Alban Angels
 
ALBAN ANGELS A Brief History of the Manuscript ALBAN ANGELS was written between 1986 and 1996; it won the Writers Federation of New Brunswick ALFRED G. BAILEY PRIZE for an unpublished poetry manuscript in 1995. Alban Angels has been revised in the light of the comments made by the adjudicators, poets John Smith, Harry Thurston, and Michael Thorpe; the revision resulted in the suppression of weaker poems, the addition of new poems, and the overall strengthening of the work. Early versions of some of these poems were accepted by *, or have appeared in, the following magazines: ANTIGONISH REVIEW (Bird in a Cage, Down and Up, Last Day, Losing It, Rings, Snaps); ARC (Bishop's Palace -- Astorga, El Greco's House, Stillborn Brother, Weltanschauung,); ARIEL (Fishbones); CORMORANT (Two Barns -- Hanwell, Wild Geese); FIDDLEHEAD (Army Worms, Bears, First World Ward, Old Loyalist Burial Ground, On An Errand For Eggs, Quality Street, Self-portrait by Velásquez, Why?); GERMINATION (Thanksgiving Fox *); LCP MUSELETTER (Foxes); POETRY CANADA REVIEW (Barnfather); NASHWAAK REVIEW (Biking at Bic, Capella dos Ossos, Cows -- Bic, In the Archaelogical Museum, Rainstorm, The Invincible Armada, Alban Angels, Cave Paintings -- The Ceremony, Gower); WILD EAST/POTTERSFIELD PORTFOLIO (Daffodils, Master Builder *, Portrait of My Father, Smalltalk *, Swans Swimming). Green and Frog Lake -- The Opera were both read live on CBC Radio, Fredericton. I would like at this time to express my gratitude to Susan Musgrave, Patrick Lane, Richard Lemm, and Erin Mouré, all of whom have conducted creative writing sessions which I have attended at the Maritime Writers Workshop, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton. A special "Thank you" goes to Fred Cogswell and Shari Andrews who have worked closely with me on many of these poems. WHAT THE CRITICS SAY John Smith (Prince Edward Island. Judge: Alfred G. Bailey Prize, WFNB, 1995) "There's a fine lyrical perception and sincerity at work here. The range of imagination and figuration is considerable. There are fine and original images, and a satisfying musicality in the structure of the line... There's much success in integrating sound and sense. The voice is rich and warm, occasionally elevated, ground in a venerable old-world tradition. The lineation is successful and distinctive: almost every line is an aesthetic whole, with a unique structure and symmetry. The centre-justification of the lines is quite appropriate, and emphasizes their individuality: each line is a small poem that can be savoured for its own sake." Harry Thurston (Nova Scotia. Judge: Alfred G. Bailey Prize, WFNB, 1995) "It held my interest throughout. The language was intense and often inventive... The poet has a gift for metaphor, such as in the powerful poems "Army Worms" and "Fishbones." There are some very fine poems of memory here: "Gower," "In the Cave," "My Welsh Grandmother," and "Orpheus": "I try to picture my mother's face/ but it has grown legs/ and walked out of my mind." The poems often march off in unexpected directions and this to me was a mark of their originality. There was pleasure in the use of language, which must be the hallmark of all poetry worth its salt: "... the stalk-foot dowitcher stilt walks in mud / each track an arrow pointing the way to sudden flight." On the whole, a sturdy collection." Michael Thorpe (President, WFNB and Judge: Alfred G. bailey Prize, WFNB, 1995) "Richly imaged, flexible and varied verse patterns; taut blend of emotion and intense thought; ... An impressive range of difficult subjects..." Fred Cogswell (Fredericton, New Brunswick) "A reading of Roger Moore's latest manuscript, convinced me that in a great many poems he had achieved a new dimension of impact that I believe to be timeless ... A consideration of the "domestic" poems, in particular, convinced me that the added ingredient was personal truth to the experience, truth uninhibited by social concerns and stereotyping." ALBAN ANGELS late last night high above us in the sky's giant highway flocks of geese calling shadows of a distant summer "Remember us! Do not forget!" they seem to cry as far above our earthbound feet they travel close to the stars in the skyway of the night-blind the one-eyed goose leads on and sightless the great flock follows we pinpoint their calls straining our necks and for a moment there are no stars just a feathered blackness cutting between us and a line the Big Dipper marking the river St. John at Montmagny now the great white geese gathered by the St. Lawrence white on their arrival like snow they drift to the land alban angels guardians of summer's perfection they too are blotting out our skies leaving us breathless ARMY WORMS Our garden is their training ground: they practice parachuting, camouflage themselves, mould themselves into mounds frightening predators. Last week, an accident on the range: a tank turned turtle, rolled upside down: two men dead inside before the rescue team could rescue them. Soldiers' families are trained to expect the worst. But can we ever be trained to accept the day our son shot skyward through the windshield, his first car skidding on a convoy of army worms weaving a slippery carpet across the road? Our daughter walks to school down the middle of the street. She refuses to walk beneath the trees. She hates silk threads drifting, tying themselves stickily to her face, winding themselves into a shadow shroud, dark, beneath chill trees. BARNFATHER "Barnfather might yet be the world's greatest artist. He held an exhibition, once, in a Bristol gallery and sold me his impressions of dark, ploughed fields, golden hay stacked yellow in broken barns, tumbledown buildings lit up by an orange sky. For years it hung over my mother's fireplace. After the funeral, each night, before going to bed, I stare into the picture's depths. I can almost see my mother sitting beside the open farmhouse window. One day, soon, she will open the darkbeamed door and walk towards me out of the sunset." BEARS Think of pink salmon caught in pools, plucked from water, tossed to air, the catch stacked rainbowfired. Winter now: unsnubbable, lumbering overcoats closeted, laid to rest; seeking power in hibernation till sun from summit melts frosty dark: fresh heartbeats forged in forest's night. Think alchemy: prime matter moved safely in flask or jar. Think circus stars: The Great Bear leads the Lesser, dancing to the trainer's whip, tumbling from their pedestals. Secure behind bars, think fallen stars. BIKING AT BIC Whose ruse to hire deux roues to travel les rues? "Exercise, my dear!" The clicking of gears, the whir of tires, as tired, we pedal uphill, downhill, over anthills watching the tiny black dots, so close, so closed, scurry beneath the to-them-juggernaut wheels. Are we executioners, then, bent on a mission of wilderness slaughter? No, it's flesh and flab we're hunting down. Our knees go up and down and the harsh breath hammers in our lungs. All we saw from the speeding car has slowed down now: slow-motion hedge and farm and time to stare as long as sheep and cows with no protecting windshield, just this hard hat jammed on our heads and dust in our eyes and a hot sun streaming down, save where we stop for breath in wooded shade and turning, count the bruises on our overfleshed, all-too-adequate, no-longer-made-for-this-oh-so-tiny-saddle, bums! Saddle sore, hands blistered from brakes, tongues lolling, we sit at a wilderness picnic table in the middle of nowhere, drink our not-so-cold-now drinks, take tiny bites out of running-over sandwiches, and admire the view. "Aren't you glad we did it?" "It's not over yet." "Me too." BIRD IN A CAGE Muffled voices through the bedroom wall recall the woman's last night at home. Dying, sleepless, cursing her husband, nursing fourletter words. Passion bursting the dams of normal language, her informal life laid bare before them in a choirburst of pain. Recalling again and again moments of insufficiency, each shortcoming hammered like a nail into their unstopped ears. They could not fail to overhear each lover discussed, berated, while frustrated, they tried to sleep. The woman would scream and they'd cover their heads with pillows, sing, or shout back. To no avail. She was stretched on a rack made from her own drinking. No thinking people could have replied as they did. They never hid their rage. The bars of the cage at which she battered like a brokenwinged bird were much too strong to let her out or to let them in. BISHOPS'S PALACE Astorga No dark root pits: just cellars stuffed with blind stone Roman gods, sightless from a season's scratch time’s wild clawed birds gashing with tallon and beak. No trunk, no living thrust: just dead stone piled on stone, a cunning art that leaps to seeming life; one swift vertical jump bridging vast gaps between doubt and astonishment. No autumn fall of leaves: just dull brown sparrows, dropping in mute rust, raining past inner rooms where no men nest as time drags slowly by on halting feet. CAPELLA DOS OSSOS (Chapel of Bones, Evora ) this afternoon we saw a dead bull broken like a child's toy one splintered horn ploughing the sand cannibal red was its blood staining carnival yellow, blood urine and faeces shed for our pleasure we breathe distilled perfumes of bull amidst mirrored bewilderment duped and duplicated tourist eyes now we give warm coins to the tour guide she counts the whites of our astonished eyes and divides by two -- we are overcome by the chapel's ossuary stench bone after lusting bone thrust out from surrounding walls to greet us CAVE PAINTING -- THE CEREMONY He sweats as ancient women anoint his body: bear grease for strength, hound hair for speed, wolf blood for tenacity on the trail -- his body painted with a fox-brush for cunning. The priestess blesses his eyes with an eagle's feather. Two days, three days, four days, alone without food; his only water licked from stalactites and echoing pools. Eyes in his hollowing face stare back at his reflection: twin fireflies glowing in occasional torchlight. Perhaps his spirit will soar away from this earth and he'll hunt the heavens for moon and stars? Backbone arching like a bow, he aims thought arrows. He envisions the animal heart his arrows will pierce. His beloved victim dances on tip-toe as hunter and hunted flicker in a black and white dream. ( sun around moon around earth around light around fire around hunger around thirst around life ) COWS -- BIC black and white cud-chewing stubby-horned heads on fences forefeet braced against the highway's caravanned traffic local-yokel straw dangling stupidly from thick pale lips white foam balling on chin and slowly dribbling to knot itself daisy-chains of frothy lace-crocheted necklaces chocolate ice-cream eyes watching the world pass by taking in show after summertime show newly-washed spotted costumes and cloven high-heeled shoes with spots hung out to drip-drip-dry in a summer's breeze freshness escaped from a bleach-the-unbleachables baking soda box how this brown calf now tugs at a tassle looking-glass conscious of this tee-shirt with its painted cow staring -- how long? -- at what inner worlds of mangers and word magic? DAFFODILS (for my mother) Light in dark bright yellow stridence shrill golden dog's bark to warn off death's wolves that freeze her blood she dreaded night's unease the devil's wintry anti-spring life's darkest sparks but loved the daffodils' sunny March cadence of brief piercing dance DOWN AND UP downstairs the washing machine no longer works the hot water tap drip-drip-drips for want of a washer there's one dog now unclipped unclean where last year there were two meals on wheels lie blackened on the stove her false teeth drown in yogurt pots grinning out grim warnings upstairs she hears faint tappings on a distant drum tiny beaks peck the silver foil of this morning's milk she waits for the nurse's needle and dreams of something just beyond the reach of her fingers EL GRECO'S HOUSE Toledo Downstairs: white walls; carved geometric beams; an open hearth; cookpots slung from a blackened tripod. Upstairs: the artist's workshop with his threelegged stool, his easel by an open window, his untouched canvas -- a white sail spread before a voyage. Outside in the garden a young girl climbs a tree. The setting sun converts her to a match-stick woman, a pipe-cleaner figure of wiry arms and limbs. She spreads her arms as if for flight. Colour waves upward, breaks on sunlit stone; it shoots forcefully to fingertip and flows as paint: this moment's sky transformed to halo "The hallowed head," El Greco sighs, "of Christ our Saviour!" He sketches a black and white tangle in a leafless tree. FAMILY PORTRAIT After Francisco de Goya "On the left, his mother's side, all looking like her; his grandmother a broomless witch, an apparition. On the right, his father's side, all looking like him; vacant creatures smiling inanely at the photographer they paid to mock them for posterity. In the middle, their little boy -- each side has taken him by an arm and they're slowly pulling him apart in an uncivil tug-of-war." FIRST WORLD WARD snipers with telescopic sights would shoot at the sound of a voice but not of a whistle it was unlucky then to light three cigarettes from the selfsame match one for the sniper to sight two to aim and three to fire one of three friends left wounded or dead no one in the ward is allowed to smoke matron talks of chest infections but she knows it's unlucky when patients gather in groups of three and four and feed from the same lighted match my father whistles for attention through the gaps in his teeth FISHBONES Each day, all thumbs, I braid my daughter's hair: I can manage two bunches now, one on each side, but it's much more difficult to part it neatly into three and to work for that one thick plait she loves down her back. As for fishbones and French braiding... She begs me to try; and I promise that when my thumbs turn into fingers, I'll give it a go. Out in the garden, onions push their stubborn ways through a pride of trumpeting daffodils. It's easy to make mistakes: they were all just bulbs when my mother planted them. Forget-me-nots twine intricate designs, a fantasy of reds, greens, and blues, between runner beans. I pull them apart with clumsy fingers, yet they knot like tangles, fresh each day, in my daughter's hair. Last winter, a heavy snowfall toppled the garden wall. Bricks and mortar litter the grass in untidy piles. I take my child by an arm and a leg and swing her round, faster and faster till, dizzy, she can hardly stand. Now she staggers like her grandfather. He stumps around the garden leaning on a walking stick and jabs at the wall he wants rebuilt. Spittle dribbles from his cud-chewing jaw. He claws, with twisted fingers, at words, like fishbones, caught in his throat. FOXES Meductic, New Brunswick. One climbs from the river bright ripple of red and orange and marmalade over the TCH. Quick as a... black socks, brush winter thick held high and proud... quick as a... a shadow melting into dark woods. And her mate: not quite as quick and ... struck by a truck and ground into hamburger on the highway. This slow-motion death clings to my nostrils. Now, there is a night-time of silence on the lips of sleeping lovers. FROG LAKE: THE OPERA Frogs chant spring love songs from pond to ditch. Their tunes are one note symphonies, croaks of joy that move other frogs to ecstasy. Boy frogs seek girl frogs, encouraging them to share the splendours of ditch life, pond life, in a pairing whose springtime union will employ frog song to create still more singers. There's joy in this calling, croaking, creating; and where there's joy, there's laughter, love, happiness, light, sun, brightness, flowing water: everything frogs associate with spring. Each night the frowning silence of frozen stars wings winter deeper into memory. Spring moonlight swings its cheerful love lamp. Earth also sings. GOWER To be Welsh in Gower is to spell it funny and pronounce it worse: Gŵyr. It's to know how to say Pwll Ddu. It's meeting the cows in the lane to Brandy Cove and knowing them all by name and reputation, which one kicks, which one gores, when to walk in the middle of the lane, and when to jump for the safety of the hedge. It's to know the difference between the twin farmers Upper Jones and Lower Jones. It's to recognize their sheepdogs, Floss and Jess, and to call them with their different whistles. It's knowing the time of day by sun and shadow; it's knowing the tide is in or out by the salt smell in the air without ever needing to see the sea; and now, in this far off land, it's hearing your stomach growl for crempog or teisen lap whilst memory's fishhook heaves at your heart like your father hauled at the salmon bass in Rhossili, Pennard, and Three Cliffs. GREEN St. Patrick's Day! And my ice cream is green. I sink - minty flavour, emerald green - my teeth into green, and taste, tongue turn green. I chew: and break a molar! Nauseous green, hideous, bilious waves of ice green sweat chill from tooth to stomach. Nervous, green with panic, I throw away my cone. Green ice cream melts on the sidewalk. A child, green with envy, points out the waste. At home, green cracks wail green misery. I sense a green absence rooted in my mouth. A vile, green rough-edged, tongue-filing bitterness of green bile growing, gathering like seasickness, green like surgery walls, like my dentist, Dr. Green. IN THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM Granada a shallow grave little more than a scrape two small sets of bones yellowed ivories from a dislocated piano no longer tinkling distant music a song of seashells woven into a necklace god and goddess of some unknown rite horse dog bull these beakers lie broken now their holes are windows television screens running continuous programs illuminating (lumière sans son) our past cracks in our knowledge run jigsaw fine lines of time wrinkles of fortune writing the future in drying mud with earthenware stylus on soon-to-be pottery crocks are they musical annotations scribbled by a people forced one day but unable to change their tune? what do they tell us these suns rays moons lines stars gouged deep by men condemned to die? IN THE CAVE Brandy Cove, Gower. No: I do not understand these things. I have had few visions; no bush has actually burned for me. Though I have sat in this cave for many a day there have been no fires, no earthquakes, and no thin, small voice has called my name. I have only heard the wind and the waves and the sigh of the seabirds endlessly flying. Who set the curlew's cry between my lips? Who dashed the salt taste from my tongue? I will never forget the wet sand foaming between my toes nor the cracked rock crumbling under my hand... yet never did I fall, nor was I trapped by the sea below. LAST DAY Cardboard boxes stand stacked against the wall. The basement is empty. There is no spare time. They must clean and polish, make things shipshape. The latest owners will be here soon, claiming their keys and their rights of entry. Empty bottles stand in disordered ranks: quarrels, wild words, making friends again, a body slumped at the bottom of the stairs, or lying senseless in front of the television, a bloodless face pale above the stretcher as they carry her away. They drive a last desperate hunt through the empty house. How much can they take? How much must be left behind with that one last look through the closing door? LOSING IT when you lose it whatever it is your fingers pick at seams hankies skirts shirts jeans or strip a label from a bottle or crumble bread or there are so many things you can do personal things on the table a vacant cereal bowl a silver teaspoon in a saucer an empty teacup returning your round moon stare your hands are twisting and pulling your nails are clicking together sharp needles knitting unpicked stitches trying to unravel this ball of emptiness MASTER BUILDER Santiago de Compostela. No one like him for measuring space or weaving dreams from stone. Think of him as an artist, as a musician conducting an orchestra. Magician now, his baton is a wand: he juggles shape, draws form from a top hat of rock. Hands faster than eye he knits scaffolding skywards. Ironwork conjured to celestial stairways; men walking free on a level with the angels. He wrote no words, yet his thoughts stand clear before us: last will and testament handcarved in monumental gothic. MY WELSH GRANDMOTHER Cats! I can still count her 1, 2, 3 cats, each one lapping milk from its personal saucer. If I close my eyes I can see the wallpaper in her kitchen, the wood of her Welsh dresser, the flowers on her apron, the curlers in her hair, the very bend of her body over the ironing board. And everywhere that sweet and sour smell: white fish boiling in milk for the cats' supper. Six o'clock! The cuckoo whirrs its clockwork arrows from the dark wood of its ambush and they pierce my skin. "Each one wounds, the last one kills." But who really knows what that last arrow brings? Life's greatest joy perhaps? My grandmother, her health and youth renewed, stands upright like some glorious flower picked out by a sunbeam in the dark wooded depth of her kitchen. OLD FOLK supper over and nowhere to go so they walk the length of the beach scuffling seaweed turning up treasures seashells pretty in their moistness yet drying to a dull striated glow barkless sticks sanded to a smoothness belied by knots like knuckles brown sunburned standing out for an instant the half-buried form of some small animal stranded in sand forgotten then lost in the countless shift of a million wrinkles climbing sinking shifting weighing them down OLD LOYALIST BURIAL GROUND This graveyard entrance can be easily missed: a half-covered sign, a single handrail. Two hundred years ago, those who did not survive that terrible winter were buried close by. Golden dandelions cluster beside deep wheel ruts. Red shouldered blackbirds flit from branch to branch, screeching warnings. Grosbeaks flock. The river still flows high, fiddleheads thrusting through its freshet debris. Inside the burial-ground, two leaning stones, inscriptions more than half erased, make mock of the well mown lawn and brand new monument. Black-flies drill; mosquitoes whine; leeches rise, draw blood and, gorged, subside into the grass. Late sunlight slowly clots its spring song earthwards. Seeds thrust impatiently to flower. Underground bustle of root and hustling worm. ON AN ERRAND FOR EGGS Time was when we fetched them ourselves: we'd force our way through hedges, cut across fields, climb down to the lane, and walk to the farm. There we'd look for Jennifer and she'd take us to see piglets, lambs, or puppies born that day. Sometimes we'd lean on the stall where they kept the bull; or pat the cow's nose as hands tugged at her bulging udder. We'd duck to avoid a frothing stream of milk, and then we'd remember why we were there and we'd pretend it was the Easter hunt for eggs: one in the manger, under the calf's nose; two rocking safely in last winter's straw; three crushed suddenly beneath shifting hay (last year's egg, it assaults the nostrils with sulphurous stench that clings like skunk); four clasped swift, but not too tight, as the left leg is locked between slipping bales; five washed from the byre in a stream of urine; but the sixth? high in the rafters where the fowls roost at night? ---under the broody hen? ---in the bullpen, next to the bull? ON BEING WELSH (in a land ruled by the English) I am the all-seeing eyes at the tip of Worm's Head; I am the teeth of the rocks at Rhossili; I am the blackness in Pwll Ddu pool when the sea swells suck the stranger in and out sanding his bones. Song pulled taut from a dark Welsh lung, I am the bones in Gower Caves of man and beast; I am the knitter of rhinoceros wool, hunter of aurox and deer, caretaker of coracle fisher of salmon on the Abertawe tide; I am the minority, persecuted for my faith, for my language, for my sex, for the coal dark of my skin; I am the bard whose harp, strung like a bow, will sing your death with music of arrows from the wild Welsh woods; I am the barb that sticks in your throat from the dark worded ambush of my song. ORPHEUS I try to picture my mother's face but it has grown legs and walked out of my mind what Orphic pencil can draw her forth from the depths of this hell I have created for myself? I try to walk away but turn again to look and look! she has faded again! slipping away sliding backwards into the black arms of forgetfulness a nocturnal bat among the shadows in my firelit cave of flickering dreams OUTHOUSE when he jumped for the newspaper tied to the top of the outhouse door he ripped his arm on the nail his bodyweight forced the nailhead deeper and deeper until the nail caught on his bone and suspended him two inches above the ground nobody heard his cries he hung there in the dark air breathing in and out with the rhythm of starlight the smell of his empty bed was a bodiless grave mouthing warnings when daylight came they came to rescue him first they stood beside him and then they lowered him down and then they washed his wounds with vinegar and salty tears the sun was a great rock breaking down the doors of his darkness PASSENGERS ambulant luggage abandoned in rusty corners immense cast-iron railway stations smoke-filled waiting rooms park bench seats with brown and yellow slats clocks on every platform each one telling a different tale their upturned palms are empty words have trickled through clenched fingers soon they will sit face to face across the carriage's space the silence between them slowly filling back and forth with a noisy clackety-clack empty rails joining at some distant vanishing point eight separate wheel sounds broken things knitting themselves together PONT DE LA RIVIÈRE HÂTÉE low tide on the turn towards high river's tongue lisping slow silt mud seawards through stony mouth childhood brook-words streamed watery over pebbled beach the river's hasty voice a-bubble with laughter out-to-sea loons and land-trapped stone there where the stalk-foot dowitcher stilt-walks in mud each track an arrow pointing the way to sudden flight soft sibling sigh of flocks scattered feeding across sand and rocks quick their drawstrings to be hauled together in-tighter in-closer huddles the river reborn with silver flashing sun-spoon in mouth soon to be buried deep still in the tidal voice dark incoming waters wave clambering over piggybacked wave waters warmed over rock and sand lapping the land hand beckoning seawards in confirmation PORTRAIT OF MY FATHER THE LAST DAY I SAW HIM ALIVE IN THE NURSING HOME Stiff and stubborn and hidebound and proud, he has changed from restless elder through nondescript middle age to this wintry, frost breathed, stroke-ridden riddle of sundry suddenly changing moods. He has cast off old friends, marooning them on the sandbanks of memory; now he is a bent-necked, one-string fiddle scraping the same old monotonous tune. Today he sits quietly in his wheelchair until anger breaks black thunder from his face: word dogs, ill of omen, love-stealing, a choke-lock round the throat, blow after blow, from the paternal word-fist, battering his only child senseless into silence. QUALITY STREET That summer, they shared a whitewashed cottage: separate rooms in adjacent apartments. No thatch; no rats; fresh sea airs: a well-to-do dwelling on a quality street. It wasn't really old: just painted and rouged to look that way whilst the occupants sloughed age with the subtle use of stronger potions. Neighbours nodded; talked weather, flowers, lawns, and dogs. Came round after church one memorable Sunday for hors d'oeuvres, Bristol Cream. It was quite the occasion: glittering crystal, polished silver. Afterwards, there was gossip: question after question about children (away in France), wives (long gone), and places of employment. They agreed on so much; were so agreeable that, in the weeks ahead they were accepted into polite society, were permitted to walk the neighbours' pets on headland and shore, were encouraged to accompany young city cousins to beach and forest. Once, for a whole week end, they travelled with the boys to London, took in theatres, galleries (the girls were not allowed to go), ate in class restaurants, and stayed overnight in dubious hotels with separate rooms. At the end of the summer, they bade their sad farewells, talked of Paris and Rome (the continent for next year), before returning to the wives they had abandoned, safely at home. RAINSTORM Granada. Black mushrooms in the street's sudden rain, dark umbrellas defying the skies clenched fists opening, pointing in accusation. Churches fill with defenceless passersby escaping the storm with the quickest of prayers; burning cigarettes glow red through the bars of their imprisoning hands. When the sun comes out to paint its rainbow dance, gypsy women flower in the street. Carnations wound their sleek, oiled hair and the brows of their men bear scars: memories of ancient feuds. They offer good luck charms, and cross-my-palm-with-silver fortunes. "Federico! Federico!" the gypsies call, "At dawn, your guards will take you from your prison to the hills and shoot you dead." "Tonight," Federico replies, "I'll paint the city red. And tomorrow ... " "... the Alhambra's walls will burn bright with your blood." RINGS One day, she gave her rings away; next day, she took them back. "Give and take..." they thought, but didn't want to complete the proverb. Later, as she sickened, she circled the house all night and brooded on unknown people wearing her rings. One night, with her husband fast asleep in bed, snoring as usual, his good ear pressed to the pillow so he wouldn't hear her talk, she emptied her jewel-case and hid everything; everywhere; all over house and garden; thousands of pounds worth of emerald, sapphire, and diamond rings. Last Christmas, her grand-daughter asked to see her jewels. "They're hidden," came the whisper, "so robbers will never find them. But I've forgotten where they are." When she died, there was a treasure hunt round and round house and garden the likes of which they'll never seen again. "Finders, keepers; losers..." Well: they're all weepers: every time a pin rattles through the vacuum cleaner they empty the dust-bag onto a paper, and fall on their knees, hunting for buried treasure. SELF PORTRAIT by Velásquez Velásquez sought asylum in Canada and set up his studio on the shore at Glace Bay. He photographed short, stunted people who had worked underground in Cape Breton coal mines. He treated them like real human beings, blowing up their photos to NHL size. He waited while they shook or coughed, had patience till they were still again, and then "Flash!" they were preserved to posterity, captured on film. This one is Humpty Dumpty. He reminds me of an idiot released to a mental home. Slack jaws. Puffy eyes. "Man's greatest sin is having been born!" he seems to sigh. Another seeks himself through inner darkness. He probes dark galleries with Davey Lamp eyes, but finds no gold, just seams of coal that clot his lungs. Velásquez waits for his cough to stop and "Click!" he's got him. Salvation Army Second Hand clothes lay siege to his tortured flesh. "Life is a snap!" he cries, "And every photograph a lie!" SMALL TALK she says it is hot and stuffy so he opens the window to let in cool air all they can hear is the rattle and bang engines shunting the whistle of steam the cries of the workers taking up the old line laying down the new he brings her British Rail tea dark brown bitter-sweet slopped from cup to saucer but she waves it aside the morning paper lies torn on the breakfast table the conversation gambit a headline derailed headlines and words trucks and trains clockwork dogs chasing their tails or an engine on a table-top railway pursuing the caboose in infinite circles (suddenly the ghost train roars out of the night its single headlight slices the dark with a luminous scythe) SNAPS he turns the house upside down in a desperate search for photos of her letters buttons certificates of birth marriage death tumble to the floor he finally finds some snaps of her wedding here are the bridesmaids and the groom and the best man there's her mother and father come to give her away... but she has already gone one day she took a bottle and a knife and hacked herself from her day of glory in the wake of her passage an open grave on the snaps with no sign of a body SNOW IN GRANADA He leaves footprints, dark wake to his imagined ships, soft, in the snow; the unusual snow; the snow they have not seen for forty years. And it settles on roofs forming dark ridges there where the sun is able to melt it. The Alhambra is a wonderland, stiff, starched buildings standing out against the mountain's mass, as Japanese tourists click their cameras and say "Ah so! Snow!" not knowing they are part of a miracle for it snowed then as it snows now and Columbus walked these streets like any tourist short of breath, short of cash, and the seams of his boots letting in the cold, wet snow, you know how it is on Main Street, Any Street, Any Town in Canada. And then the miracle: he is leaving it all behind him when a messenger catches him up and says "Go for it! The ships, the dreams, the world, they're all yours now!" And Columbus falls on his back and creates winged shapes, dream-angels sailing in the snow. STILLBORN BROTHER Mixing cell with self, he divided, multiplied, grew and was grown in your watery world. Suddenly, he was swimming, thrusting, urgent, through your flesh till his bones filled your belly and silent, blue, he emerged to your bedroom's brightness. A half-life hooked to emergency machines, he endured, faded, then finally failed. After the flames devoured him, his untied bones half filled the miniature urn. No burial in an earth he never knew. You took him to high cliffs and cast him to wind and sea. He descended into the waves. On the third day, his shadow rose and took flight: a dolphin over bright water. SUNDAY IN WALES To be Welsh on Sunday in a dry area of Wales is to wish, for the only time in your life, that you were English and civilised, and that you had a car or a bike and could drive or pedal to your heart's desire, the county next door, wet on Sundays, where the pubs never shut and the bar is a paradise of elbows in your ribs and the dark liquids flow, not warm, not cold, just right, and family and friends are there beside you shoulder to shoulder, with the old ones sitting indoors by the fire in winter or outdoors in summer, at a picnic table under the trees or beneath an umbrella that says Seven Up and Pepsi (though nobody drinks them) and the umbrella is a sunshade on an evening like this when the sun is still high and the children tumble on the grass playing soccer and cricket and it's "Watch your beer, Da!" as the gymnasts vault over the family dog till it hides beneath the table and snores and twitches until "Time, Gentlemen, please!" and the nightmare is upon us as the old school bell, ship's bell, rings out its brass warning and people leave the Travellers' Rest, the Ffynnon Wen, The Ty Coch, The Antelope, The Butcher's, The Deri, The White Rose, The Con Club, the Plough and Harrow, The Flora, The Pant Mawr, The Cow and Snuffers -- God Bless them all, I knew them in my prime. SWANS SWIMMING You swim so much better than I; one length, two and your grace in the pool: stiff-necked, swanlike. I think of white feathers, fine throats, dark feet paddling beneath clear water. Swans follow the ferry across the River Stour. Yellow bills, sharp over boat-side, stretch for the crusts the ferryman keeps in a bag by the engine. When he smiles at you, my stomach tightens. When he nods, you break bread, pinch it tight in rigid fingers. Round black buttons of eyes judge distance to perfection. Can these sleek wings really break an arm or a leg? Serrated edges on wicked bills make short work of stale bread, iron hard. Chlorine stings our eyes. Swimming side by side, lids tightly closed, we dream our way across the pool. Ten lengths, twenty. Later: your body above me, partners in an ancient dance, performed to perfection. THANKSGIVING FOX at KOUCHIBOUGUAC who has nailed summer to its autumn cross? sunbeams dance to the woodwind music dark footsteps follow or is it a shadow's shadow flickering its year's end dance on a twisting path we breathe harder and harder underfoot the painted leaves lie like jigsaw pieces colour assorted waiting for some fairy hand to replace them one by one in the gaps in the maple tree's puzzle bottled sunshine preserved in red-gold leaves footsteps leaf-steps crackle closer and closer our hard breath hammers at heart and lung and suddenly the red and tawny tip of the fox running towards us bursting upon us a fire spark exploding the leaves THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA "The records are virtually silent: a scribbled line; a forename dragged through the mud, its sur-half missing, presumed dead." "So how and where did they perish?" "Some vanished in a grasp at mermaid's hair, seaweed on the Devil's Causeway. Others knelt on the sand and prayed for mercy only to rush to the afterlife cycling down a knife's edge as they watched their own blood bubble in the sand while the bright sun glinted on the axeman's braid. Others, too weak to move, were held in holds as ships turned turtle or riptides wrenched weak anchors from the sand." "But everyone turned to God on high and claimed Salvation in those few brief seconds when, with a roar and a rush, darkness closed in and ushered them to the light of His glorious day." "Drowning men, they were, Gagging, and gasping, and grasping at straws blown in the black winds of nothingness." TWO BARNS Hanwell central roof beam stands strong a patchwork of different coloured woods new boards nailed with bright nails coarse shingles grown grey with combing smoothed down by sandpaper-fingers of snow the old barn bulking like a ship landlocked against waves of fields wind makes song rain strums wordless tunes on its wooden soundbox Cacouna Snow whitened its roof lay heavy till strong beams creaked then caved and crumbled cow dung now holds up its lean-to walls its weather-rough shingle skin neglected like the farmer's hair a haze of flies litters the calf's nose sagging ribs create bars of light hollow cage of an abandoned barge beached here and forgotten a lantern of broken glass winking its morse-code s-o-s storm-tossed traveller lost in this land VISITING HOURS he sits on the chair beside her bed but she pays no attention the needles in her arm cast great shadows sun-dial bruises marking the passage of hours and days his words are wasted movements of lips tongue bared teeth limp kites with no wind to fill their paper sails they snag on the rusted wire fence they have built between them a hedgehog caught in the lights of an onrushing truck she has curled herself into a ball each word a fallen leaf catches on her prickles WELSH MINERS To be Welsh on the coalfield is to speak the language of steel and coal, with an accent that grates like anthracite no plum in the mouth for us; no polish, just spit and phlegm that cut through dust and grit, pit-head elecution lessons hacked from the coalface. And we sing deep, rolling hymns that surge from suffering and the eternal longing for a light that never breaks underground where we live out our lives and no owners roam. Here carbon monoxide and rockfall spell violent death. The creaking of the pit-prop warns of the songbird silent in its cage ... ...and hymn and heart are stopped in our throats as up above us the dark crowds gather. WELTANSCHAUUNG (Alfonso the Seventh's view of the world from the castle gardens in Almería.) Inside thick, medieval walls, flowers are imprisoned. The blooms are held fast to clinging earth and are chains in their turn to butterfly and bee. The nightingale weeps a slow lament and somewhere, out of sight, guitar strings sweep cool waters towards this dying sun doomed to resurrection. And I, Alfonso, am the Seventh of my line. Below the castle walls, my shadow stretches a long thin hand across the plain and holds the desert in its palm. Lone heart, barred ribcage of barren bone, everything I see is mine: yet my heart is as small as a walnut squeezed tight in this shrunken cell of sun-wrinkled stone. WHY? In the mud nest jammed tight against the garage roof, tiny yellow beaks flap ceaselessly open. The parents sit on a vantage point of electric cable, mouths moving in silent encouragement. A sudden rush, a clamour of wing and claw, a small body thudding down a ladder of air to crash beak first on the concrete. "Why?" "Wye is a river. It flows through Ross-on-Wye and marks the boundary between England and Wales." And the swallows perch on the rafters watching their fledgling as it struggles on the floor: the weakening wings, the last slow kicks of the twitching legs. "Y is a crooked letter invented by the Green Man of Wye." WILD GEESE IN THE EATON CENTRE Toronto a dull half-life this above the crowds above all chance and change swaying to the door-breeze in their glass dome artificial sky where haunting honks are farfetched stretching the imagination waddle-legged launch of the intellect skywards-hoisted on heavy wings brisk arrow-headed heaving haven of the ceiling false geese painted paper and wood hanging from skyhooks their puppet strings determining our knee-jerks downward kites paper anchors tethering us to an abandoned wilderness forgotten in Toronto's tarmac innocence sweet magic-mystery air's wild indoor surge invisible wind nets reeling in these painted cloud fish rainbow hued feather weather light all a-dazzling a-dancing fairy-winged rings of a wilderness rising from the concrete city