Some years ago, I knew of a girl who always made love with her boyfriend on top of a grave in the local churchyard.

But perhaps it was more common than I thought, as this poem reveals.

RIP

A girl in our village makes love in the churchyard.
She doesn't care who, but it must be the churchyard.
They say she prefers the old part to the new -
Green granite chippings maybe rankle, warm slabs welcome.
And after, in her bedroom, she sees the mirror's view
Of her shoulder, embossed "In Loving Memory".
Anne, why did you do it? You've eight O-Levels.
Why not Anne? If bones remember, you'll give them joy.
It's as good a place as any, close by Nave,
Rood Screen, Chapel of Ease, Peal of the Bells,
Bob Singles and Grand Sire Doubles.
And, when you half-close your eyes,
The horned gargoyles choose.
But it had to happen.
Oh Anne, tonight you were levelled.
William James, late of this parish, was cold beneath you
And his great-grandson warm above, and you rose,
Although your shoulder didn't know it,
In glorious expectation of the Life to Come.

Alan Garner

It is some time since I featured any of the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

So here is one of her sonnets - about returning to a place she loves, after the disillusionment of a failed relationship.

I shall go back again to the bleak shore
And build a little shanty on the sand,
In such a way that the extremest band
Of brittle seaweed will escape my door
But by a yard or two; and nevermore
Shall I return to take you by the hand;
I shall be gone to what I understand,
And happier than I ever was before.
The love that stood a moment in your eyes,
The words that lay a moment on your tongue,
Are one with all that in a moment dies,
A little under-said and over-sung.
But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies
Unchanged from what they were when I was young.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Some time ago I posted here several poems by A.S.J Tessimond, who is one of my favourite poets.

There is a fair selection of his work on the internet, but not, as far as I know, the poem I am posting today.

I found it on a BBC audio recording of "Poetry Please - The Anniversary Edition".

I have had to transcribe it into print and I have used guesswork to determine the line endings.

So please forgive me if I have got it wrong - and just listen to the recording.

FIRST MEETING

When I first met you,
I knew that I had come at last home.
Home after wandering,
Home after long-puzzled searching,
Home after long being wind-born,
Wave-tossed, night-caught, long being lost.
And being with you was normal and needful
And natural as sleeping or waking.
And I was myself,
Who had never been wholly myself.
I was walking and talking
And laughing easily at last.
And the air was softer,
And sounds were sharper,
And colours were brighter,
And the sky was higher,
And length was not measured by milestones,
And time was not measured by clocks.
And this end was a beginning,
And these words are the beginning -
Of my thanks.

A.S.J. Tessimond

Most of my working life I was an accountant and for many years I had no computer - not even an adding machine.

Today's poem tells of those days, as an old man recollects how it used to be.

THE OLD BOOKS

They were beautiful - the old books.
Beautiful, I tell you.

You've no idea, you young ones,
With all those machines.
There's no point in telling you,
You wouldn't understand.
You wouldn't know
What the word "beautiful" means.

I remember Mr Archibald,
The old man, not his son.
He said to me, out right
"You've got a beautiful hand -
Your books are a pleasure to look at,
Real works of art."
You youngsters, with your ball-points,
Wouldn't understand.

You should have seen them,
My Day Book and Sales Ledger
The unused lines
Were always cancelled in red ink.
You wouldn't find better-kept books
In the city.

But it's no good talking -
I know what you all think
"He's had it. He's living in the past.
The poor old sod."
Well, I don't want your pity.

My 47th Christmas with the firm -
Too much to drink.
You're staring at me pitying
I can tell by your looks
You'll never know what it was like
What you missed.
You'll never know.
My God, they were beautiful -
The old books.

Vernon Scannell

I am in light-hearted mood today, so here is a poem by A. A. Milne (1882-1956), best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems.

I think your children, or grandchildren, may enjoy this one.

DISOBEDIENCE

James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he;
"You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don't go down with me."

James James
Morrison's Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James Morrison's Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James Morrison's Mother
Said to herself, said she:
"I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea."

King John
Put up a notice,
"LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY:
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN
TO THE END OF THE TOWN -
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!"

James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he:
"You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me."

James James
Morrison's mother
Hasn't been heard of since.
King John said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
"If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?"

(Now then, very softly)
J.J.
M.M.
W.G.Du P.
Took great
C/0 of his M*
Though he was only 3.
J.J. said to his M*
"M*," he said, said he:
"You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-
if-you-don't-go-down-with-ME!"

Last week, with friends, I visited North-West London for a performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm. It was a disaster and we walked out at the interval - but that is another story.

Before going to the theatre, we went to Primrose Hill, Camden Town and Camden Lock, which were all much more interesting.

I was pleased, when looking for today's poem, that I came across this - written by James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915).

It takes me back to Camden Town and Hampstead Heath, which I knew well about 40 years ago.

THE BALLAD OF CAMDEN TOWN

I walked with Maisie long years back
The streets of Camden Town,
I splendid in my suit of black,
And she divine in brown.
Hers was a proud and noble face,
A secret heart, and eyes
Like water in a lonely place
Beneath unclouded skies.
A bed, a chest, a faded mat,
And broken chairs a few,
Were all we had to grace our flat
In Hazel Avenue.
But I could walk to Hampstead Heath,
And crown her head with daisies,
And watch the streaming world beneath,
And men with other Maisies.
When I was ill and she was pale
And empty stood our store,
She left the latchkey on its nail,
And saw me nevermore.
Perhaps she cast herself away
Lest both of us should drown:
Perhaps she feared to die, as they
Who die in Camden Town.
What came of her? The bitter nights
Destroy the rose and lily,
And souls are lost among the lights
Of painted Piccadilly.
What came of her? The river flows
So deep and wide and stilly,
And waits to catch the fallen rose
And clasp the broken lily.
I dream she dwells in London still
And breathes the evening air,
And often walk to Primrose Hill,
And hope to meet her there.
Once more together we will live,
For I will find her yet:
I have so little to forgive;
So much, I can't forget.

Footnote: James Elroy Flecker was educated at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, where his father was headmaster, and at Uppingham and Trinity College, Oxford.

In 1913 he went to Switzerland to seek a cure for his tuberculosis, but died there two years later at the age of 31.

For the next few days I am returning to classical poetry, which may please some of you, but disappoint others.

Robert Herrick

Whatever the truth, it certainly evokes memories of England in the Spring, although this year April has been more like July.

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD

O, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Robert Browning

Today's poem was witten by Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639) who was born in Kent and educated at Winchester and Oxford.

The poem tells us that we must be our own master, being servile to no one.

THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE

How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care
Of public fame or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;
Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;
Who God doth late and early pray
More of His grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend;
—This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.

Footnote:

You may remember that two weeks ago I posted here a poem by Elaine Feinstein, entitled "Rosemary".

Your old hat hurts me, and those black
fat raisins you liked to press into
my palm from your soft heavy hand:
I see you staggering back up the path
with sacks of potatoes from some local farm,
fresh eggs, flowers. Every day I grieve

for your great heart broken and you gone.
You loved to watch the trees. This year
you did not see their Spring.
The sky was freezing over the fen
as on that somewhere secretly appointed day
you beached: cold, white-faced, shivering.

What happened, old bull, my loyal
hoarse-voiced warrior? The hammer
blow that stopped you in your track
and brought you to a hospital monitor
could not destroy your courage
to the end you were
uncowed and unconcerned with pleasing anyone.

I think of you now as once again safely
at my mother's side, the earth as
chosen as a bed, and feel most sorrow for
all that was gentle in
my childhood buried there
already forfeit, now forever lost.

Elaine Feinstein

Here is another poem by Matthew Sweeney.

How about you?

DO NOT THROW STONES AT THIS SIGN

Do not throw stones at this sign
which stands here, in a stony field
a stone’s throw from the sea
whose beach is a mess of pebbles
since the sand was stolen for building,
and the few people who dawdle there,
rods in hand, catch nothing,
not even a shoe – might as well
bombard the waves with golfballs,
or wade in and hold their breath,
or bend, as they do, and grab a handful
of pebbles to throw at the sign,
and each time they hit they cheer
and chalk up another beer, especially
the man who thought up the sign,
who got his paintbrush and wrote
“Do Not Throw Stones At This Sign”
on a piece of driftwood which he stuck
in this useless field, then, laughing,
danced his way to the house of beer.

Matthew Sweeney

And then in the dust he drew a face,
the face of a woman, and he asked
the man drinking whiskey beside him
if he’d ever seen her, or knew who she was,
all the time staring down at her, as if
this would make her whole. And then,
at the shake of the head, he let his boot
dissolve her into a settling cloud.
He threw another plank on the fire,
drained his glass and filled it again,
watching his dog rise to its feet
and start to growl at the dirt-road
that stretched, empty, to a hilly horizon.
A shiver coincided with the dog’s first bark,
that doubled, trebled, became gunfire
that stopped nothing coming, so he stood
to confront it, but not even a wind
brushed his face, no shape formed,
and after the dog went quiet, a hand
helped him sit down and rejoin his glass.

Matthew Sweeney

Do you remember "Two Dogs", the poem that I posted here a couple of days ago?

Well, here is another from the same writer.

THE BATHER

Where the path to the lake twists out of sight,
A puff of dust, the kind bare feet make running,
Is what I saw in the dying light,
Night swooping down everywhere else.

A low branch heavy with leaves
Swaying momentarily where the shade
Lay thickest, some late bather
Disrobing right there for a quick dip--

(Or my solitude playing a trick on me?)
Pinned hair coming undone, soon to float
As she turns on her back, letting
The dozy current take her as it wishes

Beyond the last drooping branch
To where the sky opens
Black as the water under her white arms,
In the deepening night, deepening hush,

The treetops like charred paper edges,
Even the insects oddly reclusive
While I strained to hear a splash,
Or glimpse her running back to her clothes . . .

And when I did not; I just sat there.
The rare rush of wind in the leaves
Still fooling me now and then,
Until the chill made me go in.

Charles Simic

Here is what I call an "observational" poem - a snapshot of daily life, caught for a moment and exchanged with a stranger.

HARM

With his shopping cart, his bags of booty and his wine, I'd
always found him inoffensive.
Every neighbourhood has one or two these days; our never
rants at you at least or begs.

He just forages the trash all day, drinks and sings and
shadowboxes, then at nightfall
finds a doorway to make camp, set out his battered little radio
and slab of rotting foam.

The other day, though, as I was going by, he stepped abruptly
out between parked cars,
undid his pants, and, not even bothering to squat, sputtered out
a noxious, almost liquid stream.

There was that, and that his bony shanks and buttocks were
already stained beyond redemption,
that his scarlet testicles were blown up bigger than a bull's with
some sorrowful disease,

and that a slender adolescent girl from down the block
happened by right then, and looked,
and looked away, and looked at me, and looked away again,
and made me want to say to her,

because I imagined what she must have felt, It's not like this
really, it's not this,
but she was gone, so I could think, But isn't it like this, isn't
this just what it is?

C.K. Williams

The writer is an American, born in New Jersey in 1936. He lives mainly in Paris, teaches part-time in the US, and is very popular here in the UK.

Is it the tramp harming us, or us (society) harming the tramp?

Charles Simic , one of America's foremost poets, was born in Yugoslavia in 1938, lived through the German occupation, and left when he was eight.

All are linked by the two dogs.

TWO DOGS

An old dog afraid of his own shadow
In some Southern town.
The story told me by a woman going blind,
One fine summer evening
As shadows were creeping
Out of the New Hampshire woods,
A long street with just a worried dog
And a couple of dusty chickens,
And all that sun beating down
In that nameless Southern town.

It made me remember the Germans marching
Past our house in 1944.
The way everybody stood on the sidewalk
Watching them out of the corner of the eye,
The earth trembling, death going by . . .
A little dog ran into the street
And got entangled with the soldiers' feet.
A kick made him fly as if he had wings.
That's what I keep seeing!
Night coming down. A dog with wings.

Charles Simic

A green hat on a man with green eyes who is wearing a suit (also green) bears the weight of the Shakespearean-coined "green-eyed monster" of jealousy, the hat man just having been made a cuckold.

THE HAT

A green hat is blowing through Harvard Square
and no one is trying to catch it.
Whoever has lost it has given up –
perhaps, because his wife was cheating,
he took it off and threw it like a frisbee,
trying to decapitate a statue
of a woman in her middle years
who doesn’t look anything like his wife.
This wind wouldn’t lift the hat alone,
and any man would be glad to keep it.
I can imagine – as it tumbles along,
gusting past cars, people, lampposts –
it sitting above a dark green suit.
The face between them would be bearded
and not unhealthy, yet. The eyes
would be green, too – an all green man
thinking of his wife in another bed,
these thoughts all through the green hat,
like garlic in the pores, and no one,
no one pouncing on the hat to put it on.

Matthew Sweeney

The background to this poem is the Irish Famine, 'The Great Hunger' of 1846 and 1847, and the emigrations, especially to America.

The voice is that of a child whose mother is dying of starvation on the boat from Ireland to Liverpool, where boats 'gob up' the starving refugees until the quays of the docks are crawling with them ('maggoty').


1847

Ma's face is black with hair
her hands are paws
She does not know me anymore.

Nights toss us cruelly
Afraid I'll no more wake
I sit stony.

What knots my belly now's
not hunger. Anger.

In Liverpool ships gob us up.
We rot, we scatter.
The quays are maggoty with us.
We do not matter.

Maura Dooley

For more about the Irish Potato Famine go to:

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/irish_potato_famine.cfm

Poem 35

She was educated at Oxford University and has appeared at numerous venues in the UK and abroad giving poetry performances.

TRANSFORMATRIX

I'm slim as a silver stiletto, lit
by a fat, waxing moon and a seance
of candles, dipped in oil of frankincense.
Salt peppers my lips as the door clicks shut.
A pen poised over a blank page, I wait
for madam's orders, her strict consonants
and the spaces between words, the silence.
She's given me a safe word, a red light
but I'm breaking the law, on a death wish,
ink throbbing my temples, each vertebra
straining for her fingers. She trusses words, lines, as a corset discilpnes flesh.
Without her, I'm nothing but without me
she's tense, uptight, rigid as a full stop.

Patience Agbabi

Poem 35.

Here is a poem of metaphor, innuendo and adulterous love.

SPILT MILK

Two soluble aspirins spore in this glass, their mycelia
fruiting the water, which I twist into milkiness.
The whole world seems to slide into the drain by my window.

It has rained since you left, the streets black
and muscled with water. Out of pain and exhaustion you came
into my mouth, covering my tongue with your good and bitter milk.

Now I find you have cashed that cheque. I imagine you
slipping the paper under steel and glass. I sit here in a circle
of lamplight, studying women of nine hundred years past.

My hand moves into darkness as I write. The adulterous woman
loat her nose and tears; the man was fined. I drain the glass,
I still want to return to that hotel room by the station

to hear all night the goods train coming and leaving.

Sarah Maguire

This is number 25 in Ruth Padel's "52 Ways of Looking at a Poem"

BUSTER

Under a forty-watt bulb the plastic kettle bubbles
along to a scrtched Patsy Cline. A swivel mirror
cranes its neck as if to catch the light, but finds
two redwebbed eyeballs, framed in a stubbled face.

Shaved, he scuttles the stairs and out
then labours back three flights with a bagful
of jangling bottles, slots the chain to the lock.
Midnight, he shivers and thumps the fire,
whose single bar is growing dim, causing his jar

of 5p coins to suddenly shudder, suddenly ring.
Come two, he roars a toast to the coats that hang
to a human shape on the back of his door.
And he was hoovering come four, and weeping;
just cursing the way, the ups and downs of the floor.

Colette Bryce

A note from the book:

The poems of her first collection are musical vignettes of people and belief; little dramas that are both domestic (a woman queasily facing a raw Christmas turkey) and political (a Belfast woman flinging money back in the face of a British soldier who has sent a Catholic child for cigarettes.)

I promised yesterday to say more about Ruth Padel and her book "52 Ways of Looking at a Poem" - so here goes:

Today's tender poem is about Elaine Feinstein's visit to France with her father - shortly before his death.

ROSEMARY IN PROVENCE

We stopped the Citroen at the turn of the lane,
because you wanted a sprig of blue rosemary
to take home, and your coat opened awkwardly

as you bent over. Any stranger would have
seen your frail shoulders, the illnes
in your skin - our holiday on the Luberon

ending with salmonella -
but what hurt me, as you chose slowly,
was the delicacy of your gesture:

the curious child, loving blossoms
and mosses, still eager
in your disguise as an old man.

Elaine Feinstein

You may like to listen to this poet reading some of her own work at:

http://www.elainefeinstein.com/mp3/

More about her, and her book, tomorrow.

IN MY COUNTRY

walking by the waters
down where an honest river
shakes hands with the sea,
a woman passed round round me
in a slow circle,
as if I were a superstition;

or the worst dregs of her imagination,
so when she finally spoke
her words spliced into bars
of an old wheel. A segment of air.
Where do you come from?
'Here,' I said, 'Here. These parts.'

Jackie Kay

You can read the writer's comments and listen to her reading this poem at:

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=5685

Like most of you, I expect, I am quite busy over this weekend and find I have little time to draft my usual blogs.

It is by "Anon"

"KEEPER OF MY HEART"

Think of me at night when sleep is near
And I who love you am so far away
Think of me then and I will come to you
Nor leave you till the night turns into day
Stretch forth thy hand and through the depths of dark
Another hand will touch thy fingertips
And as of old my voice will breathe thy name
And press a kiss upon thy sleeping lips.