Lynette Roberts: Collected Poems (11 page)

Glitter. On water mosaic of running tides,

Bitter with sweet birds, and unfortunate flesh; nothing

Fitter than avidity could return such mawkish

Litter. Go down there further and see the lucid

Plane-of-night, strained with piteous men

Drowned in water-swills of crossing waves; lifting

Asteroid heads, so alike, so different from

The petroleum sky: striking death too soon,

And nearer and sooner than they should: this dawn

Mauve as iron, whimpers as the biting jest.

Tydi’r Haf, tad y rhyfig,

Tadwys coed brwysg caead brig,

Teg wdwart feistr tew goedallt,

Tŵr pawb wyd, töwr pob allt.

Tydi a Bair, air wryd,

Didwn ben, dadeni byd.

Yr alarch ar ei wiwlyn,

Abid galch fal abad gwyn,

Llewych edn y lluwch ydwyd,

Lliw gŵr o nef, llawgrwn wyd…

Gorwyn wyd uwch geirw nant

Mewn crys o liw maen crisiant.

Dwbled fal mil o’r lili,

Wasgod teg, a wisgud ti.

Siecyd o ros gwyn it sydd,

A gown o flodau’r gwinwydd.

Cannaid ar adar ydwyd,

Ceiliog o nef, clog-wyn wyd.

        
DAFYDD AP GWILYM
(
c
. 1325–85)

We must upprise O my people. Though

Secretly trenched in sorrel, we must

Upshine, outshine the day’s sun. And day

Intensified by the falling haggard

Of rain shall curve our smile with straw.

Bring plimsole plover to the tensile sand

And with cuprite crest and petulant feet

Distil our notes into febrile weeds

Crisply starched at the water-rail of tides:

On gault and green stone a gramophone stands,

In zebeline stripes strike out the pilotless

Age: from saxophone towns brass out the dead:

Disinter futility that we entombing men

Might curb our runaway hearts. –

On tamarisk; on seafield pools shivering

With water-cats, ring out the square slate notes

Shape the birdbox trees with neumes, wind sound

Singular into cool and simple corners

Round pale bittern grass and all unseen

Unknown places of sheltered rubble

Where whimbrels, redshanks, sandpipers ripple

For the wing of living. Under tin of earth,

From wooden boles where owls break music;

From this killing world against humanity

Upprise against, – outshine the day’s sun.

Corymb of coriander: each ray frosted

Incandescent: by square stem held, hispid,

And purple spotted. Twice pinnate with fronds

Of chrome. Laid higher than the exulted hedge;

By pure collated disc of daisy glittering

White on a red powdered stem. By cusp of leaves

Held low to ground; this coriander cane,

Colonnade of angelica, chevril, fennel,

Parsley, aniseed, caraway, yarrow,

All kitchen’s frescade culled and tied away;

By this eyelet and low fieldfare herbs are

Accentuated; engraved and brought to light:

To green cymes of guelder rose and flax blue

Meadows of Pembrey sedge. To men allergic,

Gunners: Bogrush, Pricklesedge, stinking Goosefoot,

Foetid Hawk’s-beard, Black Horehound, Bloody-veined

Dock, Blue Broomrape, and Bastard Toadflax on dank

Plain of mud cough like Kerberous in midsummer lanes.

Food chyles constricted in their stomach,

Twisting, knotting, and deflexed, rats bolt

Between their teeth. All day the ghosts of ulcer

Hover in front of their paths. With unhealthy

Custom the MO turns a page, lays them aside,

Apart from communication, into pruned

Shuttered wards, curing each for the wrong event!

The MO turns a head. – Long necked in

Achillean sky, geese sleeve their own

Shadows through pools of air. Sailing downstream

Downfast to earth. Hydroplanes splash like

Zinnias on inrushing tides; fussy as moorhens

With tarnished back; whose legs of peeled elm

Trail scarlet garters into the shaking tips

Of reeds. To their aid. To his aid. To my lover.

Under tincture of Myddfai Hills, west of

Bristol glass, gold with bracken dust and black

Cattle motes and all chemical paradox:

XEBO 7011 camouflaged in naval oilskin

In all the gorgeous shades of Hades; –

By seiriol cat with greenfield eyes.

By kitchen rilled with distemper and grass.

By coat stained and saddlestitched by my flowering

Hands. By neighbours like Byzantine Waterspouts: leaning

Out of bedroom windows. By damn tin-blower.

Leaf feathers of the white-eyed woodpecker

Spangled with lime leaves, wearing the

Chuckling red hat! By 7. With magic and craft

To heel. Without abbreviation or contraction

Take thou my lover 4 pints from the ‘Farmers’ Arms’

Or, if flat, 6 glass tankards from Jones

‘Black Horse’. Not supplying either sip homeward

Sloe-gin from Merlin’s desk or board ‘Cow and Gate’

Lorry. Up to Carmarthen: to the wine merchant’; mention

Vicar’s name, demand whiskey ‘Old Parr’,

Mix. Let a mixture be made. Let him my lover

Take one silver tablespoonful out of
IN

A little water each fourth hour and the

Acridity of his mind shall be as the crimson

Heart on our fresco wall. – To perfect eyestrain

For your wedgwood eyes, collyrium of well water

From the Ffyn-on-ol-bri springs.

Ystyriwch eich ffyrdd. Hauasoch lawer, a chludasoch ychydig; bwytta yr ydych, ond
nid hyd ddigon; yfed, ac nid hyd fod yn ddiwall; ymwisgasoch, ac nid hyd glydwr i
neb; a’r hwn a ennillo gyflog, sydd yn casglu cyflog i gôd dyllog. Fel hyn y dywed
ARGLWYDD
y lluoedd;

Ystyriwch eich ffyrdd.

LLYFR HAGGAI. PENNOD
I

Embrowns himmel hokushai. Manure seeps

In long rags, pavilions hut, camouflages

Arsenical veins with a sprouting

Febrifuge and serial of death; heaves a

Heavier heart of sedimentary hate.

Washing like flies to pin of elbow, soldiers

Under ciliated moon shake off floatings

Of soap; strike code on oxidised zinc; polish

Bayonets clean as the cut of the moon to

Sharpen inactivity. Spark electric cells

Of air into a prism of light as they

Shoulder the blades on parade. A shark wind teethes,

Strips fields; striating black fullstops under hedge;

Bellying-white trees as they stand caustic

And chagrin. Like paleozoic sentinels, stretched high

Above skeleton hills. Dripping rust low on

Blue lined eddies of wind, cold down

To the shafts of their root: to kerb of tide

Where cracked mud quails into Kuan glaze;

To greening dunes where rivulets shine as

Water rises appointing silver streams

To encircle the clay. Mounting ships higher,

Disturbing the colder water of shells. Near

Nightjars undisclosed, where green icy stars

Ripple above the corn this late seaharvest.

‘Defending the Navy’ they say. Brothers

Who neither coincide nor drink at the same pub.

‘Army batons fascist’ puff the Navy.

‘Aristocrats sinking fast’ is the khaki reply.

A convoy timbers the bay. Aubergine hills

Wounded, lie heavily in the dishwater tributary.

Night falling catches the flares and bangs

On gorselit rock. Yellow birds shot from

Iridium creeks. – Let the whaleback of the sea

Fall back into a wrist of ripples, slit,

Snip up the moon sniggering on its back,

For on them sail the hulls of ninety wild birds

Defledged by this evening’s raid: jigging up

Like a tapemachine the cold figures February

19th, 20th, 21st. A memorial of Swansea’s tragic loss.

Would the Warden of the Marches send us telegrams?

Who would dismiss them with
peace
; throw

Bézique on the table!
A New World

Before us O Parliament. Be merciful

To our outcast minds shed from cuprite

Pyrite and tin. Bare our pricket hearts

Into a new alloy. Have mercy besides

On us who forged away bayonet and bone.

Standing out from the gun; bleared and solitary,

Shading his broccoli eyelashes; sending death

To no other than the girl he loves, gunner

1620B64 with Post Office pen, dismal heart,

And weak ink, signs and rescinds his love. –

On this vitreous monochrome of a plain

A striped rhizome cat fled across the estuary.

He chosen, blind behind the mourning grid,

Woe, fluttering at the bottom of a cage,

Finds parallel nerves on watersand; dives,

Into the torn prints of his mind, finds hurting lines.

He nearest to the heart stands dead in his

One and a half round the battle-waist suit;

Boots radiating with the exuberant shine

Of coffins among the pale and jumped up press cuttings

Strewn around his feet. O condole. Contrive.

With him in his constriction. He, with a blue

Division of blades in his head: with a

Shivershock of frustration, was a lover,

Or had been until now, who could what the world

Could not, without the aid of Freud, Norman Haire

Or Stopes, offer in his own strange way

Love sweet as a bird – savage as dog at his bone.

Now I wretched woman watch the white shaft

Of light greening the chimney embers,

The ciliated pines chink with ice this

Unwelcome frosty morning. Turn round a kitchen,

Once fragrant and rare as borage flower;

Sweep royal-blue walls; wash white the furniture,

Floor, and odd crockery – draw deep red hangers.

Who cherished love in peace and freedom, knew it

Delicate to hold as open window at dawn.

Where blue-eyed goose met meridian eyes shaded

There is no shine of celandine; our souls

Are cast into galvanised pits. I, crabbed youth,

He cruel negation. Twisted and rough…

Love distrained about the hearth and in running away

To bare our child reached no further than

The kiosk when love’s stern face dragged back my will.

Never to be regretted or demolished.

To love, no bed of feathers but crock of thorns.

Yet a ritual; wanting no change. For who would

Strive with impeccable love? To love returning as

Gently as the rain, with grief harnessed

To his shoulders. To love which grew; survived all

Credulous hate. To meet underground as gravelovers do;

O Choice. O my beloved people remember this.

Overseas battling in circles of lust:

Spirit put to no better purpose than

Grain of sand. Overwhich. Backwards and

Forwards soldiers ran. Such battles of mule

Stubbornness; or retreat from vast stone walls,

Brought non-existence of past, present and

Future 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, left, right, left, right,

Accumulating into a monotonous pattern

Of dereliction and gloom. When battles should be

Fought at Home: as trencher-companions.
He at my side
.

Un eich amynedd yn ddi-feth,

Un yn eich croes a’ch cri,

Mair, mam Iesu o Nasareth

A’ Mari o Llanybri.

                                      
DYFNALLT

I, rimmeled, awake before the dressing sun:

Alone I, pent up incinerator, serf of satellite gloom

Cower around my cradled self; find crape-plume

In a work-basket cast into swaddling clothes

Forcipated from my mind after the foetal fall:

Rising ashly, challenge blood to curb – compose –

Martial mortal, face a red mourning alone.

To the star of the third magnitude O my God,

Shriek, sear my swollen breasts, send succour

To sift and settle me. – This the labour of it…

But reality worse than the pain intrudes,

And no near doctor for six days. This

Also is added truth. Razed for lack of

Incomputable finance. For womb was

Fresh as the day and solid as your hand.

B
LOOD OF ALL MEN
. D
RENCHED ANCESTORS OF WAR

W
HETHER GERMAN
. B
RITISH
. R
USSIAN
. O
R HIDE

F
ROM SOME OTHER FOREIGN FIELD: REMEMBER AGAIN

B
LOOD IS HUMAN
. B
ORN AT COST
. R
EMEMBER THIS

E
SPECIALLY YOU TAWDRY LAIRDS AND JUGGLERS OF MINT
.

So double hurt was hard to console. Heart hatched

Shrived nerves each day in valley clove. Stretched

Mind tight into scarlet umbrella. Slatched

Nowhere the deflated ropes of blood. Wrenched

Harbouring heartbreak that is a crack grailed.

O where was my consoler. Where O where

You double beast down. Callous Cymru.

O love beaten. By loss humiliated.

Stretched out in muslin distress. Bound

By an iron wreath scattered with coloured beads.

O my people immeasurably alone.

No ringfinger: with the tips of my nails glazed

With sorrow with solemn gravity. Crown tipped sideways;

Ears blown back like lilac; with set face

And dry lids, waiting for Love’s Arcade.

O
LOVE
was there no barddoniaeth?

No billing birds to be – coinheritor?

The night sky is braille in a rock of frost.

Why wail ribbon head. Crystallised cherubic

Cluster of stars. Why weep spilling splints to

Steelgraze the sky. Why shrillcold cerulean

Flesh with identity tacked hot on your wing.

Why dribble prick-ears, scintillating in an up

And down nailmourn. Tumbling to earth an icy precision

Of pins, distilling flies and peacock fins,

Tears in flames on fire, scorching air as they

Splash into heavier spills of quavering

Silver, drops, seels resinate woe, chills hedge and

Chilblain glades. Grisaille freezes the sense; crines

The gills into a drill motion; stills-shrills

The singing birds to kill; Drips rills

From envelopes, pustule eyes and hat. With

Urinal taint instils mind with a perilled dampness;

Fells skilled discipline to halls of humidity

Engraving clothes to trail balustrades without

Flesh; to a wilderness of pavements blue crayoned

With telegrams, where by a trick of air, owners

And cats remain, trying in mid-air to force riseup

Their own smashed brick. These men have brothers,

Are wived. And in dredging buckets of steam

Through stable-showers, men sway with the slush,

Dreamwhile teeming out cables and rope

Stretch barb wire tight across the crimped moon.

Wringing out moisture from mind and mouth,

Pulverising a haze to gauze their contorted feature,

Inebriate mouths cratered: others with lime fresh

On briared cheeks cut Easter Island shadows, elongating

Into weathered struts that strain all clouds for height.

On the lowering of the Dandelion Sun brail umbrage

For their pall: for those hovering above us tall as a

Siren’s wail… pocked and pale as pumice stone…

Mother-shrivelled with tansy tears: and those from

Accumulators, with eyes vacant as motor horns

Who shutter out the bleakness and blink in their

Own way. In quiet corners men yawn out death.

Commiserately sodden. Here rain contravariant:

Here in discord and disobedience:

Probable mutiny and desertion: night splashes up

Mullions in heavy hayloads: lights up shiny

Pailettes on rawset faces: spits up frogs

And tins to fidget their bowels. Dodging

Pillars of rain; pails overbrimming swishswashing;

Drenching rifty suits, their steel shoulders subscribing

Thin laminations of grief. O my people here

With labour illused and minds deranged…

Through rivets of light;
Here are your Heroes
.

While high up, swallowsoft…

Marine butterflies flood out the whole estuary.