Poems by
Kate Down
The
names of the stars hurt my heart.
Such
distance now lies between
Those
fond ancient appellations
And
these numbered drifts unseen,
Uncharted,
uncounted, unknown but for
The eye of the great machine.
Blue
Earth turns a crescent ear,
Opens
a round eye of sea.
Long
Light lies down in ancient lines
Of
silver, slow-paced history.
They
looked up. We look up.
The
names of the stars comfort me.
THE
HARE
They
are obsessed, these men.
Built
like oak trees for a life of toil,
Instead
they cramp over notebooks, keyboards:
Poets
guilty of the pen.
They
call the hare ‘she’,
Mark
the rank smell and the wide mad eye
Of
this hard-muscled claw-weaponed changeling,
And
sing over old names endlessly.
But
what ‘she’ do they call?
What
do they desire? A witch for bride?
Something
small to grab, that fights and is still,
That
gives up power to the hand’s will,
That
lies down lightly under the thigh’s stride,
Fur-soft,
skin-soft, gypsy moll.
Is
this all their daring –
To
summon a spirit from the dun brown field
Into
that bad place, an ordered room;
Risk
the bite, scratch, panic thrash, blood doom
Of
the heart’s blind chaos that cannot yield –
A
wild hare trapped, terrified. A wrong thing.
The
guilt of the word-sage
Drives
them. It drives them mad for air, mad
For
madness itself, perhaps, or for something beyond
The skull-trapped brain, that might assuage
The
so-safe indoor delight of the clean page.
DREAM
OF A WOODEN JETTY
You
watch me, appraise me,
Offhand,
indifferent.
I
am of passing interest.
Necessity
throws us together on this wooden jetty.
The
lake lies deep and grey,
The
sky quiet over the distant marshes.
No
way round, only back,
Back
into our uniforms – or perhaps escape.
If
we tried it, would we succeed, you think, appraising me,
I,
who have admired you long time, and suddenly
Admitted
as much, out here on the water.
Could
you use me, could you use me, would I hold or snap,
I,
who spoke not of your work but of your body.
What
an absurd surprise: I, haunted and melancholy,
Speaking
of your eyes, your hair, the set of your mouth, your voice –
Interesting.
Interesting. You stretch down your hand
But
not for solace. I pull myself to my feet.
It
is over. You turn back and walk into the twilight.
Our
footsteps boom over the waters.
THE
WOLF’S HAIR BRUSH
Why paint plum blossoms
with it? Why birds?
Why
waste your heart on copy mockery?
Find
out its buried nature, and set free
That
poor frantic prisoner digging at the wall,
A
wild wolf, huge and tireless, the wolf in us all.
Its
slim, delicate tip thirsts for a sea
Of
ink, of blood. Paint war with it. Paint agony.
Oh,
come now. This is an ancient thing.
This
is capilliary action, a cunning design,
Not
a spirit beast, chained, thwarted, malign
And
mad for release. The tap of the wolf’s paw
Dots
the nodding stamens as my brush tip dances. No more.
My
heart is ancient. Yours, young. We disagree.
I
prefer flowers. There’s nothing new in me.
RUBIES
CHERRIES
Rubies, cherries, fire and
smoke,
Here
is the heart my father broke.
Fire
and smoke, and man to man –
Where
have you been since time began?
Fly
in amber, bee in clover,
Times
begun are soonest over,
The spark it creeps along the fuse:
Scheme,
betrayal, promise, ruse.
Ask
me: I cannot refuse.
Rubies,
cherries, I am undone.
My
heart is broken by my son.
MOUNT
FUJI
The old man fights in his
sleep.
High
over him hangs
The
ghost of his father in a white travelling cloak.
The
mountain’s ghost floats on nothing.
Twilight
is too swift a time -
Sunrise
the magician will cause a volcano to appear.
Regular
as spring and autumn
Comes
the old man to this place.
He
paints ghosts, volcanoes; he has forgotten his father.
Yet,
each night, up out of his head
Floats
his father’s ghost, tangled in snow and fire.
At
its feet the vanished child waits, weeping.
FLING
The
Piper on the highroad,
The
Harper in the hall,
The
Chorister in the chancel
And
the Flautist at the ball,
The
Archer in the sycamore tree,
The
Forester in the glen,
The
Fisherman at the lakeside
And
the Poacher on the fen,
The Painter and the Carpenter
As
busy as can be,
The
Blacksmith at his loud anvil,
The
Ploughman on the lea,
The
Butcher at his whetstone,
The
Miller at his wheel,
The
merry Cook at his recipe book,
The
Squire at his meal –
And who, of all these fellows
fine
Is
happy, if at all?
Why,
the Lover, it’s the Lover
Who’s
the happiest of them all:
The
Lover on the fair linen,
The
Lover against the wall,
The
Lover in his naked skin
Is
the happiest of them all.
ARCHIVIST
These are the songs of the
old hill-riders:
Words
spun out of the night winds bringing rain,
Out
of sunset clouds, rivers of gold.
Music
woven from the silence before thunder,
From
the whisperings of birds and leaves, and the tread of ponies.
Here
we have a pathfinding aid, these are recipies,
And
this rhymes the names of the families of kings.
Do
not be unduly angry. They, being long dead
Could
not guess that navigation and genealogy would be useless to you,
Did
not even know of the plain that once lay beyond this place,
Where
opulent priests swayed in sunlit procession
Holding
aloft their gold doll of plaited corn.
These
are the songs of the machines of memory
Oiled
by half-starved shamans of rock and hand-print
Shaking
their shaggy masks in a torch-lit cave.
Then
trailed after eons by the miraculous cloudy brush
Of
some ghost scholar, drunk on elegance and obsession,
Over
this dim silk’s whiskered weft.
Get
out your gold for it; no common coin.
The
trade here is the lodestone, true north, the vein of power,
The
arrow to lead you straight into the thinking heart
Of
your furthest grandsire. Look. This is the name
Of
even his father, and his. And this the star they saw
When
they looked up on a particular night. The frost fell so.
The
pony started at the call of a male owl.
Into
the new-made song were cast these shadows.
All poems ã
Kate Down, 2003.