Afterlives
(for James Simmons)
1
I wake in a dark flat
To the soft roar of the world.
Pigeons neck on the white
Roofs as I draw the curtains
And look out over London
Rain-fresh in the morning light.
This is our element, the bright
Reason on which we rely
For the long-term solutions.
The orators yap, and guns
Go off in a back street;
But the faith doesn’t die
Reason on which we rely
For the long-term solutions.
The orators yap, and guns
Go off in a back street;
But the faith doesn’t die
That in our time these things
Will amaze the literate children
In their non-sectarian schools
And the dark places be
Ablaze with love and poetry
When the power of good prevails.
Will amaze the literate children
In their non-sectarian schools
And the dark places be
Ablaze with love and poetry
When the power of good prevails.
What middle-class shits we are
To imagine for one second
That our privileged ideals
Are divine wisdom, and the dim
Forms that kneel at noon
In the city not ourselves.
To imagine for one second
That our privileged ideals
Are divine wisdom, and the dim
Forms that kneel at noon
In the city not ourselves.
2
I am going home by sea
For the first time in years.
Somebody thumbs a guitar
On the dark deck, while a gull
Dreams at the masthead,
The moon-splashed waves exult.
At dawn the ship trembles, turns
In a wide arc to back
Shuddering up the grey lough
Past lightship and buoy,
Slipway and dry dock
Where a naked bulb burns;
In a wide arc to back
Shuddering up the grey lough
Past lightship and buoy,
Slipway and dry dock
Where a naked bulb burns;
And I step ashore in a fine rain
To a city so changed
By five years of war
I scarcely recognize
The places I grew up in,
The faces that try to explain.
To a city so changed
By five years of war
I scarcely recognize
The places I grew up in,
The faces that try to explain.
But the hills are still the same
Grey-blue above Belfast.
Perhaps if I’d stayed behind
And lived it bomb by bomb
I might have grown up at last
And learnt what is meant by home.
Grey-blue above Belfast.
Perhaps if I’d stayed behind
And lived it bomb by bomb
I might have grown up at last
And learnt what is meant by home.
.::
October
The whitewashed monastery where we sat
listening to the Aegean and watched
a space capsule among the stars
will be closed now for the winter
and the harbour bars,
cleared of the yacht crowd,
will be serving dawn ouzos to the crews
of the Aghios Ioannis and Nikolaos
where they play dominoes
by the light of a paraffin lamp.
Europe, after the first rain of winter,
shines with a corpse-light.
A cold wind scours the condemned playground,
leaves swarm like dead souls
down bleak avenues as if they led
to the kingdom of the dead.
An alcoholic defector
picks out ‘Rock of Ages’ with one finger
on the grand piano in his Moscow flat,
his long day’s journey into night
almost complete. Some cold fate
awaits us at the end of the earth.
shines with a corpse-light.
A cold wind scours the condemned playground,
leaves swarm like dead souls
down bleak avenues as if they led
to the kingdom of the dead.
An alcoholic defector
picks out ‘Rock of Ages’ with one finger
on the grand piano in his Moscow flat,
his long day’s journey into night
almost complete. Some cold fate
awaits us at the end of the earth.
Like the leaves we are coming
within sight of the final river,
its son et lumière
and breath of the night sea.
As if ghosts already,
we search our pockets for the Stygian fare.
within sight of the final river,
its son et lumière
and breath of the night sea.
As if ghosts already,
we search our pockets for the Stygian fare.
.::
Everything Is Going to Be Alright
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected in the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to get into that.
The lines flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be alright.
.::
Derek Mahon, New Selected Poems. Londres: Faber & Faber, 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment