE… . . . . . . . . . . . .

57AFTER A HANSEATIC HARBOUR… . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55CONFIRM YOUR CONCRETENESS… . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53BLACK HEDGES NETTING… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

52AFTER A LAPSE CHILDBIRTH… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

49FIT FOR NINE THOUSAND THOUSAND… . . . . . . . . .

48HEAVEN IN PERSON SWAPPING SHIFTS… . . . . . . . .

48A SMOKE-GLASS SMOKE-RING OF UNCHARTED BLUE

47ZIGZAG OF MY GAZE… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

45THE BLOOD IN MY BLOOD… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

44BUT NOTE WELL A CHAMELEON… . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43A NATIONAL GARDEN SOMEWHERE… . . . . . . . . . . .

42COUNTERPOINT OF BLACK BIRDS … . . . . . . . . . . . .

v

ForMaster F’s sake

Painter, Printmaker, Confidant, Collaborator

We may make a personality cult of the conductor,but we are aware that he is not really makingthe music, it is making him - if he is relaxed,open and attuned, then the invisible will takepossession of him; through him it will reach us.

Peter Brook (The Holy Theatre)

“… the guitarist in my last line-upplayed like nobody evertaught him - you know,one note after the next note,like Jimi.”

Miles Davis (in interview) referencing Hendrix

…he was also well aware that without punctuationhe imported levels of ambiguity into his text(‘that you may drill my sentences in your own way’)

Martyn Crucefix on John Clare (1793 - 1864)PN Review No. 208

vi

INVOCATION

in earthenwaremy bowls have itin them to hold fire- water of out & outwassail to hold tooat times of night-sweats straight H2O

so! Old Clay-Maker!bless these vessels& all who avail them-selves of themeach vessel setsealed & firedon my own insides

& yes blessall who avail them-selves of themthough my currentfire expire &lest the fireexpire

Laurence James

7

AS SEEN ON HD TV

his eyelashes meet in a conclusion

the hands do not movefrom their pockets but

spread in unseen reflexunderscoring some-

thing as well leftnot said literally

plain to see his browsparallel with brim

of straw hat worn effortlessly well

jerk extempore upwardsat the calm balmy

aegean blue overhead& it is done & thereby said

*

island-hoppers travellingin the wrong way

take it for insolence but it issimply the all-greek wordfree

NO ie ochimany tongues have adopted it

that classical economyextreme heat draws out of everything

Rosin-Dust Under the Bridge

8

for instance us

*

1 or 2 whole syllables against this

sublimated yes but quite likelyrooted in a rutting iguana

as seen on HD TV contending with the pretender

a same old accentedtoss of his dusty scaly head

here as in the tropics of whathomo sapiens sapiens

thinks of as prehistory

Laurence James

9

GROUNDED SO TO SPEAK

oh! he can and does debate allday just look at them there

backs to the sea wall that magnetfor cuss force-niners imminent

fingers fixing the torn literal net-work of their craft hear them

swapping old salts’ gossipwith breakers already building

out of a depth they run out of outthere keeping the archipelago’s

caique fleet in restlessly sogrounded so to speak

*

later on on nights like this our sea-men’s one dream seven seas’ seething

tides them over till the current storm-force presently drops they seeing through all

landlubber hooey of solid hoodwinking thingsthe one shebang for itself all seaborn all flux

ebb & crescendo crescendo & ebbrattle & tickle whether cycladean sand

or stranded zen shingle


10

A PAPYRUS IS UNDERSTOOD TO BE SAYING

then sand and water it is thoughtintroduced between raw rock and a soft-metal tool release a block

manmade in one to be setup against the arabic sunand tagged in our time a wonder

pre-perspective images left over quite otherin-situ stone go some way to explainthe odd obelisk moving along the nile

a papyrus is understood to be saying“in order to stand the stone remove all grainfrom the chamber beneath” grains of sand that is

soon archeologists are challenging each other tore-enactments on tv after some dry runs in the labwe see the sand needs to be bone dry to flow away like water

viewers are invited to witness a replica obelisklying flat in a prepared deserta little under half on the undoctored sand

a little over half buoyed by identical sand but sandcontained in a mighty cisterninto the walls of which sluice gates

have been let in to be opened so the sand does go sinking to cushion all the timea pivot tilt slide of base-heavy stone that dives

down through sand (as a whale on another channeldown onto square acres of plankton)touching down to lean still somewhat

Laurence James

11

yet aligned to have met on cue the runnel cut in a pedestalwaiting under all thosefathoms of sand

to stop the skid of obelisk off its base until a media crewcan enlist and rehearsetwin tug-of-war teams in

easing for once in the same directionwith us in virtual jelebiehs it the obelisk

with restraint and much musclethe final degree or twointo true


12

LAYING ON OF PRACTISED HANDS

the master me the auditoriuma sea of faces rising to the godsattending to his teaching and howit brings out in me of all peoplenuances you do not know are never-the-less in your power it happensin the course of one hour but thisis no such time though blessedwith perfect pitch it’s allpure theory this afternoonsix strings simply will not tuneand sweat sticks the viol at my throat

hear maestro’s voice extemporizea foreword at the brink of the pitall I see is his charismatic backas he winds them round his little fingerand speaks of the majesty of our piecedownstage here I am the unstrung dummyleft on a chair now his exquisite earknows my novice loss of nervethe unwanted vibrato that is me failingto even peg the pairs of open strings his intro does not falter while slowlyhe withdraws towards me circling

right behind me till now he can leanon the back of my upright chairpulpitwise not letting his devoteesnote a thing amiss even as his touchbegins unpinching the nervesat my seized collarbone a kindof laying on of practised handstrained on a range of period instrumentsthat stay his domain the public talkstops he turns to me but hardly need ask‘so can we? starting with the slow movementnot the first if you’d be so good!’

Laurence James

13

WITH FIRST ROSIN-DUST…

before you know anything of mother tongue and the likeor put a little thumb and finger to very ownliteral tongue syntax and vocab will fly about youour attention drawn to immaculate hands in particulardelivered by scan and screen to a corner of a wardof expectation the airwaves agape

sooner than you repeat or tease out a wordclose ones will lean over the playpen railto you bawling your little red socks and head off againwe adults touched to the point of dumbness at your handsin the flesh in the making intricate with smallnessthat takes one grown-up first finger for a handful

we never do twig we were this scaled-down a score of years backthese recent steps and leaps and multiplication of cellson from this pre-you proto-you you removed by one gestationfrom plato’s idea of the true you dragged by ancient accidentto the big bang light of our limited senses now the gigglinggeometry round and round the garden of your palmgesticulating with a flourish out of the cuff of babygrowsthe shades of sweetpeas

when words take hold you’ll reachfor a hand and invite with your ‘handyholdy!’ the growingcircle you put names to for a toddling turn round a realfarmyard and not long off the very warm day under the brimof a tiny white sunhat under the fringed awning of a privilegedlaunch you trail your hand to the wrist in vast water ofthe blue or the white nile until that is a general inboardpanic they’ll tell you about later the other trippers realizingand saving your little limb and unscathed soul their fingerspointing in horror to starboard and ‘crocodile island’do not fear not long and you’ll be holding on whiteknuckledto thrilling designer rides but also to the real boltinghorse that shies at a crisp packet in the hedge


14

let’s hope there’ll be a music room at school a best teacherof your life her red brick room lined with solid black cello-cases their interiors plush-coloured open a crack waitingtheir timetabled turns at resurrection they promise good memoryto echo the smell of rosin and woman’s knowledge of phasesof the moon she will connive for the best of devious motiveswith colleagues winking and whispering of your so appropriatefirst random fingering on the fretless neckyour fingertips still soft but somehow at home even at this pointshe will quietly reposition your thumb at the back of the slimshone fingerboard of the three-quarter instrumentand spread your right hand to balance the bow of gentlytautened horse hair with first rosin-dust collecting under the bridge‘you’ll have to sweat blood james if you want to be any good’and in ways like this you will be given much however unquantifiable

round about here your hands get quite good at catchingthe leather stitched into a blood red ball that stings the palmsas it flies straight at you out of a wood-slatted cradleeach ball the imagined dismissal of an opener grandpa gaffanot believing you are still pupil at age thirteen yetgoing along with the rest you undeniably blessedwith the fine clever hands of a surgeon the fact ison the way to the top they have in mind for you or to elsewherewithin the grand pyramid of things your stubby handswill get busy making blueprints of buildings on huge sheetsof transparent paper then pinning a walk-out noteto the drawing board the job came down to pickingdoor handles out of some catalogue

so to the travelsyou may well pick grapes and oranges pick up oil at the local olive pressstretch hides of island jacob sheep to cure for hearthstreat a welsh black bull gaffa for new forest eyelay hedges dig graves write your mother tongueon whiteboard and blackboard lift the needle in the eveningsof all seasons to pick up the music that needs be by you openlywhere once you turned pages and dials under the coversyou will channel-hop from quizz to quizz and heave the rucksackto further places and their many people who are going to shake your handand of them the few who will change you

Laurence James

15

let one of these be the good woman outsiders take for your motherwhose touch takes fear out of intimacy that balanceslust and beatitude in the eyes of two faces no distance one from the otherthough you are the younger you will also have to comfort herwith a stroke of your knuckles just as her father didher memories of him loving and tragic old those of a ten-year-oldand in your ten years together your part will be to make her starein shock and yourself weep the instant your palm strikes her harshas the real kokoshka backdrop yours the desperation of delivery roomssilent a fraction too long a desperation to wake herthis wonderful woman brilliant and natural with people whowill not stop poisoning herself with good neighbours’down-to-earth wine at the bedside wine dark as dead blood

and with your own mother dead twenty years it is now you who are fiftygrey canvas of the rucksack perished and the grey frame rustedin your father’s garage gold wrist-watch and wedding ringin an old tobacco tin for good a key to the last home you will ownnew and natural in hand lock and pocket

the twin to your own ring lies who knows where removedtoo these thirteen years the thirteen years often theywere all you wore! what wakings to those eyes bright youngdark of hers! her blood running polish-ukrainian in a yankee sort of way the pure eyes of robin or that american-raptorharris hawk by repute easier to train! take up the tambourinein middle age and the finger-cymbals that ornament itswooden hoop will recall middle-eastern dance steps forwhich her pretty feet had most certainly the gift

you stare at a paintingyourself in a green greatcoat the canvas held by a nailto a spreading map of damp coming in from the chimneythere you stand on a rust-red rail bridge and your raised right handeither snaps or toasts the beacons at sundown it is open to questionyou are portrayed from a distance and you face away

the raw portrait is unframed but for a slender perfect slantof the ridge of a young woman’s nose she is standingright beside you in real space real candlelit time of your living roomthe picture out of focus deferring to her she takes your hand


16

and raising it to hers compares quietly and saysplainly in a voice that can have your head and six sensesturning in places you’ve agreed not to be seenstaring mutually no one is to know never mind their loss

‘you have lovely hands perhaps those of a potterI am a potter I have not met a potter I didn’t likeI do not know what it is about pots perhaps that they hold thingshairpins hatpins thumbtacks safety-pins ashesa fill of air is often enough then again it is our turn to hold themset them down somewhere else where backdrop space contains themor an angle of wall or deal shelf to set them off to perfectionI build all mine by handI can show you with no need even for a wheelshow you how’

Laurence James

17

AND THIS IS ONLY HALF THE PICTURE

I have brought back proof of the bridge my walk takes ingargantuan clips that stop the rails shiftingas they cross the riverand rogue lilacs I cut from the shrubsthriving on gravel

I have no trouble recalling scherzos of the blackbirdsquips of the swallows as I standupright fixed as stonework that earthsa span all black with boltsthe foundry plaque that says 1900spraypaint in a state about ‘deep purple’a swastika of green

the time passed by me at this bridgeheadgrammes of my dead skin must be piled upinvisible as the aged who though unborn look me up and down as they walk border colliesover the water before a wedge of sky ablazeto no good morrow but this is only half the picture

the folly of castell coch watchesa steamlocomotive softpedal the steady drop from mountain ashit shakes the hand-yanked switching gearseized now a number of decadesmy father a boy aboard the family outingthe talkies at the capitol

admit it the bridge itself has moved in with youback to the viewer the loden-green fallof your greatcoat concealing the silverhipflask you lift to a sunset that touchesthe four corners of this canvasand this is only half the picture


18

viewer or viewfinder never the man midspan off-centre looking back up the valley to the pink local folly of a castlesees the wedge of sky is not alone incatching firerails and the railing you lean onbleed a rust that is peelingrust the sunset turns a deepening redthe shade of certain lichen

Laurence James

19

A PYRAMID OF HUGE DARK GREEN FRUITS

back to the unaccustomed sununder the brim of a hand-me-down panamatarmacadam melting at my heelshard shoulders evaporating into their distancemy sore thumb inviting the next leg pray beginhalf a day gone since a ten-wheeler slowedand flexed its brakes in my face throwing meflat on my backpack and itself within minutesa mile-off dot aheadanother roadster pulling in a hundred yards onto watch a top-heavy dash and a sandalledlayabout heel just touch the hot step upto cool cool cab then trigger his trucker foot’s thump on the pedal reducing me to another nothingtoppling in his wing mirrornow see me

relaxed relieved ecstatic in front in the middleof a greying gypsy couple’s three-wheeler made for twothe steering wheel a cross between handlebar and joystickwe extemporize a tongue of loan wordsall weather and placenames a lighter and lighter greyfor the nonstop sun my rucksack travels in the openon a pyramid of huge dark green fruitswhose harvest such couples have shadowed slowly northwardsfor generations we get along fine and go for mileswith little speed much noise but no matter soonthey must leave me with smiles of gold and the gift of a huge dark green fruit grey canvas my companion againthirty litres it holds but splitting its sideswith light dirty clothes of the road has no room for evenone of these huge dark green fruits full of juicesfit for a drip feed or blood substitute looking back

I see myself at the kerb eating and drinkingblack pips and the gorgeous flesh of sunset


20

THE FARE THE AIRPORT

a klaxon phone startsat the taxi rankon klosterstern

a cream saloonmoves outinto the tarmac thoroughfare

stonefaced and brazen in His golden boat saint petri leans on the poledazzling in all phases of flood- and daylightcalmly He sounds and charts the bearings of the current air

parterrea woman scrubsa balcony

freeing Her deckof olive green the years’standing waters leave

coppergreen seas rising to His all-weathered feetinstinct in His blood overriding any shift out of trueshark gills of the bell-tower trembling at the changes ordained

the brown boxes fetchedfrom the atticmake Her nervous

though She movesmerely to another quarterof this deep-water port

stonefaced and brazen in His golden boat saint petri leans on the poleas a cream saloon moves out into the tarmac

the fare the airport

Laurence James

21

ALREADY HE IS TALKING…

the man painting this has said he’s happy with the plinthand the leafwork in the arbour the figure is another matter

by the next visit to his neon studio her white silkstone shouldersare toned shawl-like in moonshade stage on stage

an off-black undercoat goes on to cover her in purdahalready he is talking of the kitchen scissors and means it

soon no black eve no line to define the how and whereher fine arms folded across her upright torso no tactful tactile marks

separating the legs to show for it she has stepped outa primed patch taped to the back of the canvas stands in for her

she is one with the leitmotiv passages of bare canvas he applies over here to show an open-air stage in an overlong interval

the pedestal remains the idea of her driftsher doppleganger’s ghost approaches the public piece of sculpture

just to see she knows really it’s not her


22

A MYTH THESE SKYLIGHTS SET…

doldrum fog filters all sense of sky the downs lie ankledeep in snowa duffle pocket holds sketcher’s block & 2B pipe of embersmittened fingers free of frostbite agile for detail that will happenon drifts and shades of white where his grey matter of portraiturebacktracks to the stretch of newcanvas at home for her face seen once in the highstreet he’s a mindto approach and if it is “yes” almost certainly will be able totackle her from the black-and-white positive just out of the24-hour printshop tacked to a board in his neon-lit work space (a myth these skylights setin northpitching rooves nor broad provencal day)… “no that’s itface a little more towards me show the surface play of muscleacross fresh planes of facial bones let me bring to light to life thelatin-tongued tendon that tilts so delicate a throat”

Laurence James

23

MEANWHILE SPARKS…

at waterloo we overtook a man on his squat trolleyrowing himself along the platform like a thingout of the new world’s first civil war his legs gonethat snapped the two of us out of itthough nurse and artist see such things differently

finding two places not too close was not hardwe are in good time after all with seats vacant and amplethough legroom is limited already the seedy compartmentis ticking footplateman itching to jab the start buttonI the woman in question face my visual artistacross the barren steppe of our laps he’ll neveretch me nor see me in skintight snakeskin again

meanwhile sparks at least jump the wheels and white outwindows pressing on and passing londonbrick batterseadefunct but listed looked at differentlyby suburban nurse and painter his backyard the tate

at the end of the day cool and cobbled leading offto water urban and in complete disuseremains the lane hardly more than an alleyand the waterway with its dank kerb that had dogged himhis whole adolescence where he never took the other onethe beauty in his eyes the original one the onemore beautiful and desired than all womanhoodthe future household name on the box who wouldon their wednesday walks confide in him like a brotherof her menfriends and her many troubles with themlittle knowing

well he held me theredared for once the alley waterway dank kerbto talk it out and over again my head at his shoulderin a tang of black leather one kiss put a lid on itthrough the padding his collarbone surely felt the boneof a nurse’s cheek skin of her jawlash of the blink of her eye


24

his coat shapeless as a donkey jacket is black as inkthat inks up copperplate and now the wait for first stateproof of the next female face to sit still for himI am just the woman in question in snakeskinin limited legroom facing himacross the barren steppe of our laps

Laurence James

25

NEAR AS DAMN IT…

height of a single man ‘esprit’ saysewn into his her sweatshirthereabouts you asking why another plankout of some rolling mill stood on endlike this like a stone-age stonemarking time and a local landfallaggregated over as if by committeethin and as you approach clearlycurved as if netting something comingin off the sea by way of self-beaching sea-breezes for indeed they have tuggedbathing machines up and down this shingleand away to leave the place you arean era or two ago to its big bland self-same esplanade dead and straight ahead

punctuation perforation marks it’s there forkept to this point to itself make themselvesknown strobe-bright spot on as a dot in an oilportrait at the photo-real schoolthrough you being aligned so right youwitness holes done by wit and its powertools

a flaring backlit kiss kiss windblown allwithin the coupleof steps it takes to pass it on conditionyou are looking and not just anywherebut at it out to sea same thing

multiple likeness of gender looking inwardsaway from confines of its steeleye to eye nose to nose skin ofmouth to skin of mouth a kissflaring backlit windblown kissraised up on a ten-sixty-six coast


26

with that brevity of moisturebrought in off a tidelineoff tops of froth at low watermark by onshore squallstreating the steel obelisk to a touch as unnerving

as the skin of her mouth breaking the surface-tension of your jaw in a public placeof your own near as damn itunbalancing you a fortnight a long year after whatever it was was over orso you both both said and thoughtbetter to believe

Laurence James

27

NOW AND THEN THE NIGGLING…

at intervals his journey is brokenby the terminal buildingshis fellow passengers make their connectingflights leaving him to pick up hisbags from the kerb below a board that impartsbus numbers destinations and in a spacereserved for such messagesEMPTY MESSAGE EMPTY MESSAGE EMPTY…the red dots moving off right to leftsave his eyes the trouble of following

in the belongings which accompany himthe blank envelope that cramps his thoughtwith the letter its future sealedor at least drawn out for as long as it’ll takeword for word it’s travelled with him a fortnightmad as maybe she keeps her addressto herself for the duration

still there is time between buses to take inthe studied calm of the airport bistrothe banks of screens where black and white departurescome and go without sound in their gridsTOBAGO BOLOGNA SHANNON DALLASthe one no distance at all the next dueto notch up time zones like there’s notomorrow every now and then the nigglingblink of a last call and always the lureof stand-by counters and last minute discounts


28

he stands again at the bus stands and soon the next flightlink coach is lifting himabove bonnets and badges of privatesaloons on the ringroad between airportand airport a six-lane centrifugekeeping a safe distance between himand the snarl of the capital his attitudeto the tarmac is passive abstract all but jet-laggedto starboard many furlongs off the castleat windsor heaves to like a mothballed warship

the heathrow heavens grey as deathrowout of character devoid of tailfin insigniaof airports of the earth like a smokescreenthe cloud cover takes out jumbo after jumbobefore their steep starts are over air journeysbarely begun absurd as maybe or magritteor an envelope missing for nowthe address poste restante or care-offor some reason or none

Laurence James

29

TO WHERE THE FARE IS GOOD…

colossal pillars straddle meand the pale grey greatcoat fans outlike a death-day bedspread no match for the greenplaying surface up there in the club airsettling down into the nap of the baizewell-bedded itself on three spirit-levelled slabs of slate you need to know arehere roughly the colour of the filterless briarfallen from my still decent teethto hit the wooden floor a little aheadof the flat and small of my back and oftwo flailing ends of a scarf maroon and forgottenon some flightlink busride that has intervenedto find it’s all begun looking like demiselaid out clean and low between stocky legs of asnooker table the lush baize camouflagingthe slate layer laid down a good while aftergeologies and woodland and workshop and yetmoons ahead of further work i.e. this freeman’sbrushmanship the primer and under- and over-coats his varnish passages bring to the forebestowed on canvas stretched tacked to his painting-wall so to lift the very club its pleasure holdingthe artist who here restores our sight of itlong on the waiting list while smoke and chatstyled attire and studied walks go on in thereas he with the blue keen-eyed brainwaves and sheof the hushing oracle-like gesturelook in through adjacent oblongs of the sootglassrear wall in fields of a brittle upended boardgameshe the latter an earlier female lead andcompanion muse that continues to see him the formerthrough stages of his own art the two of themout there standing close to a stone nudebequeathed and stood there on the patioby forebears of this his lifelong muse the occasionalfeatured model looking in no not onto the moonbut a club in the middle of town where any day now


30

she sits table partner to him at luncheonthe good food to be consumed well one with another

*

what it is though to know from the outsetwith godly chuckles of hindsight where allour poses come from to hover on the canvasmine in fact an instance snapped by the one-waycamera that came in the post so I am awarethe floorboards under my bodyweight floored at firstglance for good belong but not at all to the clubrather my celebate bedsit and the pipe taken out my mouthlike a last breath I know is a long-distance stagedirection a whim of mr freeman’s educated visualguessing mind that speaks to us through canvasand pigment via polaroid and postal system and as forthe hushing oracle-like gesture of the permanent museand occasional off-centre model well she in factis coming out of the woods on a living room screen as I come in the front door and catch mr freeman kneelingon the lounge carpet still camera in one hand the remotein the other winding the muse in and out of her heyday’sforest to fix so at exactly the angle he needslifting her for the passage long given over toher blank till now her index hushing first her lips then at.v. lounge doublehung with a marriage’s differing ways with paint hushing now the brushmanship that does her and going onto hush the club as she looks out from the pictureon in through the back window the unpainted frameof which I can tell now is made of untouched canvasfor mr freeman’s vision of the club began with a grid of masking tape to structure the pregnantpause and glass space where he and she would standclose to a stone nude looking on in he blue- keen-eyedshe appearing to hush by now even the white abstractnoise of the spheres off camera out of range to usmain thing both heads that of portrait that of portraitistare on edge on the point of leaving a grid-iron grid-locked backdrop are about to walk on in via the full-lengthglass doors onto an interior

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*

red and green bucket seatsin riveted leather that soon enfold the two of them like some spunride at a fairground but these forming an arc round a club tablereserved for the duration for the two of themby a vase of flowers namely a flower its hebbrewclose to the name of her sitting with him now their three-quarterheads making at once the A frame favoured by counsellorshe and she drinking the real innocent pre-dinner waterwe won’t go into here and now they go on in throughto the dining area collecting on their way the proneman from his place under the snooker table or perhapshe has moved himself as far as the bar stool there by the tillthe three painter model scribe departing the paintingforming a rounded triangle as if at a secretsign and on we go in through to the eating areanot theatrically or anything on the contrary as thoughthere were nothing else in the world to do yeson we go in through to where the fare is good the bill realisticwhere we swallow wholesomely and pay wholeheartedly we arranged around the square table awkwardly at firstjitteriness in the air momentarily onlyfor all is forgotten not literally of course quite theopposite for we have come too far for that and my ball-pointed nib forbids it and nothing is wrong


32

INTO THE PULSE IN PADRE’S ASHES

this with padrea year and a half beyond the cremlong interred to enter a rosegarden ofrest establishing itself sure as a yew-hedge maze this plaiting of myselfwith padre’s remains presentlyworking their way down to the water tablefrom where well exactly anywhereconceivably into the water of something-or-other-on-the-water going undereach modest bridge I cross plaiting myselfwith the ghost of padre’s ashesmy wavering weaving gait in slow motionrelates to the swish of the dervishesand the rise and fall and turn in the tides of water tablesplaiting myself into the pulse in padre’s ashesas I cross and recross the bridges in eitherdirection by which I mean bothtrue enough and odd it must be said I’d go along with thatsimply being here I mean througha postcard stand revolvingin some souvenir shop doorwayin a previous village the viewfamiliar to me from my father’sthings we finally recently hadto go through his versionposted nowhere poste restanteso to speak decades in the drawerto his desk his outing donea responsible personcounting padre back on board

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TOGETHER YOU WILL WARD OFF…

towards dark it lets you slip ininto the massive apartment beyond all resting placethat anyway is the easy partpurely the dry land of old doberman from here on in padrewith a beast couchant wide awake in the extremeits live weight across the inside face of the icystone threshold as you begin to guess this is asfar as you get yet it will do you no harm farther thanplay a bit on its reputation for bringing onan eerie tickle to the scalp those reflexes rising to the name dobermanboth are in there to stay waiting the handler’s returnwho will turn the master and the handle walk in call for the lawno? something seems really to have happened out there this timethe owner out and about hoarding household staples for the shelfand treats for the beast

is not about to come homeit is only a few crude commands you have to mastersee the good beast already sees you are making no more moves towards the doorit may at any moment admit to aneveryday need for a kind man’s contact and scratch between theblades of its ears trained on youlook padre it vacates the threshold breathing instead at your heelevenly mouth shut at your side in time on your sidetogether you will ward off all idea of a doorcompanions each to the other growing on each other over timejust be firm with it padrethat’s the wayit likes it


34

JUST GENTLE PADRE GENTLE…

after the time of your life and light midday mealssalt pills little sleeps and when that is alwayswe children were good the family movingalong our island edge of the medon our way to the everyday treat of a swimcare of the vanguard car that followed ushere overseas parents and two small boysa couple of years apart in full swing and songcoming round the mountain coming round as wego and the little boy is in me to ask can Ican my hand take the big wheel take central partyes an impromptu paternal masterclass man toman a long way ahead the shock daddy deary-menot the best driver in the world in automobileand music as well theory but a word unknownawhile to my way of thinking yesthis is never cyprus us me up front full grownthis time round you padre to my right become a nameI have taken to calling you the name of your callingin a new sense and language seeming to fit our newrelative positions no padre this is never cyprus and usyoung family on our way to the afternoon warmth of a swimtidefree between masses of land buoyant with saltsecond time we take this bend in the nighttotal logic all wrapped up in itself and enfoldingbut the line is all wrong I know this like lightningthe internal central wheel now to small full scaledoes not turn the wheels as it ought or padre does notpull with enough bodyweight down to the rightthe road itself is having us off piste altogether and thisis black tarmac our upper bodies leaning ever more off leftto the off side in parallel off the road altogether if nothinghappens and soon we are not coming out of it overkeen evenfor formula one padre’s accelerating when still in the cornerthe line is all wrong padre I unfazed right through internal

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logic of a place in parallel we are bound to and forunfazed throughout despite forces in the road’s metal camberand curvature and vehicular speed that holds usthough trying also to clear the road of us utterlyinternal logic even as I look across merely to confirmpadre’s eyes are closed firmly in no ordinarysleep where he would be snoring for instance whenthe war ace crashed on landing going on towalk on manmade legs in the naafi flixthe line is all wrong we will leave the road altogether for everif nothing happens and soon so with not so much as a by your leave padre I lean across three hands familiar to a wheelscaled down to full scale and with no space to squeezean adult size eight through to the peddles now my voice’sdropped hint gentle reminder waking him not abruptly or anythingtalking our speed down no overcompensation pile-up or anythingjust gentle padre gentle we need less speed and now we need tolose it less speed padre and fast more pressure padre press more more on the centre peddle the wheels the wheels we need them allthe near side the off side all central as the one inside here with usthe wheels padre we want them back on the black undulatingribbon yes that’s it that’s the way and we cometo a gentle credible creditable stopon the outside edge of the middle of a long slow bendat which point I the one able to do sowake and this of course is what kills him for the second time

I think he won’t return to take this bend in the night togethera third time now I have relayed it allhow we are anyway aware or not driving in our parallel sleepswith care side by side in matched seatswatching out for each other


36

SAYS MY BROTHER…

I hear when you hear it played on period instrumentsreed wind tympani let’s assume the tuned drum-roll’s called forall’s transposed whether up down is lost on me

to get the sound out of that time anyway middle C isn’twhere you thought and besides the male voice breaks sooner nowsays my brother with barbershop and a passion or two to his name

neither would the upright ‘millard london’ in gold at which I sitas the girl my mother did at her time signatures and scales stand a spanner’s best efforts to bring the whole works

back up to concert pitch

something’s going to give go even give up at worst the ghost… thoughts such as those above just now again as often in this moodI run through a tuneless blues to end with that held triad

C minor we’ll continue to call it and before long I do half stand left foot hanging back on the sustain peddle as I slip my hand the playing hand from under the lid I close quietly with the other

okay rather pleased with myself at homage played hearing in the psalmlikepulse I’ve laid ad lib under bare bars of the blues echoes of my father-padre brushing up an anthem say for evensong on occasions the organist couldn’t make it

yes homage paid played and feeling time beginning to help as it is eversays it will yes a setting a soundtrack to my mood facing sense of lossof lone living forebear father padre and even as I straighten up

unwitting instinct tells me now bow down touch both lipsto bevelled edge of that piano lid close by one fine-worked keyholeand ‘millard london’ in gold & this I do & this the end of me…

goddam loose-cannon emotion all-too friendly fire! at backof throat pit of stomach back of neck yet all tidal in retrospect onlynever at such a time as this that is found in no almanac

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it has to do with ache and angle at small of back curve and chillin a piano lid exactly that of padre’s forehead has to do with son’slips meeting the skin of dead forebear’s forehead laid low

on day- and night-bed turned deathbed in the hour between afternoonvisit to a home and one phone call a son’s lips to lid of his now pianoclose to fine-worked metal keyhole and ‘millard london’ in gold

& no forgetting scalpel marks of claws of red- and longhaired tom-cat unhealed through french polish to white quick of curved posh woodmistimed once his short internal flight from wingchair to piano lid

slaloming hanging a fraction by talon-tip to fail & fall to axminstersloping off with hurt feline male pride not catching his owner’seye welling up with hurt on his behalf no just sloping off upstairs


38

LOOK! IT CAME BACK

losing touch with the inside bend of my first finger& staying up for up to a handful of touchdownson levelheaded sea & continuing out to open oceaneach’ll soon of course in due course go under

the man at my elbow here stepping off not even heseeing the one stone carry on traversing the salt in the airin place of the climb down through the salt that is all water& banking turn back on itself with the art and

arc of the boomerang

headed for my hand not a hard catch all momentum given upplumb above & no altitude at all above the palm that receives it

hand out I turn and go to the man no distance off& show instead of putting into the words ‘look! it came back!’

not so much as a nod it simply is in the way only now it is self-evident I know all along this man to be my brother & good it is to have

the near one close to look with you into your palm into which you both acceptthe given of a stone of own volition elliptical & fanciful

wholesale & small

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MAINTAINED MAINTAINED

if there is an obverse to naked light and the mothimplications never far offof cell in solo orbit about deathrowthen thispair of dragonfly over august water in your own brother’s gardenevery bit of the pond’s summer colourconducting itself quietly and safely into the bluetheir shortcircuit shade of blue wild double-blueas of a fuse blowing in the next roombut herefreeze-framed and moving on ever so lightlyabroadin the daylighttheir small distance to amillpond double self-immolationmaintained maintainedand how


40

THE WHEELBARROW…

slowly a tall airlink bus passing the lowloaderwhich broad long and bare as an aircraft carrier istransporting in amongst the six lanes of the ringroada cracked pallet or two simply the odd wooden wedge(something to do with a wheeled load from the up journey)a couple of hawsers oily and coiled a longhandled broomsymbolic of something domesticating tucked upright behind the cab

and oh yes! focus to this expanse fit for a fleet of steamrollersthe wheelbarrow on its oblong hollow back full of echoesof big building sites topping-out ceremonies touchingas a towpath pushbike leant against the wheelhouse of its longboatstrapped down colourless overused with its wheel in sympathyand motion picking up speed with all else and everything pending

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COUNTERPOINT OF BLACK BIRDS …

airframes decelerating newly engagedon the approach a fixed visible beatto each wingtip leaving long linesthe colour and texture of fair-weathercloud - today’s first flights in from thefar west

counterpoint of blackbirds the shooting match of dawna moon once and for all roundas the sun that will come

the exhaustof others safely landed yet risingto merge in a column like the aftermathof some oilfield struck or warzone air-field taken out with its fleet of gunshipsand crews where they stood

counterpointof black birds the shooting match ofdawn a moon once and for allround as the sun that will come


42

A NATIONAL GARDEN SOMEWHERE…

it is a rare orchida solitary rangeon the island remains home to it

and badly scorched - war -two peoples map their islandwith barricades down the middle

an orthodox student will never get acrossto the muslim mountainto count the pink and white petals of her topic

seed has been smuggled out pricked outin a third-party lab on mainlanda national garden somewhere is known to have twenty-five

these will make good seed for reshipmentback to the habitatsome time

we hear of talks restartingon talks putting the island back togetherleaving ‘arabis cypria’ at peace in the wildand a rare orchid

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BUT NOTE WELL A CHAMELEON…

a complete sand fossilof the early tideworks a world of goodon his best-foot in-step’s gout-probed bonealready he walksfar better though scanningdumbly the haikus of oyster-catchers he knows by rotetheir roman numeralsgoing in turn under theball of either heel

already he is walkingfar better but note wellthis will not alteran eventual upwardtilt to his red-hairedflowing head and jugularsupplying it note well a chameleon blue in the skyhas begun taking an un-natural hold over him


44

THE BLOOD IN MY BLOOD…

white clouds would appear to himto close to bear down on one anotheras the drift of continents on their return voyagesometime much later making for home the earth-mother of all landfalls his train of thoughtoff course of course all a trope of that sign-language natural light respective altitudesand the forms that ply and people themhave adopted to speak to us through

the white one-off clouds of course on course after allsafely separated out in planes they have been laid down inall down to sun seas we know largely as sea-lanes humidityday-shivers night-sweats fronts patterns systemsfreaks isobars no there is no cloud collision at alland I read you now soundless and clear and readthings into you for that matter you great white one-off cloudsyour message received and frankly way beyond meplying my orbital freeway my eyes now moving on drawn

to the huge blue between see it’s simply not trulyblue in the singular but a skyscape done by new numberseach one this blue or another one there is hereno classic all-encompassing wedgewood or postcardblue each gap in the stately white one-offclouds itself a virtuoso silk cloud performing its very ownblue for the first time in a pale lumpy off-white skybringing this day to you in the first place this blue or thatthat one or this one this blue over there and right herethat blue you’d fly through to take a good look at likely the reason the royal white one-off bullet-proof clouds themselvesare there and I am hooked and steeped and stared out by these fetching bluesas my eye falls on them in turn falls for them the fetchingblue patches on the eyes of the god that is this sky but whothe sufi says you should seek in the face of your lover

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and already it is the wide base of great stately royal divine whiteone-off bullet-proof clouds that has my eyesstanding out of my head at attentionand if anyone tries to tell you quite believably this base is of a gunmetal grey that is only because of the lacklustre the dutiful in their punctual glanceI at least possibly alone of all of us all afternoon in this coastal dieselappreciate the blue with its many shadeshas got into everything I seewhite-lilac clouds raised on true lilac vapour plinths

the blood in my blood vessels runs sweet bluebell-blue if I care to say so and I dare say will outliveanyone who depthcharges it to prove otherwiseokay if you insiststep outside a moment out of this travelling circus of acompartment now on the coastal rails now on the orbital concreteif you insist on not believingme sure your choice of weapons to open me up withI left all mine at the bounds of a village I entered and left some time agofeeling a lot lighter for it full of lightness and yes lightand have no further need for them now soshall we


46

ZIGZAG OF MY GAZE…

like a protégée’s encore up her sleeveshe keeps her hair back in the dark of a soft-brimmed hatit is blonde in all likelihoodelse lash and brow though at this removeof obtuse sightlines and light-waves ricocheting off the inside faceof prestressed glass would be moreeyecatching so yes the hair must be fairand were she to rouse and blink in this direction I feel sure a seachangeblue would catch out the last zigzag ofmy gaze as it made an escape from compartment Aout through the window’s cool relief on my cheek a confession there is somethingof the keyhole in this covert use of theglass wall in such lighting conditionswiltshire deathrattling pastthe engine getting into its strideseeming to lull her further and I look againswear her skin colours in sympathy ordream backtracking to the factof my having involved my-self in her earlier sleep her laying asideof all control all flirt yet entirely out of itof sleep in the open of another’s eyeour discomfort a bond nowhere near halfacknowledged and lost on immediatetravel companions who will wonder long and longafter they leave the train at that embracingsmile of mine but you see it is not outof the window I am looking no the lookon my face as the pace picks uplulling her further is due and purelyto the ever so slight pout at the middle of her lovely upperlip just as a quarter century agoby now she tasted the tip of her mother’sfirst finger and the kiss balanced there for herto giggle at quizzically or sigh at and then return

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A SMOKE-GLASS SMOKE-RING OF UNCHARTED BLUE

lying off worm’s head a seaspaceone seamile squarebathing in white moonshine

before me my drinking glass made in mexicopinprick pockets of fresh air insideits unlikely bulk

the lip blows me a smoke-glass smoke-ring of uncharted bluethrough which I sip

milk so cool it thinks it is liquid opium &hooch of cactus

HEAVEN IN PERSON SWAPPING SHIFTS…

what I took to be you breathing in my roomis simply the night-rain on the rooflight

getting closer to stand at the foot of the bed on toes so delicaterain light to begin with building to keep me up till first light

I like to think it is you heaven in person swapping shifts with angel death

but we’re better known for our rain

asleep again now can I just say the door is openyou know well the catch is not on


48

FIT FOR NINE THOUSAND THOUSAND…

this side the cabinits open shelves’mixing gear and a worldof music and meadrift on an airbedat the rim of dream

across the yard in parallel timethe sun establishingangles on thingsand horses callingfor their morning feed

daybreak dreamwins out main way into a house of godor something approachingone me at a doorjambtaking in the rite

I co-frame and lean on you mein the first rowa swell masterclasssectarian-free earthyaetherial

the liberetto’s tonguelong-dead and fitfor nine thousand thousand cubic yards ofcolour that consecratescare of the rose-

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and east-windowsand nave also of glassthe dreamer’s eyeswork trajectoriesnot sightlines soI can watch our backs

I’m to your rightyour right arm crosswisediagonally downso the thumb’s easyon the soft lipto my right hip-

pocket the palminside and likewisemy left arm crosswisediagonally downso the thumb’s easyon the soft lip

to your left hip-pocket the palminside our armsa geometry of armywebbing a signboth kiss and cancellation

cancellation and kissas would never doso we do not doin the village of the realbut ok in the houseof god or something


50

approaching onekiss and cancellationour sign our sighwide awakeday out day inas even now

now as horsesacross the yardon my brother’s landcall for their morningfeed the humdrumclack of a bucket

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AFTER A LAPSE CHILDBIRTH…

starting the walk that begins to take itself for grantedhe follows for a change abruptly almost by chancethe other lane that leads out of the village by way ofbacks of the houses encircling their church the square towerprepared for repointing in a green net and the scaffold

sidelong his glance returns to one back gate in particularthe hardstanding a skip expecting rubble that will tellof mortar and clay changes an interior adapted to tastesof fresh blood moving in new adults new young new newborn

the garage doors are not secure rough and ready half off their hingescrate-like planks sealing up perhaps some rusted write-offbut the sight of the tall narrow gap these doors should close ontobrings back hearsay some thing seen delivered here

does a tumble-down outbuilding house a kiln? do potsdamp and cool and soft bide their testing time?do first firings go on in there after a lapse childbirthhas much to do with? and after one night’s fire

mellow to be held checked in her fine practical palms?her fingers that built them? the vessels safe as housesquirky no doubt knowing her yet snug as the air that fillsfuller than water with the exact fit of benevolence


52

BLACK HEDGES NETTING…

two pendulum clocks start to pass the time of dayeach letting the other finish an old fashioned phoneis busy ringing no school the buses in the know

my friends’ children can catch up on sleep or homeworkI open the guestroom curtain then my mouth and laughevery february tree has crossbred overnight with the whitest-

flowering of any orchard everything’s gone the colour of allcolour from the beacons in the west to the preselis’ bluestone that turned up on the plain before salisbury or history

in no time I am up and walking the sky like animal breathor pipesmoke joined to the next-door hill by a shaftof light-falling hail as the clouds try to empty themselves

buzzards over the rest of the off-white flock watching(early lambs and the still to lamb penned indoors) a red kiteshowing its foxcolour underside against a steep white copse

a shading of green shadowlike under the trees of a hedgerowblack hedges netting the white whale-backs of carmarthenshireand somewhere else the sun like a foglamp you cannot look into

in the course of the walk a widening patch of the quietest bluelets the keen moon reflect the glory of its new white planet onday one and soon I’m retracing my bootmarks on camouflaged

country tarmac lanes back through the mixed neighbouring farmin the hollow whose farmer had a couple of words on the subjectsnow ‘bloody’ and ‘awful’ and on to the gate to pantyllyn

and its long drive my eye takes in a score of white willowsaplings their young wood a ring of fire the raw stufffor the garden nook they’ll be woven into where they stand

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the hot and the cold tap of the tub in the snowfield still sparkling yes today’s daylight’s going to go on and onlater than you’d think for the time of year even if borrowed

and back at the door to the big safe buttressed house the glad dogmerlin his coat the indigenous white and black of the bordercollie with the black white-peppered with pearls of snow


54

CONFIRM YOUR CONCRETENESS…

lying at the end of a stone breakwater the solid shelter(big as a bus stop though the only tables you’ll be reading by first light are the tides hereabouts) it’s equippedwith bench and bunch of netting which along with your backpackmake for this makeshift headrest a bit of shut-eye nowafter your all-day coastal walk a little shamefaced at havingpaused to be tempted to proposition an entire cove of sandthe absence of mermaids quite apparent

so this is the point love approaches in human guiseone couple consorting and courting in your direction a unitas the saying goes too early in their love for the full illuminatedprom at the front but good for this instinctive turn into the duskand meander down the breakwater arm in arm barely awareit is out to sea they walk

it is the young woman’s west country voice you hear first“…no not there there look the head-end surelythere the feet see it’s all there might easilybe a man use your imagination man”

(impersonating love? in need of theatrics oradventure to fix this tentative date of theirs?will they lay you out for real with a grappling hook?immobilize you with a lightweight anchor? run you throughwith whaling harpoon with or without warhead?she egging him on to greater chivalry just to make sure?are they in love? are they love itself and capable of anything?)

clearly time to clear your throat and deciding pitch register tonevolume accent even language to wish them a “good evening”confirm your concreteness though that could well make thingsworse and what do they do?

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having made you up where there was no need for it they now actas if you were not therethat’s love you are privy to for youout of its wits or not it neither freezes in shock nor wadesinto you nor greets you back rather carries onits slow meander arm in arm down the stone breakwaterout to sea as it were believing in itselfand no ghost


56

AFTER A HANSEATIC HARBOUR…

your view runs out over the kitchen-garden gate in sky blue safe lush and rapidly down to cockle-beds your eye in turn sea-charts or maps merely under now more now less saturatedsands synchronizing themselves to mood and influenceof moons visible or not nevertheless and needless to saycounterpointing in doubletime the main act of daylight takingitself off in circumnavigation of each twenty-four hour clockluminous or not just the one time a day

and there again always also the weather’s continuo free of time-signaturewhether day or night tide high and low with weathercloud the air-pressures suck off-shore or propel parallel to the coastline enticingly often clipping the cliffs moving along the high- &/or low-watermarks in sands that have submerged whole this year for the firsttime the wreck of the ship called after a hanseatic harbour youadopted a formative decade and sailed safely home from and thebetter for a wreck the locals are surely right

to think is going to come up again one day… now where were youah!… weathercloud in the air the air-pressures blow also on-shoreand so low that is when although there are no schedules nor tables available in the sub post office on this topic that really iswhen you can’t see to the bottom of your own back garden

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IF EVER THE PLACE IS FOR SALE…

look out for a walled meadow on your rightone half buttercups the other full of headstonesnow come three dwellings rendered and leftas they are it’s the middle one you wantif ever the place is for sale I have first refusal

interior white distemper with dark patches of dampa solid floor of naked cement the yellowskirting to lead you the thirteen wooden stepsto an A-framed chapel-like space with noobvious function the floor here plainly planked

I am content to enter and pass throughquizzing the easel someone’s forgotten on imagesit’s going to hold you’ll find me at the backI’ve set up a schoolhouse desk with its twin inkwellsand arranged my christening mug where pan plays silverpadre’s pewter tankard for writing toolsfor paperweight his bronze bell that has blessedwine in his wartime ministry ringed in reliefwith lion and lamb pelican and golden eagleeach with its latin caption not one itemis antique but each collectable and fifty years old

a glass door leads out from my roomto a rail I lean against after dark listening outat times like this chlorophyll itself is colourlessdo not be afraid you will startle mestanding indoors in there behind glass behind meit is true the stairs did not creak

just turn off the desklampthere will always be plenty to write aboutcome through onto the decksee how the tree stump and its green twinbegin to detach themselves like sketches or skeletonsfrom the blueblack landfall of ocean


58

hear with me each gust of this slowly rising westerlyletting our hilltop hear its trees in the act of makingleaves that same fresh distended beat of the sea-water beaching itself on tidal levels

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MYTHOLOGY THAT IS UNTIL…

palettes of skin colours bone structures a range of agesall female anything to get herout of his mind ersatz-phantasies see him througha nine-month long cessation in love-manoeuvres the pair of themdeep within each other’s lines still and here it isshe walks back in sits down right there with her nameout of mythology mythology that is until the citygets itself unearthed brought to the light of boiling day

millennia asleep there in her coat the colour lengthtexture of the habit out of some closed ordersitting in dead padre’s wing chair confessing the wordalways loathed as loaded adding now and “always” have “always”will (by definition then loved since beforethey strictly met and love after their deaths not only the little ones)9 months then and she sits in the wing chair brought home from the homewhere its wings stopped his own father padre’s headflopping like a babe’s towards the end

and on her lips a riddle which rather than the answerso mystery-free plain domestic let us here help ride the airwith her before him the air of his front room and frontal lobesair still a-ripplewith the coupled words “always” and “love”and the riddle? why it is she wants to knowwhy he smells of milk


60

SOME IRONIC CANDLE…

his eyes naturallybrighten at the baytitanium-platedby the moon

his neighbours’ garden-lamps thrive onhoarded sun leadinga mock-jolly danceup and down the pathwith no one inand no one there

indoors and a-bed in his dull sleepthis place of his owndisplaying some ironic candle (beacon tohopelessly dated trysts)

and the final twistwaking to interrogationof the A-frameof this roof space

what do you stand for?I stand for Absenceand you know perfectly wellwhose

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FETCHED DOWN IN THE NIGHT…

“the balcony very flimsy structurean apology for a balcony actuallyin no circumstances or weather-conditions to be condoned”the survey always saidand sure enough there it wasin the morning in the rose bedfetched down in the nightbit by bit my balconybattening down the rosesalso in bits as if brought inon the tide of seafogwashing over them so no morebalcony views nor balconyscenes for me


62

IN NO TIME TAKEN TOO LONG IN THERE…

small hours housewife’s cough does not wake her-self nor a soul of her near ones coughs at lastat least now herself awake sees man and daughterdownstairs and out onto moonlit lawn the housea box camera with family group in shock floodlitcontents of house house itself slowly going up…child in arms blinks open eyes sore shrieks visionhousecat in flames at home for once up on a rooftreein bolts eel-child arm’s length on young motherin no time taken too long in there…man of the house himself again abandons black-bordered lawnfollows eyes running banisters leading a way totrips over a prone two of them arm in armhusband half manhandles (one comatose only onedead) over the threshold roofslates smashing into the grate…now it is bedtime thirteen hours beside hospital cotonly child not coming out of it…and this while with all the while in the world withblack rooftree long caved in a black lapcatsips cooled milk in a back yard some doors down the road and onthat table with its candle the catalogueopened at a range of catflaps

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A GYPSY MILKY WAY…

I must be standing on somethingmy head at the height of the rimof a mixing-bowl up on the draining-board in my mother’s kitchen

now where will that have beenone of a dozen British Forces P.O.boxes europe africa some-where in between the island

close to the middle east maybethe home posting to alternatewhere was I yes in my mother’skitchen rather as I once was in her

and when will this have beenwhat age am I a birthday imminentor christmas it is a rich mixon my little finger-tip

rounding blind the inner lipof her mixing-bowl the recipefrom her mother she left schoolearly to nurse to a young death

the baking tin wiped readywith the cold folded wrappingfrom rationed butter not naturallystrict she thought it right to let me know

god “knows” (or was it “sees”) everything I say or think but if it is saltshe spills always the trajectory of her libationa gypsy milky way over her left shoulder


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A FLOCK EVERY ONE OF WHICH…

host and guest next day small midday bus to townhost to work in the gallery guest to further journey home

natural enough llansteffan evening bits of books CD’stwo voices trying out their own poemson the air of the all-purpose L-shaped room

host now pointing out the patch of country they aretravelling through governed three years he’s noticedby one albino buzzard

guest noting one field over the hedge to their lefta flock every one of which but one is black

at llansteffan in the L-shaped top flatbrunch rasher-smells that spiced their cockles will be dispersing

Laurence James

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YAY! FATSALMONPINK INGRATIATING ITSELF…

a house the house home to a man the man one-time fishermanthinks to time still both sea- and the turn of river-tidesleagues uphill even to within a couple of ticks

and look a castle on sands alchemized to full-length lookingglass by a tide just gone the bay blue through the sky

white lines anyway in both the exhaust of longhaulroutes losing their way own engine noise yet to catch up

and those of open sea that curls over raising long foam sailsto see them the last leg to landfall and before each crash

its incoming body of water backlit a green the daylight borrowsfrom steep coastal grazing in full leaf

as the off-colour gable at the man’s back gets washed fatsalmonpinkpercolating draining back down like some lifeblood in the love-lyricist’s felt tip or paraffin lamp on an off day

yay! fatsalmonpink ingratiating itself with the bland pebble-dash of single gable-ends whence to elope with light it-self that goes without saying so out like a late tide


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SEA DISTANCING ITSELF…

an offshore wind keeps the dried out sand smokingaway to sea a sea distancing itself with the noiseof a goods train that will never stop nor endand the sand shines and widens taking on death-throwblues of the sky just before dusk as evening airlinersbeyond sound leave the continent to threadbrimstone nimbus with their gold vapour trails

spectra of red regroup inland on the tops of cloudsthe mud blushes at the thought of all that procreationcrawling out of its primaeval pores a blue jelly fishhas got left behind black and white oystercatchersgather to feed and whistle a mauve and grey is creepinginto everything and the bats dive low over the estuaryits tidal salt sucked downstream out to open uterine ocean

Laurence James

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CURTAIN WALL OF A RIDGEFORT…

alone the proud-gabled sashes along the undercliffflash broadside-semaphores of molten goldfrom across the mauve and ever more and deepmauve of riverflow being taken on by an increasein incoming tide … today’s daylight goneblood-red in long rout now all together went…at my back the curtain wall of a ridgefortquietly smokescreened out is nexteerily scuppered and everything’s bothin the air and the while all at sea


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‘Listening to a Cellist Busking’

L. J.at the ‘wibbly-wobbly’ Millennium Bridge

over the Thames, Summer 2011.

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LAURENCE JAMES

The poems in this volume touch on the natural world, television,archaeologY, the aftermath of the father’s death, and echoes oftravels, abodes, sojourns and homes.... Several poems seem to bedreams: in form they are reminiscent of Beckett’s Ill seen, Ill said.The title poem is a mini-autobiography. The reader will alsowitness friendships, a range of arts and those we may term their‘muses’. Loves - extant, extinct and the imaginary - inhabit theirspaces in his memory and in these poems are brought to light.The colour blue and saltwater are never far away.

In this collection, James’ poems migrate from the controlledfeatures of the expected regularity of form towards the freedom ofamorphous shaping, line length and duration. These effects bringto mind Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonate (Primordial Sonata) in that thepoems perhaps ‘attack’ the norms of traditional poetry and veertowards Dada and the Surrealists.

The poems in this collection are a bid for ‘freedom’ from theformal constraints of his previous two collections from Lapwing:Vulcanologists’ Workshop Lapwing (2007) and Deliquescence ofDust Lapwing (2011). This particular collection emerged fromImagist influences which can be seen even in his translations:from the Sanskrit of Kalidasa, Aja & Indumati, Lapwing (2005),the German of the Iranian-born Said, The Place I Die I Shall NotBelong, Lapwing (2006) and his verse translation of Said’s tale,There Once Was a Flower, Lapwing (2012).

Rosin-Dust Under the Bridge completes James’ trilogy. It was writtenduring the twelve years prior to publication after his move fromGreece and Hamburg, ever westwards via the Home Counties andCardiff to where he has settled on the Carmarthenshire coastline.

The Lapwing is a bird, in Irish lore

- so it has been written -

indicative of hope.

Printed by Kestrel Print

Hand-bound at the Winepress, Ireland

ISBN 978-1-909252-32-5

L A P W I N GL A P W I N GL A P W I N GL A P W I N GPU B L I C A T I O N S

£10.00

Documents

Rosin-Dust Under the Bridge