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Recent Additions - updated April 2006
All poems © John Gilham 2004, 2005, 2006
Most families, I thought, kept them in cupboards;
most families, I thought, fed them with worry;
and most families know each time they pass that door
what lies inside it; most families I thought
bring it out shyly, proudly, for people they trust.
How it should be.
But not in the open, everywhere.
Dig down a little round here and you’ll find
one, or two, perhaps a cluster, promiscuous in death.
A bloke I know has a dozen under his kitchen,
and there’s one in the basement of a house near here;
we might have a hundred between front gate and back fence,
waiting to sell their stories: conquest,
settlement, quiet enjoyment, dusty death –
and what else in between ? in our house ?
Burying one’s own is one thing.
Living on top of other people’s private plot
is one skeleton too many – a sudden weight of history
I hadn’t bargained for when I took out the mortgage.
as the country cools
life develops on the crust
like mould growing on the lees -
lichen and scrub replicate genesis.
beneath the lava lie past lovers
trapped in a time when smiles and eyes were all for each
the touch of lips burned like a summer's day,
and at night naked beneath the warm stars.
the yard dog barks no more,
the cage-trapped bird will never sing,
and still and cold beneath the crust of years
love lies preserved, beyond resurrection.
we were summoned a day or two ago,
to attend the cemetery,
to meet the survivors, to say goodbye,
to not a quarter fill this small chapel
to not quite surround the grave
to be not entrusted to sing a hymn
for fear that ignorance, embarrassment
and lack of numbers would make a mockery ...
expose the sham
for this man had no friends
true, we met his wife who loves him
who returned with him here, where, God knows why,
he felt at home, to die
and wanted us not to know his final agony
knowing what she did not, but will,
that we would just be extras at the wake
a filling out of numbers, names from the past, no more -
acquaintances, employers, colleagues
from a daily round some years ago -
for this man has no friends.
we who were not, stand in this dock and feel accused
by death, and loneliness, and pain
I passed a man last night
I knew from his step it was a man
striding between the hedges of a sunken road
in the light of no stars
I heard his heels tap in the night
like military, but just off-beat
someone in a drunken mood perhaps
who had missed his bus, who was walking home -
as I was, but in a strange country; no friends, no port of call
I faltered, should I stop and hide
hard to be in a deeper dark than this cold fear
hard to be quiet when my heart drums in my chest
and don't silhouette!
but see there, a cigarette dances by
in a few silent steps I'm undetected, safe, away!
a mile to town and then the midnight train
which brings me at dawn
to a familiar landscape, with known shapes;
and I wonder who it was that, innocent
chilled me with the fear of sudden death,
pitched me into the cold ditch of terror -
a forever stranger, never to be known.
Covert observation, on the Tube. The simple joys
of true appreciation. Not for boys.
Alas despair, deflation, drooped defeat;
the woman I am eyeing offers me her seat.
Needing foundations for our new kitchen, we excavate.
Some tiles come up, pottery, small bones - chicken probably -
but not till we dig a metre or so down do they appear, like sticks,
and then that strange twist that harks back to school, ulna and radius;
and a little wary scraping reveals a ball and socket.
Panicked, we call in archaeologists.
It seems, the past underpins us.
Once a courtyard where they threw scraps,
and swept out the breakage;
before that, for centuries, a cemetery
stacked deep and close as though our kitchen
was an altar, some holy shrine to
gods of home and hearth.
Who they were we shan’t know
although we depend upon them.
As I depend upon my father, whom I never knew,
unearthed in a single photograph
– not much foundation really for a family,
his very existence
a skeleton cupboarded so long;
but now no longer out of sight,
nor out of mind; roots, bones.
I saw Mars on election night,
coming home late from the count.
he sat, glowing,
low in the trees across the park
harbinger of war
a little too prophetic that,
now we have our apocalypse,
now all the old warriors are strapping on their breastplates,
the poets inventing dragons, and devils,
so we can kill them.
I wonder, if it had been Venus up there,
perhaps after a night of recounts,
just me and the milkman out on the street,
would it be humankindness I'd be celebrating,
rather than the dark fear of inhuman hate?
.
frost on the grass, sun
on the rosehips, hawthorn, holly,
and tears on the cheeks of mourners
as we walk, cold feet, bareheaded
to where the grave awaits us
there we strew rosemary, for remembrance –
and a single voice singing
brings me my daughter from far away –
alive, who would share this sorrow.
I weep for her, her loss and mine,
our lesser parting focussed
by untimely death, our little world shaken,
our senses sharp and bright with loss
Somehow, it never sank in –
yes, we had ration books, yes,
the willow-herb grew in London,
yes, buildings were propped up,
and we ran our model cars down dirt ramps
cut in the sides of air raid shelters
in the school field – but it wasn’t real;
not though our parents talked of it
in almost every other breath,
not though we tracked our bikes up and down
the craters near the railway yard,
not though it was only ten years away
did we realise how close it was to them –
or why the dog cringed at the ‘crump’ of thunder
When you’re eight, nothing exists before you did –
our parents had had no life, certainly no feelings:
and how could we comprehend that they had just,
within a few short years, been bombed, doodlebugged,
conscripted, threatened with invasion, blacked out,
hung on the edge of defeat, survived?
We’d never been there.
and only now do I begin to know,
only now feel, how close a shave
ten years ago is.
When he died, she put
one suitcase in the hall:
all his things. “I didn’t
want the clutter any more”, she said,
going through the lounge,
its unmoved ornaments,
her sewing room, her study,
to her kitchen.
“My kingdom”, she said.
I. white lace on thunderclouds;
the sun
coming out of mourning.
II. lonely dogs, wide beaches,
unexploded trees
that a spiderish mist encumbers - autumn.
III. low sun in the branches;
a diamond,
lost in a stocking of black net.
IV. a slow cloud wisp waves
across the flat, black hills,
and they brush deep, white.
V. and like this:
a late November tree
bursts into leaves, explodes,
viciously anti-personnel,
in a passing gust.
had I not been watching,
had I looked away
or not looked at all,
I had not seen it;
would not be riddled through
with leaves.
when it happens, it will happen slowly
when you smile, it will be carefully
and when your hand moves, it will stop
on the edge of intrusion
like the hint of rain, after drought
I will know what's coming
and when you lean toward me I will engage
your eyes and let our hands touch,
like the edge of a distant storm
there will be an age before we kiss
for you will stop time,
rather than admit the intimate
I know you: certain, clear, deliberate,
yet light and shy, like a young girl,
amazed to find yourself
however desired, however postponed, however gentle,
lapped in love, like the Spring tide rising