November Poems
November Poem
II
For Veronica Forrest-Thomson
It was Hélène Cixous
Whose name I came across
It was exotic as the pomegranate
In Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Proserpine
I mispronounced it – like when English
Breakfast tea goes down the wrong way
Into the trachea instead of the oesophagus
It was a monumental faux-pas like an
Apple that in the November rain
Decided to back up from the splosh of landing
Up through a succession of apples
To the sway of the branch, to the twig
To the water swell of autumn, to the nub
Of fruit, to the blossom, to the copulas
To the breath, to the logos, to the Big Bang!
November Poem
III
For Emily Bronte
There were those brave lasses
In the fifties, who were to give
You a close reading, like having
Tin baths on cobble floors
And having someone rub you
Down, like walking the moors
With purple foxgloves gently
Bowing to the academic royalty
To the would be Queenie Leavisites
To the Quiller-Couch heretics
In short hair and the Roman Holiday
Look, with their cigarettes they braved
The world of literary criticism
Armed with I.A. Richards they got
Down to business, like those with
Scarves on heads in bottling factories
They checked Emily Bronte’s text
For defects, and as soon as the whistle
Blew, they were out to look for Heathcliffes
Riding their Vespas, going to the cinema
For a pretext to teach you the facts of life.
November Poem
IV
For Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I have been in Venice in November
The lagoon seemed in a word sad
The place was all but deserted because
It was then out of season, imagine then
My dear Elizabeth Barrett Browning
If there were, by way of pretence,
A poem that out of season, how then
Might it go, it would surely not be upbeat
In iambic pentameter, it would have white
Sheets over the similes, there would be
No like or as the summer when the blues
Are in flight, more of the feet curled up
Under a heavy and suffocating metaphor
There would be no Robert to help put
The defining touch, to puff the pillow of a line
It would be a case of remaining in the room
With the venetian blinds drawn on the poem.
November Poem
V
For Aphra Behn
The sea is but of a drama
Queen today, the froth
Of the wannabe tempest
After the cloy and clog
Of the warm front mist
I watched a young man
With a small red surf board
Look out to the horizon
Do some exercises and
I said to him, “Surely you are not
Going out in that?” Said
In the voice the Ancient Mariner
Might say when he grabs you by the wrist
And he thought I was a drama
Queen, and laughed at me
As the Irish Sea joshed and splashed
“Why not?” and the gulls joined in
“Why not?” and I smiled and inward
I was ready to dive in and swim
All the way out all the way to the horizon!
November Poem
VI
For Gaspara Stampa
What can rhyme with
The plumes of water
That lick the bandstand
With the salt and brine
Of a thousand sea shanties?
What can rhyme with
The rook that has one eye
On the seafood pizza
And one on the passer-by?
As he or she has breakfast
In the silence of the muted dawn?
What can rhyme with
The plastic bag of dog poo
Which stands up like a sentry
In the middle of the road
As the rain pelts down like
A John Philip Sousa march?
November Poem
VII
For Laura Riding
Sir Timothy Garton
Died of the gout
And the pox probably
He was by custom laid out
This knight of the realm
The man not your dreams
Maria gentle maiden of the peasant
They took you to the funeral mass
And as they read out each sin
You had to sip some wine and dine
On pieces of bread, and the priest
Whispered on each occasion
The nature of the crime or sin
You went pale your eyes went white
For the knight never bothered to repent
And with each prayer and whisper
The sins were transferred as food
You from the family, had the mirror of sin
You fled from the church to scream
Looking for victims to rape and murder
You by an instrument rode the wenches
And you slit the throats of the gentlefolk
Until they in mass cornered you at the manor
There they stood the town with their torches
You were chained and left to rot in a cellar
When at night, the cat makes a voice to talk
It will tell you the strange tale of the maiden Maria
How it is that among you a sin-eater might walk
How the ancient might be disguised as a mania
But know this, in each of the following generation
The sins multiply and each from the day of Garton
Have accumulated, whatever you do avoid eye contact
For if you don’t, you will be finished, and that’s a fact!
November Poem
VIII
For Laura Riding
The starlings all
In a demurmur
As the waves lash
The stilts of the pier
I watch the sun as
A pink ribbon on
Might have seen
On Madame Recamier
As she reclined
On an ottoman
Made of grey froth
And on the shore
There is a fisherman
With hair aghast
From the windy blast
Let him be a de Chateaubriand
Let him watch as the sun
Which was in a state of
Decottelage, promised more
But then the clouds rained
On the expectation
With the starlings flung
Into disarray for the whole day.
November Poem
IX
For Joy Harjo
What’s not to like
About horses?
They come up to
You, to ask questions
Like what is the meaning
Of sunsets, sunrises,
The rain, and the snow?
You pat them on their
Noses, stroke them on
Their flanks, and they
Are waiting for answers
You feed them grass or oats
You marvel at their smooth
Coats, but all along the horses
They canter and gallop
In a beauty all can see
But you still give no answers.
November Poem
X
For Wang Wei
The gold and russet
Of the hills circle
The bay, the crows
Spell autumn with
Their wings, their
Eyes look to winter
The sky is low and
Below the Labrador
Off the leash full of
Joy as if it were a
Cheerful toy, it barks
At the waves and owner
A freedom is found
In the expanse of colours
That surround the shore
As if to say, if you come here
What is there more to ask for?
But in the distance, in the Atlantic
The brew of the meteorologist
Is on the boil, as the waves compounded
By currents, build and the echo of clouds
In cumulous accumulate, the stormfold
Of patterns, will come soon and pound
The beach to submission, then with
Hands held up high, one wants escape
From the once idyllic, what a fool!
November Poem
XI
For the New Zealanders – and for Peace
One hesitates on the stroll
To take in once more the horizon
If there were a squall what then?
How much those in New Zealand
Felt after the crunch of the tremor?
To be told at night move to higher ground?
The thoughts that pass through all?
It is something that amounts to a horror
For if the truth be told, the Earth is more awful
Than a hundred or thousand earthquakes
When it hiccups or when it makes a sound
It gives even the most powerful general the shakes!