For Yesterday 9780824887834

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FOR

YESTERDAY

PACIFIC POETRY SERIES

FOR

YESTERDAY Marina

Makarova

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII PRESS Honolulu

For Yesterday was selected by W . S. Merwin in the 1984 Pacific Poetry Series competition

© 1985 Marina Makarova All Rights Reserved Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Catalog Card N o . 84-52703 ISBN 0-8248-1000-7

For support of the Pacific Poetry Series and generous counsel, the Hawaii Literary Arts Council is gratefully acknowledged.

Poems in this book have appeared the Canadian Otherthan Review, Cave Quarterly, Islands, New Zealand Listener, Outrigger, and Rimu.

To my husband and the old lady still with me always

Contents SETTLING IN

1

MOVING APART

2

DEAD HUSBAND'S BIRTHDAY CANCER PATIENT SUMMER HOUSE

4

5 7

ON THE DAY OF BOB MARLEY'S DYING RIO

8

9

TO SEA

10

T O O MANY HANDS

11

DEMIS UNDER GLASS FORCED LABOUR

12

13

WORDS OF THE MISTRESS, LOVED BUT PUT ASIDE FOR THE WIFE'S SAKE MAIL ORDER FILIPINO BRIDE FREE WORLD LIVING

15

16

17

WINTER BURIAL ON A HILLTOP

18

FROM A WICKER CHAIR IN THE IMPALA HOTEL, BANGKOK BARBADOS

20

COLONIALS

21

OUT OF HONDURAS, SOMEWHERE IN DARKNESS TRAVELLED

24

YOU TO WHOM I GAVE TOO MUCH AND NOW THE INITIAL CONTACT

25 26

ONE BY ONE THE LEAVES WILL FALL TO A WANDERER

28

KNOWING THE AFTERMATH MILITARY MONOLOGUE

30

29

27

22

FROM PROBOLINGGO ALL THE WAY TO HELL MATROS

32

33

TOGETHERNESS

34

THE PILOT GROWN RESPECTABLE REUNION

35

36

NIGHT IN ST MICHAEL HOU'GAN

37

38

TRYIN AGAIN SPITESTOWN

39 40

EASTER FRIDAY

41

THE ONLY LINES I WILL EVER ADDRESS TO MY MOTHER DEATH REACHES THE DESERT I PRAYED FOR YOU

43

44

O U R DREAM WAS A GLASS BALCONY

45

I WEAR YOUR RING ALWAYS 46 COMMUNIST NEWLY WIDOWED GUNUNG MERAPI

47

48

TO A TERRORIST HUSBAND, JAVA 49 TO A FIRST-BORN SON PAST PRESENT

50

51

TO AN OLD OLD LADY W H O FINALLY DIED RECITAL

53

FOREVER THE PRIEST SAID SEPTEMBER KERKHOF HUISTOE

54

56 57

58

ALWAYS THE AFTERMATH

59

52

ix

THE MAN FROM SENEGAL WELFARE STATE RETREAT SPRING

61

62 64

THROUGH SILENCE POSTER

60

65

66

MUSING IN ACHINSK

68

LENIN IN HIS TOMB

69

THOUGHTS BEFORE SAILING

70

VALERA: A Sequence 71 THIS TOUCH WILL SUFFICE ALL PORTS ARE THE SAME

73 74

AMERICA IS THE COUNTRY I LEAST WANT TO VISIT FORBIDDEN LOVE IS SWEETER

76

ONCE AGAIN WE HAD TO GO

77

YOU ALONE KNOW MY FRAILTIES I HATED THIS CITY

78

79

WE LAUGH AT GRANDPARENTS' PHOTOGRAPHS IT'S TOO LATE

75

80

81

WE WERE NOT ANONYMOUS ENOUGH HALF A LIFE AGO

82

83

THE ARMENIAN EXPEDITION FOR COMBATING HAIL

84

FOR

YESTERDAY

SETTLING IN I realise it is impossible to adequately describe the dead and watch amused as you sit down in his chair test it for strength look about the room and shyly drop the odd question into the silence to draw me: what you are really not asking is, how do we compare This was his history: here the young white-faced soldier clutching the rifle he had not yet been taught to use there's the child in his father's arms his begonias still crowd the window sills that's the sewing box he carved me once in a long cruel winter when we were trapped caged by rain and the world and fear already creeping up on us You are too large for this room we both know it and you have brought something of the fierce light of your islands with you that will not sit quiet in this little house and these few tears that I turn aside for are for he who was fated never to hold on to anything and for me for I loved him steadily and forever just as I love you and I know dark stranger that in time your two gentle natures will merge to one person and I will die not remembering who I loved first or more fiercely and wondering why it is that men always must die to make room for others.

2

MOVING APART FLORIDA I hate with its brown bog swamps and alligators waiting with eyes bulging just above the water line once I was on an Eastern flight that faltered and nearly came down in the everglades —a plague on the whole peninsula. I hate terse Miami airport hustling me on big red-haired negro dragged my bags last from the chute sweat standing on him angry as the tears I was choking on MARIANNA at dawn is cold I had forgotten cold silver grey like the skies I lived under once but refuse to remember N E W ORLEANS in a sulphurous mood neither autumn or winter Calley, I saw St Louis and it was just as I pictured it with tombs overblown old vines burst with the brass of all those summers and the spirits dry in their shrunken beds mumbling promising vengeance some day to come MISSISSIPPI cooled me all that river wash my soul, Lord

3

LAKE C H A R L E S have we passed Lake Charles? the shiny new young negro soldier keeps on asking his boots have no dust on them yet his immaculate fingers lie folded on his knee HOUSTON negro mothers put coins in the plastic mini t.v. sets to soothe their crying babies I thought Houston was a hero and SAN A N T O N I O has for every drunk and tramp a shirt sleeved policeman with a gun to bear him away EL PASO baked sand and silence the faded cowboys in high boots have dour Mexican wives and children with coughs and running noses Mexicans do not smile outside the Walt Disney movies I talked to an American crossing the country just to see the tumbleweed and ARIZONA already and the night cuts to the bone cold desert cold shadows cold round moon following even when I close my eyes Arizona is bleaching me, Calley I will not submit but can you tell me Calley why it is that always we meet only to part?

DEAD HUSBAND'S BIRTHDAY The First So quiet in the house today holy Sunday It rained all night now water drips softly from the trees the warm weather is here at last I was coming today to bring you flowers but the buses aren't running so I must stay here instead looking down the long miles between us. The neighbour's sitting by the window sewing new clothes again on the hills sheep tear away at the grass backs turned to the almost-forgotten sun nothing has changed for anyone but us. I wind your clock that doesn't need winding move cards on the mantel straighten the cover on your spotless bed nothing in all this house but space and a head bursting with memories.

5

CANCER PATIENT I watch for hours the plump ones from the world w h o call in at this place they smoke and laugh exchange cosy gossip some even bring their knitting to help pass the time to make it more like home death's just an illusion, something that would never dare happen to them They let me walk outside on sunny days this garden a mockery of a public park death smiles from the roses and coughs with the birds dark in the leaves overhead fresh air pains me now it's better inside safe with the window between me and the world There I see the families passing cosy heedless hurrying home for their evening meal once I had a family too and the world brimmed with hope but death has long fingers I turn away sometimes let fall a tear or two but inwardly the nurses must not be upset we are all happy confident people here in the true British tradition confidently chatting our way to our non-future I will never make it to Kazan next spring I knew it somehow deep inside long ago but hope's a persuasive thing There are no horizons left I shall die in this foreign land they will lay me with strangers and even the touch of my native soil will be forgotten

There is no escape nothing left but a return to bed that stiff-starched coffin curl up small as if there was some softness to be found pretend I ' m home hide inside my head and if I ' m lucky I may fall asleep before the nurses come and just for an hour lose myself in dreams.

SUMMER HOUSE I ' m foolish at my age I suppose she said planting new fruit trees I'll never live to see them bear we reassured her watered the young growth and laid paving stones reporting to her in town of progress made. Once with her sister she drove out to spend each holiday here swimming in the sea until the cool nights drove them across the road to their balcony but Clara died years and years ago now she was lucky if a nephew took her out there twice a year We aired the house for her piles of blankets never used spare curtains clocks and brasses dried grasses they picked half a century ago still waiting in a blue and gold Egyptian vase hand-embroidered cloths books " H o w To Catch A H u s b a n d " a coy twenties girl smiling on the cover neither of them ever married She was right of course w e knew it all along let the sea wind in for the last time had breakfast on the balcony in the sun where no-one had sat for twenty years or more packed the blankets and pictures and chiming clocks the nephew had no time to bother about I touched the grasses stiff in the Egyptian vase and they crumbled into dust.

8

ON THE DAY OF BOB MARLEY'S DYING Not one given to admiring passing singers and fads and stars I find myself caught in a dilemma by the silence your leaving has brought to the world. Your face adorns a mirror in my kitchen a childish thing, some people say who don't like to think of the black races out there waiting and of tears and men w h o live beyond their understanding but wanderers from far-off places stop and gaze and feel at home study your cheery face and see the hopes of both your people waiting there The battle is not lost. You will smile there still, dreadlocks flying, when w e have grown narrow and old.

9

RIO And what am I doing here with this man I do not know whom I do not intend to love though he presses mightily his fingers on me burning higher than the wine already his voice steady on my ear more deadly than the thump of drums neon fireworks shower our heads vicious green fire spits pink shot with gold hammers the eyeballs drums into my skull devour him strip his flesh slowly from the bone the demons dance in darkness death stitched in red satin my black dress gleams yes, my soul is black, you daughters of Satan though my flesh be white born with a nun's calm that none may see what thoughts move inside but Calley learned and laughed I never did see white woman move like you before I am the professor's daughter not needing the witchery of drugs I can enter Hades cold any night I please neon splinters our vision red beasts smile balls of light tossed on the breath of demons rock the eyeballs loose in the sockets the jungle screech of those parading under the lights cries of the wheels and blue bows offering their wares this is all we have left I am afraid of absolute night but darkness strides the mountains so swiftly here T H I S IS T H E D I S S O L U T I O N and why am I holding back pushing tight my arms to hold him off and fighting to hold to the dream of someone I was outside in the real lost world?

10 TO SEA for Valéry And so darkness softens the sting of night Sleep smoothes the horror of sliding out of life The seeds of our destruction grow softly while we sleep Death spreads our fibres tenderly even as w e Tighten our slumber against him. Always change sweeping over the sleeping world Those tender lights harden to mere pricks That hurt the eyes as we slide away And who has the strength left for tears As the spray hardens the gale rises In the void of the storm there is no time left For contemplation.

11

Too many hands too many mouths reaching I'm sick of love it's as meaningless as everything else Yes, I know you're different from the rest they all say that.

DEMIS UNDER GLASS Sometimes late at night when I sit alone Demis' blind closed eyes somehow catch mine he's waiting for some sign from me a word of cheer It's a weird existence floating there in his little eternity not grown never lived nor properly died I often wonder what personality waited folded in that budding b: we'll never know Demis and I A doctor took him down from the shelf one day and asked the formula 90 % formalin and 10 % boiled rainwater protect Demis from destruction.

13

FORCED LABOUR What was that dream last night a warm bed in a soft starry land moonflowers shining at the window clear lily scent dividing the darkness how foolish the imagination waxes The rat was no dream alas my first encounter with this evil how will I forget its clinging weight the way it hung for that long moment before I tightened my nerves, kicked it away H o w the moments crawl by on this plain noon so distant it remains a dream a mirage teasing from a far horizon So early in the day yet I am falling asleep shuffling like someone twice my age I cannot pretend to be alert and working IF O N L Y I C O U L D SIT D O W N But if I sit I will be punished more work and already I'm dying from the normal load work is the most evil word we know but don't stop never stop to think keep moving even at snail's pace keep the arms rising and falling force a gleam of life in the failing eyes quickly before they pounce forget blisters screaming nerves the seeping dust that chokes and deafens rubs new blood from the grimiest most calloused hand squeezes forth the last grudging drops Less sleep each night soon I will collapse after the punishment fall to hallucinations the last bright road arrived so soon Delicately nurtured I should not be leaning here scarecrow in a trench that's not my way behind a desk I belong lecturing a crowd

14

I was not born to wield a shovel still we're all a mudbath in the end delicacy hardly matters any more You may own my body for the duration but you can't touch my mind secret defiance is also sweet I can disappear inside my head and you will never know the punishments the soft revenge that shapes you slowly here and while you unwitting fools watch over my empty carcase I fly away, inhabit other skies find my paradise where sleep is life all men sleep in feather beds in peace and scented silence waking only when they are ready to open their lives to another day I linger here on foreign shores taste sweet waters walk in peace It helps, for a little while.

15

WORDS OF THE MISTRESS, LOVED BUT PUT ASIDE FOR THE WIFE'S SAKE Still my heart beats with yours though oceans though continents wash now between us from my island to yours I send out my words across the water across the sky the air I ask them softly to touch you to smoothe that dear face I will see no more my words fly over the mountain (Soufrière) curl past the torrent (Windward ever Windward) wash with the eddies to the shore though there is no answer no echoing call to the last day of my life I must keep sending my words out to you.

16

MAIL ORDER FILIPINO BRIDE Never goes out. H e sent for her after his wife and daughter died and his son drowned The daughter he had left wouldn't speak to her and went away forever She came here to escape the filth of her native village but now in this wide stone silence wonders if the move was a wise one remembers how different home was reminds herself again at least the rain cannot get in and her belly is full This is an empty land where people do not speak or look her in the eye and now they have a son she never leaves the house at all uses up her days pacing the four walls sitting hugging her fear and all the life the neighbours ever see is the blue flicker of a television screen sometimes at night flashing through the drawn curtains.

17

FREE WORLD LIVING Our days are too predictable the same faces everywhere we go Monday the Single Parents evening Tuesday the big church jumble sale Wednesday juvenile court appearances Thursday Welfare rooms for the free psychiatrist Friday payday and a furtive drink or two loosen us so we won't fight against the coming of next Monday the same faces everywhere we go caught on the roundabout and spinning so fast we'll never get down to the ground.

18

WINTER BURIAL ON A HILLTOP In darkness the newlydead hushed settle for their first evening's sleep no moon yet it has not hauled itself clear of the sea if I take one step my bones will crack in this ice-hard silence O l d Topie my neighbour home at last hands folded on his weary chest an unnamed baby who lived an hour a boy of twelve killed in a fall from his horse one day's crop strange bedfellows yet alike they await the night's initiation the cold breeze rises before the moon far beneath my feet softly the earth trembles with the passion of their settling time draws taut about them the moon climbs I wonder what sight awaits them when the blind lids roll back when the silver pennies fall?

19

FROM A WICKER CHAIR IN THE IMPALA HOTEL, BANGKOK The Frenchmen come for the tennis weekends The Dutch to lord it over the native servants The Japanese bring suitcases full of samples The sad fat Australian lady buys herself jewels And I keep firmly to the scrambled eggs and cannot help wondering why the courtyards are full of Thai cats with no tails.

20

BARBADOS Too much sun is bad strikes at the heart and bakes the glitter tears bring to the eye too much sun is bad brings up dust decay shows every last grey hair how much time has gone how little left to run only the very young have eyes suited to the strongest light.

COLONIALS Singapore, 1958. Fifteen years old, and the tank driver resplendently uniformed ten years older D o you believe in being strong, in mixed marriages, he murmured Could you wait? H e was Asian and Moslem without even answering I ran and never looked back forgot him next day. W h y does that sad dark face come back to me now my son has found a H o n g K o n g footballer and brought him home to tea?

22

OUT OF HONDURAS, SOMEWHERE IN DARKNESS Hainey never goes ashore sits in his cabin evenings in an old singlet playing patience a glance through the porthole at the sky is enough he don't trust dry ground too much. Once I met an old Panamanian refused home leave for seven years when compulsory retirement came in hung himself. Hainey cares little brown face lights when I stop by to visit we play ferocious poker for matches he tells me about Bermuda docks before the unions his daddy who vanished into N e w York long ago explains how to build a solid house on coral reef foundations Hainey's due for retirement after two more trips it don't bear thinking about just yet we sit in the glow close up by his lamp fair exchange of information together read the news he don't understand how Siamese twins be formed too shy to let on before the others then there's the ads in our Union N e w s Jackie I'm all alone now Call Carmen 72159 Victor Jones greaser "Pacific G l o r y " last seen Portland Maine Whereabouts sought J o e Staite Urgent—Rosanna Clyne columns of them desperate for men who left foamed away with no thought of looking back nothing be more dead to seamen than the passions of yesterday

23

Hainey's elfin smile lights up special for me we pour coffee pretend nothing will change for us it daresn't time almost stops as rock-steady each night we study the Union ads read of poor Maisie Jo who wants her boyfriend back and Jill Rodriguez who twenty years ago lost sight of her old dad.

24

TRAVELLED We went to Berlin and smelled the lilies In Auschwitz they grow roses now Respecting your wishes to the last I have paced out the pathways of this land stared at cherry trees and paper houses Fuji under snow the quiet rock gardens w e loved and built ourselves at home avoiding all memorials I stood in Niihama's wind and opened myself to tranquil thoughts and every step of the way I saw your shadow stooped before me —forgive me, but I do not want to understand Japan.

25

t You to whom I gave too much what are you thinking tonight or is it yesterday or day-not-born out there on the rim of the world where your frigate slides on that fragile sea of glass dream-slow, a lonely toy perched on the horizon. I should be sleeping, but I cannot rest watching the moon pulling the dream-slow sea wetting my feet and wondering if that dark tide will ever slide you my way again.

26

AND NOW THE INITIAL CONTACT After Years of Waiting Together at last, and yet I find myself wondering who you are the thoughts that move separately in our heads will never be shared or understood now we realise so where did our waiting take a wrong turning why are we two different people we never knew before how could it have been better years ago when we were strangers? Watching each other through this silence that says too much is just turning the knife tighter in the wound I should leave now and we can salvage a few small memories perhaps but this was the last thread I had left and there is nothing but silence waiting at home.

27

ONE BY ONE THE LEAVES WILL FALL There was no wind in that place to drive me home only the yellow fog too warm for autumn that frightened me and lines of alien hills He was just havin' ye on said the little Scotsman enraged when I explained what had happened Ye went all that way for nothin'. I hunted for softer words— he was confused tried to present a special image but couldn't maintain it too true but Jock said no it was sheer bluidy havin' ye on I hope ye sent him away wi' a flea in his ear forget him fellers like that are no use to anyone Too true my heart is learning to bounce at last and now my poor little Jock having nothing better to do I shall spend this evening in my slit dress and cream silk scarf smiling and having you on.

28

TO A WANDERER Your world and mine do not meet they collide and in the debris we may lose that small tenderness we just started out with smothered at birth this loss is not at all inevitable for darkness may be repelled at least for a time and love if meant honorably is forever even though limbs wither and eyes fade and man may turn out to be lesser or even not at all the man we thought he was.

29

KNOWING THE AFTERMATH Knowing the aftermath I have my tears ready before we begin since there can be no permanence we should not begin but your serpent tongue knows so well the crevices and darknesses and small flames that I am and binds me and brings me to you with outstretched palms again.

30

MILITARY MONOLOGUE Twice before we met twice she eluded me My colonel wanted her a huge fierce beast who brooked no opposition She threw off his arms ran and I saved her But when I had her backed against the wall Turned my mouth to her he came again roaring and ruined it all. Again by chance we met a year later laughed remembering that long black night the colonel that slender beginning The feeling that trembled between us for that moment before he came But what then? Her language is so difficult and she doesn't know mine I loomed closer hands ready at my sides all muscles tense Backed her again to the wall breathed soft over her face all the time watching Those foreign eyes waiting dark with thoughts a life I cannot comprehend I ached to take her then but it was May Day too many people watching

31

She would have fought run as she did from the colonel or would she? Next day the scandal she had taken up with a common private love at first sight A slender man handsome younger than me less strong A quiet background man but with an impudence I don't possess Softly he flaunted her hand on hip his jewel his crown I was astounded stiff with jealousy she had seemed untouchable N o w she was in love all soft-eyed wandering hand-in-hand who can comprehend women? Mortified I hid myself until our train departed. And so we are garrisoned a third time in her town I'm growing too old to play the fool This time she won't escape me shrug discuss the weather Give her neutral friend's smile she gives a thousand other men This time when I back her to the corner she's mine A rare butterfly helpless impaled against a hard iron wall.

32

FROM PROBOLINGGO ALL THE WAY TO HELL You dainty little psychiatrist With your nice professional face charming confidence You're so wrong Turning my life inside out Finding feelings I never had purpose that is meaningless to me Drawing a neat textbook picture that is someone else A person of your imagination it bears no resemblance to me Still, who can argue with an irresistible force Like a tidal wave the psychiatrist rolleth on: Christianity had its good aspects you know like forgive and forget Let the blackness slip from you the rage Relax it's over realise clinging to these things is so wrong Let g o forget what can it matter now Another day dear doctor another time Another century when at last you've learned it's nothing to do with forgiving O r yoga or counting stars relaxing with a lover a good book a child It's a question of unmaking my bones unravelling the very chromosomes that made me Would you like to begin? Dear well-bred little psychiatrist If your first early-morning gaze had lighted like mine O n the bustling brown rats gnawing your father's bones In the monsoon ditch near your bed H o w soon then would you sing grow warm forget?

33

MATROS I ask nothing of you N o t pretended love remembrance O r even a kiss Only that you open your body to me Let me lose myself Close out the wind the ice That waits for me above Just one moment out of your life Is all I need You may absent yourself Wander far off in your mind Lie as still as if I am not there at all I understand Despise me later if you will Only first please yield yourself to me Just once The tide is rising fast soon w e will be gone And I have been solitary for so very long N o spark of tenderness I need Only compliance I'll close my eyes pretend the smiles and tender touch Though like all men sometimes in weak moments Foolishly I dream of love A realist I know how rare love is In a life like mine I settle for contempt brief use O f bodies who do not care whom I cannot remember When the clouds leave my eyes in the morning We sail within the hour and I grow desperate Please for a wanderer Given time we could have grown close I know There's a calm settling between us an understanding From peace to tenderness to love Maybe but there's no time left for that W h o knows if we will ever meet again?

34

TOGETHERNESS Two heads bent together in the lamplight bare feet resting on the red-gold rug the man smoking and reading a book the woman mending his shirt the summer breeze blew softly in the window and content they sat cosy almost as a long-married couple the foreign sailor and his port Madame they understood nothing of each other's tongue talked with gestures and a pre-war dictionary.

35

THE PILOT GROWN RESPECTABLE The girl threw her arms around the sailor he laughed and hugged her close they were married but not to each other The pilot looked away he was an upright man a Christian and could not look wantonness in the face it made his skin feel strange too tight and he could not settle afterwards far into the night strong prayers he winged to heaven for deliverance of sinners begged God to dull the lustlight in their eyes transform these animals to sober men as self-denying as himself genteel beyond the reach of sick temptations someone must set the example Besides he had three fat teenage daughters and a short-sighted son churchwarden's post lodge membership small thin-lipped wife a red-brick mortgaged bungalow and a name respectable as any in town H e was a good man incorruptible and could not understand the stony eyes that followed him down to the last step of the gangplank and then turned silently away.

36

REUNION I wanted to ask h o w many outside children you have altogether but changed my mind you turned to me and said what did you do with yourself during those long years we had to be apart? I said, are you sure you really want to k n o w ? and you looked down at your hands and softly said, No.

37

NIGHT IN ST MICHAEL I am going to paint you now in the sparse bed in the room with the blue walls and I will paint the tall palm in the courtyard too the stars that leaned in the window and even the strange array of animals waiting in the blackness outside the geese and chickens cats the dog and the Barbary sheep but I do not have a colour to paint the singing that passed along our nerves the j o y or the disbelief that we both felt at finding each other on that tiny island.

38

HOU'GAN It's true those oiled black limbs could pass for twenty and eyes of such soft innocence surely never knew an evil sight only when you smiled the mask cracked the ages of experience stared out.

39

TRYIN AGAIN G o d loves a positive thinker says Steve You can lose weight if you want says Shorty Think positive prayed and fought the demons drunk water for fillin chewed on g u m here I sat and thunk positive fire w o n ' t burn dog w o n ' t eat good dinner I can't force d o w n no w a y mail man come power bill more rates store don't deliver out here no more hear Shorty's met some piece out of t o w n boy runnin w i t h the w r o n g crowd girl take out policy beneficiary Free World Church don't tell me nothin lost her j o b n o w I left find the instalments maybe this time I learn y o u stand too tall hurts all the more next time they knocks you d o w n .

40

SPITESTOWN Mango Lane Spitestown is winding and full of pitfalls We have been down Mango Lane looking at the moon Tien sits waiting for me in his little house in Mango Lane hands folded quiet in his lap My bodyguard Tien has lit his lamp against the coming of the night Tien is a security guard a karate killer his hands are broad and gentle Tien is a child and I am full of darkness We will walk down Mango Lane into the valley when night has come to mask the burning sun and cool this earth.

41

EASTER FRIDAY At nights I lay and dreamily spun flesh didn't write or talk much any more just slowly listened to my sons grow tiny bone filaments melding into webs soft new tissue blood flow nerves unsure at first too new delicately stretching long eyelids forming finger-buds never thought much beyond a misty infancy: I was very young then. Really believed in a sort of happiness thereafter if you tried and life to the fullness of days sunshine and bright flowers and all the things cut off too soon I am proud: I never beg And I will not falter or let the tremble of a tear mar the setting as I turn from you and walk tall away (though inside I scream once it was together we walked hand in hand in the same direction) Two sons down now: one left to go.

42

THE ONLY LINES I WILL EVER ADDRESS TO MY MOTHER With care I have outgrown your stony inheritance on the outside at least can stand up whole smile like anyone else and no-one guesses the writhings the horrors hidden from them with such delicate care I have made it—almost—in spite of you.

N o w the everlasting curtain is drawn between us While there was time I reached out—tried— but you never would hear and now it is much too late for anything compassion or tears Better to forget it all as if my birth never happened as if that night had passed in silence —there, does that relieve you? wash away the guilt at last? I wanted to die leaving your name unspoken but these lines wrote themselves these words all I have to say to you for all time —so be still: I will not force a resurrection.

43

DEATH REACHES THE DESERT Blind Agave started it all her thorn tips poisoned ready for death pierced just once and death twittered close in our ears parting the shimmering warmth of noon waiting with dry smiling eyes for silence to fall. All flesh is grass and padding the sandy paths to far horizons will not help nor all the cries of jackal and thorn and petalled flower we are the sacrifice and how cold the desert is at night Give us flesh now to clothe these aching bones with light.

44

I prayed for you beneath these pines but you died now I must walk the forest alone the rest of the way D o not leave me my shadow without you I am nothing less than that blade of grass swayed by the wind.

45

Our dream was a glass balcony. Some day, we said, we will sit up there at ease Plant ferns in tubs, drink orange juice at dawn Watch the night sun die behind the sea We will rest in peace Some day when our trials are over We will have all this. All the bitter years that hope sustained us . . . N o w at last I have my glass balcony Wide and gracious, and what use is it to me? I stay downstairs, where heavy curtains are drawn Q u i e t , where the sun will not reach me.

46

I wear your ring always on my finger. Bloodless you lie now, but I remember When your strong fingers pressed the ring on me. I wear your ring always on my finger It is my talisman And keeps the darkness back from me.

47

COMMUNIST NEWLY WIDOWED It cannot end like this, in silence I must have some ritual, for my sanity Some words of prayer, some incense spread A soft cloud of soothing This great good man cut down too soon Must be laid to sleep with reverent ceremony Where now is the glorious Party? With downcast eyes they pass hushed by Helpless as children Death is the most indecent word God of the Hebrews, God of the Jews, I must have a prayer, a ritual There must be words, some magic ages old To ease this agony Solemnities for the putting away of life Words to make sense of this emptiness his death.

48

GUNUNG MERAPI Merapi, your brightness Blinds my ageing eyes. I have lived too long in European fogs Wrapped layer-tight in wool and ice-bound silence Insulated, stored away. So long I have slumbered in snowdrifts . . . So long steeped in solitude, forgetting That in the arms of your beneficent sun The body rises from the prison-house of shadow Renews itself in joy.

TO A TERRORIST HUSBAND, JAVA Another day gone. Another day less left in our feeble span. Hours sped away in worry and toil Swiftly to the grave our steps descend. Thus I thought as busily I toiled The palm-shadows lengthened and I sighed Evening meals and beds and cotton weavings I could not stop to watch the dying sun roll down. I glanced away, my arms piled high with clothes, And hurried back inside. I did not see Matahari flame with your dying My head was full of dust and cooking smells and children's rhyi

50

TO A FIRST-BORN SON Goodbye, my son. How few the times we caught each other's glance And lay together in that special warmth content How swift the quiet hours went by, That dream-time that made up your life on earth. New-formed clay to clay. Now it is over. The earth has crumbled and the void is filled There is nothing left to say. Now I must turn my frozen eyes away, Turn my thoughts back to the teeming world of men Now I must leave you to the cold blue hollow of the sky To the everlasting silence of the pines.

PAST PRESENT Yes, they were Germans, but what could I do? They wanted to know me. Yes, I know, your father, my uncles, our woes, our agonies . They were little more than children, shy Full of questions and wonder One so like you he might have been your son Eyes too gentle for this harsh world The same tangle of wild blonde curls A bit of a philosopher too— Were you in Halle nineteen years ago? The Nyemka's all right for a solitary evening, eh, W h e n there's no-one else on hand But you don't get serious about them or marry them They're killers. But you know these boys are different innocent To them we're history Like it or not they're our children, the new generation Free of the damnation that blighted our beginnings Guiltless on all counts. We were unlucky. D o n ' t let the bitterness spill over Let's end it now and leave the dead to sleep in peace. Remember, my love, we are the same all passing shades Walking the same path from dust to damnation Let's be kindly shades while we still can We can so easily afford it.

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TO AN OLD OLD LADY WHO FINALLY DIED They buried you by the sea knowing well how you feared and hated it I do not know if I can forgive them that. I watched you suffer fretting over twined fingers as you peered about the shadows each day looking for death who seemed maliciously to have left you out of his plan I felt your relief when at last you slipped away under his hand yet the little sense there'd been in life left with you w h o ' d guided my first steps taught me to read and write brought the night light that drove the monsters away— I don't mind the sea. Its roar has always suited my inner mood. It spits for me and beats my angers out. Its washing makes nonsense of all the fleshly pretensions. Sleep deep, my love. D o n ' t mind its noise. Soon I am coming to you. Soon.

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RECITAL The locals sit agape in plush-lined chairs at the little figures jumping down below they've never seen a real live poet here before it's a change from a night at housie or the pub and a distinct thrill for the bridge-playing set such a pity we don't get more culture out this way in pinching shoes and mothballed furs they munch on crisps sigh at the excitement of it all and clap wildly at every inanity. We left early. What size ego is required lovingly to recite one's years-old thoughts for the 84th time this tour parade a tattered soul like a brand-new garment before those too dull to know the difference Is this creativity? I'd rather earn my living stevedoring digging ditches or picking grapes.

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FOREVER THE PRIEST SAID It cannot be over already so soon eyes I loved dreaming gone on alone marble smoothed empty hands lying bare silence unbroken marble cocoon Eternity the priest said promised it true not a lifetime a breath buds still tight folded paths yet untrod give me what's mine I am empty of dreams cheated betrayed he lies with me yet gone give back his sun the warmth that he loved I will curse you forever tear down your skies unhoused not belonging shattered he lies

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YET From out of the stillness a small flame leaps slow trembles upwards dizzy and shyno not ended changed freed glides above the watching eyes unfurls its wings and climbs impossible skies.

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SEPTEMBER Alone, but never lonely. The sun failed before I trudged up the promenade. Holidays over. The crowds left. Scheveningen sea front left to face the darkness falls silent. But never lonely. Too many people breathing nearby for that. My room had a spider swinging on the whitewashed wall. No matter. It was tiny. And far away. My room had an extra door behind the bed Locked, or course. I insisted. My door was hung upside down Huis-van-Jan-Steen. No sea view but the ghostly church tower clock clanging every half an hour. The stairs were so narrow I took them sideways and the manager turned a fishy eye when Frans with his clipped Haagse accent turned up and asked for my bags. Lives on lives. We cannot live out them all. Yet I confess a pang as I sped inland in the nice red air-conditioned car.

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KERKHOF A cricket shuffled in the grass in St Pancras' churchyard too loudly the bright thing unsettling the slow-thrusting heart T h e only living thing in the place though the sun flooded the graves indecently and there was such a brightness of flowers all the dead smelled of honey There was a tall slate steeple which must be brutal in winter when the snow will not leave and the fallen Christ lies with his forehead on the stones Perhaps they are afraid to meet his gaze if they raise him to his agony again or perhaps it is the wounds, so big in the sprawled marble hands that keep men away.

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HUISTOE Jongen, I know there is no use in looking here for your face in the stars or tracing your steps down the tiles and the silent canal ways. Your love and your life lay elsewhere. Yet in the castle grounds I felt your heartbeats so strongly I almost cried and gathered ivy, chestnut leaves from that vicious winter of '50 you lived through here. The sun came out slid slyly over the trees and struck me. Lilies sprawled on the black glass of the moat and eyed me as I leaned to look in your bedroom window. The same palms are there in their tubs, and the statue of Mercury. The thin chimes in the bell tower caught me unawares and made it all real, struck into my brain and took me back further than I want to go I must run now and leave you dreaming forever in this haunted place.

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ALWAYS THE AFTERMATH I remembered your eyes after Hiroshima and I wanted to push the drunken little Japanese just a little shove and he would boil away with the storm foam tree trunks and other debris and who would hear his cries above the gale? But you learned to forgive though the scars remained on your body right to the end who was I to make your forgiveness less by an act of spite? And so the young Japanese lived and I tell our children don't hate but always remember not only Japanese died at Hiroshima.

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THE MAN FROM SENEGAL He was bewildered, shy A little afraid This tall black steward When I shook his hand Along with all the white ones. This was all beyond his experience And he spoke only French. He brought us Dutch wafers English chocolate ice cream French confectionary Lingered a second, smiling— He loved children— Then melted discreetly away And left us with Kasim The chief steward. Kasim is an Arab. He speaks only French too Like them all. He comes from Casablanca But his skin is almost Pale as ours . . . The children liked this big gentle black man With the perfect manners They asked for his address for their books Along with all the white ones. He looked embarrassed, lost, Murmured to young Guy and hung his head. Guy took the books and inscribed Louis Laborde, Bafoulabe, Senegal. Louis Laborde is a French colonial product. He can't read Or write.

WELFARE STATE A knock at the door. Trouble, I suppose. Yes, a clean young man in a suit, carrying a folder. "Good morning, madam. I hope you don't mind my calling like this I'm a poetry lover, and I saw your verse. I'm also from the Social Welfare Department, And we're concerned That your verse clearly shows You have a Gentleman Friend. Now, madam, this is just not on. The annual bill for Social Welfare is staggering And where is it all coming from? The poor taxpayer. Something must be done. This drain cannot continue unchecked. Can your gentleman not somehow support y o u ? " " I ' m so glad to hear you enjoy poetry, But I am afraid poetic license has led you astray. Actually that incident occurred In a place you've probably never heard of Called Totonicapan W h e n I was all of sixteen, and you, young man, Were about four years old." " O h dear. I see. That complicates things somewhat. It is not for us to judge the morals of those on our files We stand firm for a fair deal for all Including the poor taxpayer. I do understand your most difficult position And sympathise. But I'm afraid Your supplementary benefit will have to be reviewed W i t h memories like that to keep you warm You hardly need help with paying Your electricity account— Do y o u ? "

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RETREAT Don't Take me under Please Stay free Smile Be polite A social evening Not tonight We have all the time in the world And tomorrow is another day And I have a thousand other cliches ready If only you would Give me breath A space Long enough to mouth them Stop There's enough atonement on our account Black nights filled with stars Already Warmth I know But it reaches too deep Carries us too far No Get out your chess Be civilised We're puppet people You know Puppets don't have blood That thrusts This way You know we're Perverting our purpose Turning hollow eyes To shine

We can't Wooden men can't breathe It's far too Dangerous I ' m afraid Of absolute dark Destruction Russian or not Knowing how you and I Gaze Touch Burn Burn.

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Spring, and where are you? Hacking wood in the wilderness watching ice dim crack float away Spring and soon the sun Now you may breathe again Throw your battered shapka in a corner Flex worn limbs that were strong when we said goodbye. Where to thrust blame intent useless cries of innocence Store love against the day that may never come I force this faded smile Gather wild flowers thrust them in a vase for you Because it's spring.

THROUGH SILENCE Your ship sailed on. The months tick by alone whole seasons pass And other feelings other lives pull us farther apart. Can flesh survive so tenuously O r will the end be reached someday When pale as dust mere thistledown our past Is caught on a passing breath of wind and floats away

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POSTER A wartime model, goes well Bodywork perfect, marred only By a bungled smallpox prick But that's nothing. Tall and blonde, a perfect Aryan Hitler would have loved him If he'd been born On the other side of the border. Runs best on a little vodka Shows amazing endurance under trial But goes completely dead if fed An over-rich mixture. Sober is charming Shy and demure As long as there's a third party in the room Watching. Like all Russians has a massive Inferiority complex Give his ego one tiny prick And he's gone An empty balloon on the floor. Like all good Russians A little over-inclined To sentimentality Offers me his heart forever At least twice a day. Grows melancholy If left alone too long Wonders if God is up there waiting And if he is Has he given Borya a soul And what will happen About all those times He wanted to be good But somehow didn't make it.

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Then he cries on my breast And says how hard it is to be Russian Thanks whoever made us For my mother's good Russian blood Otherwise he would be all alone No inostranyets can understand the Russian heart. In repose he's dour As a Scotch salmon And who can blame him At 45 below? But when he smiles It's a post-war smile Priceless. N o steel plugs needed there. Nowadays he smiles much more Nowadays he has riches But not the bloated-capitalist kind. He owns: 2 suitcases (empty), 1 tie, 1 shirt, 1 pair of shoes, 1 suit, 1 pair genuine Americansky jeans, 1 jersey, assorted tattered Old army underwear. Just an ordinary proletarian But beautiful. Address: Kvartira 17, Lenina Ulitsa 125, Murmansk. If you can get to Murmansk before hell freezes over Good luck, baby!

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MUSING IN ACHINSK Last time I passed through Achinsk I had a poem in my head about these Polar stars but could not write it down in case it was misconstrued at the border and by the time Poland had faded, and Berlin it was gone.

LENIN IN HIS TOMB Tiny Messiah shrunken now by time yellowed to a myth the darkness here has crushed you almost into someone else a different man your wife would never recognise on the street corner Yes, I've heard all the stories the Baltic States one, malicious, that you went rotten before they decided on a monument so they disposed of you secretly chose a body with the most resemblance painted it up to fill your eternity posted soldiers with guns to prevent the public peering too closely and sounding the alarm O r do you like the war time version you were destroyed—bomb or theft— the stories differ and so another body was created out of wax, some people say though others whisper flesh was used a man innocent walking on the street with that fatal resemblance Is there smoke without fire? they wonder It's all the same to me I worship neither living or the dead whoever you may be they've got you well pinned down at it's new stripped-pine walls and Danish furniture for me old things have too many shadows unwholesome scents and pressing memories I leave you, doll-face, to your ancient dreams and hurry to the light.

THOUGHTS BEFORE SAILING Harbour tonight is soft warm as blood Smooth I may sleep curl up small A child again almost secure Dream of gentle things so far off now There was a child once so unlike this hardshelled man . . Days are not so bad work fills my mind There's voices laughter hands reaching strong to mine But night falls faster down the empty empty hours Within my walls no sound but the beating of my heart I drink valerian to give me strength Pride does the rest never show tears before other men But alone the moon watches and the stars are cold And my own eyes lie caught trapped when I least expect How brief life is grey hairs sprout in my beard Each day in the glass more clearly my skull shows If it was worth the pain or not no-one will ever know. Give me your hand your fingers firm with life Hot pulse stolen when the sun burned high above us Give me your breast and I'll slip back to the womb Tomorrow I must sleep alone and valerian won't help Tomorrow it must be gin gin till I am blind and numb.

VALERA a sequence

73 this touch will suffice through time ash-wastes the leaves and sifting winds the years until he comes . . . Stranger, your epaulettes are already tarnishing and your haste has stained my lips like grapes now sleep, and forget do not turn your eyes to me too often lest we grow familiar with each other invite disaster . . . is that a sickly dawn I see already and your shoulders had seemed broad enough to bear us both awhile separate branches out of foreign trees forever apart whose tears are those I see at once sliding on the window glass?

74 All ports are the same concrete roads streaming off to the wilderness littered with shabby warrens where unknown men use up unknown lives and fade unseen away All ports are the same and whether the faces passing empty are black or white or brown we scarcely notice and do not care most of us need measure only the distance to the nearest bar The same functions in each different world soon it comes automatically and waking some mornings with a start what country am I in? searching for some sign a hotel notice in the native tongue a palm tree or a cupola showing from the window and far beyond the ship always the same waiting rides the bay You my star the only sane point on these endless horizons together we'll live it out someday laugh again in passing these foreign shadows we observe all men are the same deserts most of them hiding their echoes the emptiness behind a careful placid smile.

75 America is the Country I Least Want to Visit that's another thing we have in common wryly we exchange another toast as we sit remote and watch the sad players in another colonial dream gone wrong W h a t materials they had to work with what went wrong, what dim sickness from within shrunk them smaller than life-size empty-eyed, already dancing the death-shuffle beyond hope? There is nothing to say to them already they know it's much too late and it's us they pity more the Unbritish the Different You're right my love, they're weird, these English speakers w h o shake hands with their own families and must read books to learn how to make love.

76 Forbidden love is sweeter, you quoted to me eyes sparkling at the danger how long since a challenge like this stirred your blood? Life needs some excitement, you whispered, enjoy it and we did at last just the two of us conscious in that corner your bodyguard sprawled drunk around the table sleeping at last as their sorrows overcome them Petya still clasping my finger in his bandaged one poor boy we exchanging wry glances over the remnants of the party no words anyone could be listening even at this distance Yes, I guess it was exciting in a way teetering on a tightrope: one slip and we lose all but underneath I couldn't help a sigh why can't our love be ordinary harmless and dull, like anybody else's?

77 Once again, we had to go hastily this time and hours before the dawn my grandmother swiftly folded clothes packed them tight in small suitcases went to and fro by lamplight, opening the muslin curtains wide so nothing would seem unusual when morning came. While she worked I stood before the window I had never been awake at such an hour before. Staring right down at us through the glass a great live moon hung like blood over the Japanese pear trees I had never seen a violent sky before chilled with terror I stood in the transparent moonlight unable to turn my eyes away. I had forgotten that terror until tonight, rising from your arms, I saw the moon, yellow now and pacific curdled with storm clouds alive and watching me.

78 You alone know my frailties of flesh and mind that life terrifies me only you know the ghosts darknesses Arctic winds that rise at once unbidden pierce frail happinesses wind through the brain with visions remembrances unwanted bring deaths past and future I was married once but he was born in sunlight love and plenty he never understood but don't let's speak of that now there's sorrow enough in the air already so much tragedy we are steeped in it I think we got lost somewhere in the twilight of one of those old films caught in the snowdrifts somewhere between the hungry ache of Leningrad and the soldier kissing his fallen horse caressing its neck while his companion prepared to shoot it these were our father's sorrows and yet we know our fate will not be very different so, my love, we must always be prepared.

79 I hated this city when I awoke this morning saw grey buildings old and new shoved together leaning almost over our bed box-houses lying haphazard like weeds littering the hillside ugly sky curdled over the quarry the beer stains on the street beneath us oil puddles the stench of too much living even the sea looked worn and dirty. Yet with the coming of dusk this tired mass sparkles grows young again and glows in a million lights Darkness smoothes away all pains even with the rain falling love has made it beautiful.

80 We laugh at grandparents' photographs dead mouths and codfish eyes wonder at dim passions burning hidden beneath starched calico straw dummies rigged for burning how could it have been the same for them? they're dust if they ever lived at all We laughed at the old photographs in the downstairs bar dazzled with wine and the hot blood dancing life is for the living and nothing else matters Yet how fast that clock ticks away our precious last few hours how soon bereft my lips will lose the taste of yours how soon these limbs must part and we in turn fade into sepia illusions.

81 It's too late for the light kiss and the casual goodbye thank you, it was nice, have a good life there's no painless way left open for us now imperceptibly our dependence grew nourished by us fools with adolescent indulgences telephone calls kisses on scented paper meetings and partings words of love too many words delaying, delaying that fatal sound goodbye as we wove our own imprisonment now however I twist remembrance gnaws at me.

82 We were not anonymous enough somehow you in a quiet civilian suit I just another fur-wrapped woman shivering through the chill autumn rain to the most isolated seat on the railway platform W h o could know us in that faraway city? Yet they left their own affairs turned their dull faces to us and watched mercilessly as we tried once more to say goodbye.

83 Half a life ago I rode this train to my lover and my blood sang now he sleeps in death, our children are grown my lover is a Party member and we cannot betray his family. It is too hot in here, my bag is heavy, and I find it vaguely sad to see that the trees and the fields and the faraway sky have also forgotten how to dance.

84 The Armenian Expedition For Combating Hail suffered an embezzlement. I swear it. I read it in Pravda clear as morning as I sat at the dining table counting my heartbeats waiting for the telephone to ring.