Peelin Orange Read online

empty of feeling, a colossal cruel,

  soon victim of the tale’s conclusion, dead

  at last. You hate him, you imagine

  chopping clean the tree he’s scrambling down

  or plotting deeper pits to trap him in.

  You cannot understand, not yet,

  the hurt your easy tears can scald him with,

  nor guess the wavering hidden behind that mask.

  This fierce man longs to lift you, curb your sadness

  with piggy-back or bull-fight, anything,

  but dare not ruin the lessons you should learn.

  You must not make a plaything of the rain.

  PALIMPSEST

  Grandma, much younger

  than her age-paper,

  is giggling on the floor

  with baby Jon

  as with his daddy

  forty years ago. ‘Age

  is just a number,’

  as the slogan says.

  Grandpa, seeming

  buried in a book,

  gives thanks for her

  endearing gift

  and mumbles Larkin,

  ‘What will survive of us

  is love.’

  AT HOME

  I

  No strangers here

  tonight: alone at last

  with music

  we reclaim our home

  we rediscover space

  we do not need to speak

  II

  This evening no one raps.

  Our music underscores

  the vacancy, the walls

  demand possession. O

  such gaps! This quiet

  evening palls.

  GAMES

  Sometimes

  when he teetered

  on the brink

  the woman

  saddled with

  his mind

  would wish him dead

  then pray

  he’d come again

  to safety

  and her bed

  Time after time

  he sidled back

  into her care

  contending

  there was nothing

  in the world

  to fear

  INTERLUDE

  Life of the party, he’s

  a clown on springs

  until the keeper

  puts him down.

  Jack in the box

  again, recoiling.

  Quick, now!

  Click.

  EPIPHANY

  your eyes

  bright headlights

  dip

  & we flash by –

  SEEN

  beyond the longing

  & the lies

  half-hidden in

  equivocating eyes

  (be careful

  if you can’t be good)

  a lurking dread

  of being

  understood

  SISTER

  beneath the undulating

  calm

  dark currents move

  recalling

  hurt & rage

  & fracture

  o my romantic soul

  sister longing

  for a whole

  new world of love

  i hear your soft song

  breaking on the page

  ACROBAT

  brave woman

  trusting

  he has gauged

  her arc

  exactly

  she’s letting go

  she’s flying

  in the dark

  GIVE T’ANKS

  Anodda year of love.

  Give t’anks. An’ pray

  dat God-Above

  will seh to time, No way,

  No way:

  de word is love.

  THE PLEDGE

  I

  She’s black

  and beautiful

  you lucky nigger

  poet sing

  II

  I love her

  black I love

  her sensual

  grace

  I love her

  black I love

  her bright

  enquiring face

  digging truth

  beyond my eyes

  weeding dark lies

  I love her black

  III

  but she says No

  Stay with with me nigger

  lover keep it true

  Say with me nigger

  I love her

  (love her)

  Also we are black

  (are black)

  (are black)

  SHE TELLS HERSELF

  Something like love

  is hiding deep inside

  the silences.

  He doesn’t often talk

  to me. I trawl

  his eyes.

  SHE TELLS HER ANALYST

  There is a place inside me

  not even you will ever see

  I locked my wound away

  the day I saw the roses wither

  I will not call the name

  of the deceitful brother

  I locked my wound away

  the day I saw the roses wither

  INTERFACE

  Discombobulated

  by his riddling eyes,

  the foxy lady tries

  to seem untouched, but may

  have seriously miscalculated.

  The predator can sense

  her willingness to end her

  laughable pretence.

  She wants to play

  surrender.

  AUTOGRAPH ALBUM

  That boy who loved you

  (and you loved him but never told him so)

  has scrawled his epitaph on your pink vellum.

  The girl whom you detested (and who knew)

  has paid you back – with troubling ambiguity,

  neatly on the back side of your best friend’s

  witty retching.

  The lad you asked just to be kind

  has pulled a big surprise, has written

  something shrewd yet generous to a fault.

  This album

  is a mine field floating,

  waiting to sink your craft.

  MOTH

  A somewhat intellectual moth,

  she could dilate for hours on flame

  and how to fight desire.

  She’d read an awful lot on fire,

  but it consumed her just the same.

  INTERVIEW

  he sits there

  looking thoughtful

  slyly taking me in

  from top to bottom

  eyes / bust / legs

  meandering

  through the detail

  of my life & times

  simpatico

  but i can feel

  the charge

  that he does not

  acknowledge

  i know he knows i see

  the amber light

  & will not cross

  the bridge

  PROPOSITION ONE

  A routine love that hangs its hat

  on coming home and wipes its feet

  precisely every afternoon, and greets

  its wife with proper peck and asks

  how went the day, is not for me.

  Love will not set the clock

  by my affections

  and wind its own springs up

  in time.

  To keep the thing alive

  let’s loosen up,

  let’s improvise, my love,

  relax, be casual, enjoy the lime,

  relinquish the habitual,

  reshape the paradigm.

  THE LOVERS

  after René Magritte

  The lovers kissing

  do not see

  each other, do not feel

  unmediated hair and skin.

  Each hooded

  in an opaque swirl,

  neither seems aware

  of something strange.


  Do not disturb.

  They are in love.

  Each feels a kinship

  with the other’s mask.

  OPERATION

  after a thorough

  physical

  he dug a hole

  into her skull

  he cut

  a great big window

  in her gut

  then mumbling how

  he was so sorry but

  he couldn’t stay

  the fucker

  walked away

  HOME

  Father, given a chance to be

  away a while, be free

  a month or two,

  was quick to grab it!

  But freedom’s

  neither here nor there:

  home is the habit

  he will always wear.

  ANOTHER WEDDING

  The ritual is well-known:

  the bridegroom says his total vows,

  the bride says hers,

  the clergyman declares how strong love is.

  Yet, each time, something stirs:

  they resurrect our own

  promises

  promises

  DEPARTURE LOUNGE

  The young man,

  when the flight is called,

  is blowing his nose to clear

  the sadness of departure.

  The girl who’s leaving looks

  composed. They’re travelling

  on different planes

  to different destinations.

  Partir,

  c’est mourir un peu.

  Time after time

  these moments

  devastate.

  But partings down the years

  have helped to make me

  ready to say goodbye.

  BREAKING UP

  Stay away she told me

  Don’t come back

  It’s time

  to turn the page

  Refocused now she

  doesn’t take my calls

  she blocks

  heartbroken messages

  but can’t delete

  our history

  her eyes a secret garden

  her touch a sacrament

  PUSSYCAT

  His conversation flattered; she said yes

  and went the way his thoughts inclined;

  but not content with rooting in the flesh

  he stuck an amorous finger in her mind;

  and now her mind lies naked to his pleasure

  and hungry for possession, she’s afraid.

  She would have barred him from her treasure

  if she had known her mind was getting laid.

  GUINEA PIG

  susceptible

  to viruses

  that bother

  human beings

  & therefore

  used

  as a laboratory

  animal

  he seldom

  bites

  he’s almost

  human:

  gentle

  stupid

  animal

  caged

  WHY, THIS IS HULL

  on a grey day

  (spring) when

  on my balcony

  beyond plate glass

  pigeons

  flutter & strut

  i wing

  a little something

  to my sun

  PRESENCES

  You’re here.

  I conjure you

  house-coated, half-asleep

  in the armchair by the window.

  Awake in bed

  I hug you, memory.

  They who one another keep

  Alive, ne’er parted be.

  ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS

  Clinton and Barbara,

  you stand accused

  of Christian practices,

  of faith in God and helpfulness

  to people. You habitually buoy

  us up with cheerfulness, which is

  the very heart of your offence:

  your challenge to a world of friction,

  the marvel of your unaffected joy.

  In view of all the evidence,

  we vote for your conviction.

  Clinton and Barbara,

  you shall serve hereafter

  another forty years

  of love and laughter.

  III ON HOLY WEEK

  a sequence for radio

  PROLOGUE BY THE MAKER

  Beware: the following secular depiction

  of people living through the Crucifixion

  revises Holy Writ. The gospel story triggers

  the maker’s thinking about various figures:

  he offers moments, voices, attitudes;

  and if, occasionally, faith intrudes

  don’t blame the maker, blame the borrowed bible

  (for humanist agnostics, unreliable).

  The maker who presents these versions

  is grateful, in advance, to all those persons

  (including The Almighty) who’ll forgive him

  his ordinary rhyme and rhythm,

  allow each portrait arguably true,

  and kindly authorize invention too.

  Now hear these people. Some are good.

  Some fail to do the things they should;

  but hear them all. Let each one speak

  a little of Unholy Week.

  JESUS IN GETHSEMANE

  I

  O Father – if it be thy will –

  let this cup pass from me.

  But o my Father, I submit to thee:

  use me, thy servant, still.

  II

  Father, I cannot drink this cup!

  Release me (if it be thy will).

  Unwilling, Father, I am still

  thy servant. Bear me up.

  A PRIEST

  The chap’s a madman rather than a liar:

  I think he’s quite convinced he’s The Messiah!

  That God might be a carpenter! Absurd!

  It’s quite the silliest nonsense I have heard!

  (You know my bias; but) a priest –

  perhaps an elder, at the very least –

  would seem to be more likely for the job

  than some untutored Galilean yob!

  JUDAS

  That evening, not so long ago,

  the Master, fingers in the dish,

  said gently: ‘Did I not choose

  you twelve, yet one of you’s

  a devil?’ Mocking, he glanced

  at me; and others, quick

  on cue, looked my way too.

  The odd man out is always

  Judas. ‘We’re from Galilee.’

  (Nasty little province,

  smells of fish!)

  The point is,

  Jesus never trusted me.

  John, who’s favourite, he’s

  from Galilee. Like Peter,

  Andrew, all the cosy band.

  Which Galilean, Lord,

  will sit at your right hand?

  Tonight I kissed him

  and I saw

  that mocking glance again.

  ‘Betrayest thou the Master

  with a kiss?’ he said, ironic; then

  seemed pleased or something

  like relieved he’d got me

  right. That knowing judge of men,

  he surely ought to realize

  that truths are often complicated:

  what he spotted he created,

  distrusting with those distant

  foreign eyes.

  The point is not the money, I’ll

  go give it back. For, hell,

  what’s thirty bits of silver?

  I would not sell

  the Master, he’s for free. Just

  preserve my purity of hate

  for him I served and loved so well.

  My Lord, the Master of my fate,

  always withheld his trust.

  PILATE’S WIFE />
  I dreamt us strolling, arm in loving arm,

  along the avenue that skirts the border;

  our tender courting days wheeled back.

  Just then we heard a yapping,

  loud, a pack in full pursuit!

  Into our lives he crashed,

  a lamb, bleeding and bruised,