Rg Gregory

begin at a chapter you have read before With new words and a new hand turning The pages where the print vibrates and the white Paper runs in a stream of many colours Stand

a cold bright sun Two days to christmas A first-quarter moon At a good vantage-point A small white coffin Driven slowly uphill From the cemetery gate To the minimal grave Fifty people attending Unexpected

loneliness is a state The lonely cannot reach It carries a grandeur That doesn’t fit into Bed-sitters or rejected Ideas – it’s the label stuck On the bottle after The tables have gone

she came on a fine cool morning The last of a course i was attending As we crowded the pavement Waiting to be let in – hello she said Put her arms around me

i I shall die yearning A hand Reaching out to A face that isn’t there A face Seeking a hand A stone Leaving its mountain- Wall in a wind Anxious to be a bird

(1) And off to scott’s (the dockers’ restaurant) Burly men packed in round solid tables But what the helle (drowned in hellespont) This place for me was rich in its own fables I’ll be

heeley (sheffield) autumn 1988 Dodging the broken bottles Dog-shit the pavement spew I wheel my young son matthew Through the heeley streets Shop to shop this early Morning (short of milk) Unsettled day –

for what my heart held clear And didn’t have the wit to show For what my path proposed And got lost in its diversions For what my beginnings dreamed And my ends cannot lay

the cupboard was done up On the outside In the brightest of colours The house it was part of Was filled each day With its loud exclamations The sun looked in gladly One morning

it began as a secret desire (an itch In the marrow too vague to get through To the bone) an idea that never could Make it as flesh – there wasn’t a part of

(after hiroshige – stations of oi) Here at the sixty-ninth station Of the gregokaido road I have a sense of completion That is not completed yet The long journey to this moment Has many

on the last day of winter i went to bed Harsh winds rainstorms beating my head Houses trees with a sucked-out look New year flaked from the old one’s hook Then overnight such a

the dream of the white bird flying Offers a freedom as tasty as nectar How our lips purse to the goddess’s pap At the want of such swoops through the air To be rid

i take my property with me says the snail Slow-moving (yes) but packed with sublime thought The house upon its back some kind of grail Vulnerable to brute boot – and wisdom bought By

as the landscape falls away The hawthorn in its gnarly fashion Is content to stand alone Berries (the very tint of passion) That birds are wont to feed upon Bloodstain the shortened day A

lemons don’t let you admire yourself too much They stick from their tree like awkward thoughts Demanding a truth be told even if the tongue Would prefer a far more sickly explanation Lemons are

the bluefish was surprised I was there to greet it This world it said is mine It feeds on blueness For the first time in my life I felt i’d found my truth Bluefish

i want to hold the horse’s string Cried the girl (three) stamping her foot Told by adults she was much too young The black horse stood staring at the wall It worries us you

two old lazy crocodiles are basking by the water They get round to talk about the macdonalds’ daughter Gemini gemini Have you ever set eyes on young stephanie Jiminy jiminy Who lives here in

whirligig twister Dancer prancer St vitus’s quester Chancer romancer The inkman cometh From that nether world Where dream and coincidence Are darkly furled Accident rubbed him Into puzzling light He is what he isn’t

(in china it is symbolic Of darkness and the new moon) In your night’s hollow The tiger stalks Black grasses have licked It into nothingness Hooked by moon I hover on your hollow’s lip

within the shell swim all the sea’s fish Our ears too are compendiums of sound The big bang exploded – such a long wish Waves and warps towards the present ground Shell to ear

don’t be so lazy maisie maisie Don’t be so lazy please I know it’s snowing And a hard wind’s blowing But nobody knows At the rate we’re going What time we’ll get home tonight

(from a painting by hugo simberg) Those who bear the wounded angel Are they honoured or destroyed Far beyond their comprehension Are the warfares of the void Angels have a sheen to lift them

for the naming of tara This bowl of joy That her fruits of earth She’ll well employ For the naming of tara This bunch of flowers That she bloom brightly Through her natural powers

just as the dusk comes hooting Down through the shivering black leaves Of the swinging trees we (the brave ones Swaggering like marshalls through a lynch-mob) Crash-bang our way to the door Of the

wherever there’s a tear in the fabric Around weymouth – portland appears From abbotsbury hill it’s just a long Thin line humped at one end Closer (from chesil beach) a head-on Massive lump of

in the shadow Of the flower Is the sting The bee driven by need Uses its painful gift To keep its sense of beauty In proportion It does its job with A thoughtless dedication

in my reading of the moment i have learned The figure next to christ in da vinci’s last supper (a painting i have actually seen in a milan church Fragilely restored) is a woman

you have gone away from yourself You walk in a dead way Your loins have lost their sweets Your breasts deny touch Your face exudes cold pain Everything you were Now you are not

to the seaside To the seaside To the change and peace of mind To the easy la- Zy holiday The leave-it-all-behind To the seaside To the sunshine To the body-littered sands To the deckchairs

let’s all go to the party friends Where left over bottles and stale fag-ends Are proudly on offer from the last time round And our hosts believe by a ritual sound Fine spirits will

(1) the ordinary You are not interested in me A receiver of food and a giver of shit My brain knuckled under I have rendered the skills of my Limbs to generations of caesars

(a) orihuela-time The sun in orihuela calms the dust And people glide about the streets at ease (problems left indoors to cool themselves) Time has grown fat and no one cares To pin each

when the body of a woman dissolves Within are the three feared faces The man who dares to trace them comes To grief – but nothing personal is meant Waves and particles transvest –

we say blame the teachers Don’t we send our young to school To be taught the simple rules For decent public-spirited behaviour Do we pay such crushing rates To have our children turned to

on a deformed request in a train lavatory Gentlemen lift the sea Be all of you the modern Muscular mountains Who with a scoop of biceptual crags Swoop down for an armful of ocean

the red man says hello The green tree says i’m here All grown-ups are sleeping Only the children hear Decorations are delighted Presents hug the floor The room in its festive hat Hides behind

the winding wye Curls into my senses Feliniously There’s no such word But no such river Merely exists Where this river slivers Between the dream And the time i camped by it Has left

professor piebald (the oldest man in the home) was meek At the same time ribald He clothed his matter (so to speak) In latin and (was it) greek It caused no great offence To

fancy shooting a man dead for an old label But think If there weren’t any old labels Nobody would ever be shot dead And all those poor people Whose livelihood depends on making guns

when the dog began to sing The people ran amok A man shinned up a flagpole A woman chewed her sock Children danced the drainpipe A policeman robbed a bank The mayor and all

when the new year Came out of nowhere And peeped into rooms It was so flattered to find All the tv’s drinking its health Praising its innocent appearance It responded with its warm Dark

you know how it is with the room The door is frequently locked As i pass a white sigh Is pushed out from under As i bend to retrieve it The wood quivers with

i got nothing last year And i expect nothing this So i’ve got to find If i’m to be rewarded So all good people You’d better learn to give From the goodness of your

so here we are at last at the ten-boy Never to be the single-figure-aged-again boy And all the trailing clouds that cling to the not-big child Can be blown away – you’re up in

when the doctor came on a monday He looked at my mother and said There’s something seriously wrong here – She’s had a stroke – she’s almost dead It must have happened on thursday

(i) I believed in flower-power (the triumph of the meek) The thought that what a wind could bend was not to be Derided for its weakness but known to draw its calm From a

october stops the pretence That somehow summer Should still be loitering around It walks through the garden Hanging the spiders up Between fences and flowers It throws rather more dew On the ground than

certain creatures it seems are never seen Straight on – they occupy the corner of the eye Once sensed (a second look) they’re gone The damsel even more so than the dragon-fly She’s a