Selected Poems 1930-1988

  pot-valiant caulless waisted in rags hatless

  for mamma papa chicken and ham

  warm Grave too say the word

  happy days snap the stem shed a tear

  this day Spy Wedsday seven pentades past

  oh the larches the pain drawn like a cork

  the glans he took the day off up hill and down dale

  with a ponderous fawn from the Liverpool London and Globe

  back the shadows lengthen the sycomores are sobbing

  to roly-poly oh to me a spanking boy

  buckets of fizz childbed is thirsty work

  for the midwife he is gory

  for the proud parent he washes down a gob of gladness

  for footsore Achates also he pants his pleasure

  sparkling beestings for me

  tired now hair ebbing gums ebbing ebbing home

  good as gold now in the prime after a brief prodigality

  yea and suave

  suave urbane beyond good and evil

  biding my time without rancour you may take your oath

  distraught half-crooked courting the sneers of these fauns these smart nymphs

  clipped like a pederast as to one trouser-end

  sucking in my bloated lantern behind a Wild Woodbine

  cinched to death in a filthy slicker

  flinging the proud Swift forward breasting the swell of Stürmers

  I see main verb at last

  her whom alone in the accusative

  I have dismounted to love

  gliding towards me dauntless nautch-girl on the face of the waters

  dauntless daughter of desires in the old black and flamingo

  get along with you now take the six the seven the eight or the little single-decker

  take a bus for all I care walk cadge a lift

  home to the cob of your web in Holles Street

  and let the tiger go on smiling

  in our hearts that funds ways home

  Sanies II

  there was a happy land

  the American Bar

  in Rue Mouffetard

  there were red eggs there

  I have a dirty I say henorrhoids

  coming from the bath

  the steam the delight the sherbet

  the chagrin of the old skinnymalinks

  slouching happy body

  loose in my stinking old suit

  sailing slouching up to Puvis the gauntlet of tulips

  lash lash me with yaller tulips I will let down

  my stinking old trousers

  my love she sewed up the pockets alive the live-oh she did she said that was better

  spotless then within the brown rags gliding

  frescoward free up the fjord of dyed eggs and thongbells

  I disappear don’t you know into the local

  the mackerel are at billiards there they are crying the scores

  the Barfrau makes a big impression with her mighty bottom

  Dante and blissful Beatrice are there

  prior to Vita Nuova

  the balls splash no luck comrade

  Gracieuse is there Belle-Belle down the drain

  booted Percinet with his cobalt jowl

  they are necking gobble-gobble

  suck is not suck that alters

  lo Alighieri has got off au revoir to all that

  I break down quite in a titter of despite

  hark

  upon the saloon a terrible hush

  a shiver convulses Madame de la Motte

  it courses it peals down her collops

  the great bottom foams into stillness

  quick quick the cavaletto supplejacks for mumbo-jumbo

  vivas puellas mortui incurrrrrsant boves

  oh subito subito ere she recover the cang bamboo for bastinado

  a bitter moon fessade à la mode

  oh Becky spare me I have done thee no wrong spare me damn thee

  spare me good Becky

  call off thine adders Becky I will compensate thee in full

  Lord have mercy upon

  Christ have mercy upon us

  Lord have mercy upon us

  Serena I

  without the grand old British Museum

  Thales and the Aretino

  on the bosom of the Regent’s Park the phlox

  crackles under the thunder

  scarlet beauty in our world dead fish adrift

  all things full of gods

  pressed down and bleeding

  a weaver-bird is tangerine the harpy is past caring

  the condor likewise in his mangy boa

  they stare out across monkey-hill the elephants

  Ireland

  the light creeps down their old home canyon

  sucks me aloof to that old reliable

  the burning btm of George the drill

  ah across the way a adder

  broaches her rat

  white as snow

  in her dazzling oven strom of peristalsis

  limae labor

  ah father father that art in heaven

  I find me taking the Crystal Palace

  for the Blessed Isles from Primrose Hill

  alas I must be that kind of person

  hence in Ken Wood who shall find me

  my breath held in the midst of thickets

  none but the most quarried lovers

  I surprise me moved by the many a funnel hinged

  for the obeisance to Tower Bridge

  the viper’s curtsy to and from the City

  till in the dusk a lighter

  blind with pride

  tosses aside the scarf of the bascules

  then in the grey hold of the ambulance

  throbbing on the brink ebb of sighs

  then I hug me below among the canaille

  until a guttersnipe blast his cernèd eyes

  demanding ’ave I done with the Mirror

  I stump off in a fearful rage under Married Men’s Quarters

  Bloody Tower

  and afar off at all speed screw me up Wren’s giant bully

  and curse the day caged panting on the platform

  under the flaring urn

  I was not born Defoe

  but in Ken Wood

  who shall find me

  my brother the fly

  the common housefly

  sidling out of darkness into light

  fastens on his place in the sun

  whets his six legs

  revels in his planes his poisers

  it is the autumn of his life

  he could not serve typhoid and mammon

  Serena II

  this clonic earth

  see-saw she is blurred in sleep

  she is fat half dead the rest is free-wheeling

  part the black shag the pelt

  is ashen woad

  snarl and howl in the wood wake all the birds

  hound the harlots out of the ferns

  this damfool twilight threshing in the brake

  bleating to be bloodied

  this crapulent hush

  tear its heart out

  in her dreams she trembles again

  way back in the dark old days panting

  in the claws of the Pins in the stress of her hour

  the bag writhes she thinks she is dying

  the light fails it is time to lie down

  Clew Bay vat of xanthic flowers

  Croagh Patrick waned Hindu to spite a pilgrim

  she is ready she has lain down above all the islands of glory

  straining now this Sabbath evening of garlands

  with a yo-heave-ho of able-bodied swans

  out from the doomed land their reefs of tresses

  in a hag she drops her young

  the whales in Blacksod Bay are dancing

  the asphodels come running the flags after

  she thinks she is dying she is ashamed

  she took me up on to a watershed


  whence like the rubrics of a childhood

  behold Meath shining through a chink in the hills

  posses of larches there is no going back on

  a rout of tracks and streams fleeing to the sea

  kindergartens of steeples and then the harbour

  like a woman making to cover her breasts

  and left me

  with whatever trust of panic we went out

  with so much shall we return

  there shall be no loss of panic between a man and his dog

  bitch though he be

  sodden packet of Churchman

  muzzling the cairn

  it is worse than dream

  the light randy slut can’t be easy

  this clonic earth

  all these phantoms shuddering out of focus

  it is useless to close the eyes

  all the chords of the earth broken like a woman pianist’s

  the toads abroad again on their rounds

  sidling up to their snares

  the fairy-tales of Meath ended

  so say your prayers now and go to bed

  your prayers before the lamps start to sing behind the larches

  here at these knees of stone

  then to bye-bye on the bones

  Serena III

  fix this pothook of beauty on this palette

  you never know it might be final

  or leave her she is paradise and then

  plush hymens on your eyeballs

  or on Butt Bridge blush for shame

  the mixed declension of those mammae

  cock up thy moon thine and thine only

  up up up to the star of evening

  swoon upon the arch-gasometer

  on Misery Hill brand-new carnation

  swoon upon the little purple

  house of prayer

  something heart of Mary

  the Bull and Pool Beg that will never meet

  not in this world

  whereas dart away through the cavorting scapes

  bucket o’er Victoria Bridge that’s the idea

  slow down slink down the Ringsend Road

  Irishtown Sandymount puzzle find the Hell Fire

  the Merrion Flats scored with a thrillion sigmas

  Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour His Finger

  girls taken strippin that’s the idea

  on the Bootersgrad breakwind and water

  the tide making the dun gulls in a panic

  the sands quicken in your hot heart

  hide yourself not in the Rock keep on the move

  keep on the move

  Malacoda

  thrice he came

  the undertaker’s man

  impassible behind his scutal bowler

  to measure

  is he not paid to measure

  this incorruptible in the vestibule

  this malebranca knee-deep in the lilies

  Malacoda knee-deep in the lilies

  Malacoda for all the expert awe

  that felts his perineum mutes his signal

  sighing up through the heavy air

  must it be it must be it must be

  find the weeds engage them in the garden

  hear she may see she need not

  to coffin

  with assistant ungulata

  find the weeds engage their attention

  hear she must see she need not

  to cover

  to be sure cover cover all over

  your targe allow me hold your sulphur

  divine dogday glass set fair

  stay Scarmilion stay stay

  lay this Huysum on the box

  mind the imago it is he

  hear she must see she must

  all aboard all souls

  half-mast aye aye

  nay

  Da Tagte Es

  redeem the surrogate goodbyes

  the sheet astream in your hand

  who have no more for the land

  and the glass unmisted above your eyes

  Echo’s Bones

  asylum under my tread all this day

  their muffled revels as the flesh falls

  breaking without fear or favour wind

  the gantelope of sense and nonsense run

  taken by the maggots for what they are

  * * *

  Yoke of Liberty

  The lips of her desire are grey

  and parted like a silk loop

  threatening

  a slight wanton wound.

  She preys wearily

  on sensitive wild things

  proud to be torn

  by the grave crouch of her beauty.

  But she will die and her snare

  tendered so patiently

  to my tamed watchful sorrow

  will break and hang

  in a pitiful crescent.

  Antipepsis

  And the number was uneven

  In the green of holy Stephen

  Where before the ass the cart

  Was harnessed for a foreign part.

  In this should not be seen the sign

  Of hasard, no, but of design,

  For of the two, by common consent,

  The cart was the more intelligent.

  Whose exceptionally pia

  Mater hatched this grand idea

  Is not known. He or she,

  Smiling, unmolested, free,

  By this one act the mind become

  A providential vacuum,

  Continues still to stroll amok,

  To eat, drink, piss, shit, fart and fuck,

  Assuming that the fucking season

  Did not expire with that of reason.

  Now through the city spreads apace

  The cry: A thought has taken place!

  A human thought! Ochone! Ochone!

  Purissima Virgo! We’re undone!

  Bitched, buggered and bewilderèd!

  Bring forth your dead! Bring forth your dead!

  Cascando

  1

  why not merely the despaired of

  occasion of

  wordshed

  is it not better abort than be barren

  the hours after you are gone are so leaden

  they will always start dragging too soon

  the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want

  bringing up the bones the old loves

  sockets filled once with eyes like yours

  all always is it better too soon than never

  the black want splashing their faces

  saying again nine days never floated the loved

  nor nine months

  nor nine lives

  2

  saying again

  if you do not teach me I shall not learn

  saying again there is a last

  even of last times

  last times of begging

  last times of loving

  of knowing not knowing pretending

  a last even of last times of saying

  if you do not love me I shall not be loved

  if I do not love you I shall not love

  the churn of stale words in the heart again

  love love love thud of the old plunger

  pestling the unalterable

  whey of words

  terrified again

  of not loving

  of loving and not you

  of being loved and not by you

  of knowing not knowing pretending

  pretending

  I and all the others that will love you

  if they love you

  3

  unless they love you

  Ooftish

  offer it up plank it down

  Golgotha was only the potegg

  cancer angina it is all one to us

  cough up your T.B. don’t be stingy

  no trifle is too trifling not even a thrombus

  anything venereal is especially welcome

  that o
ld toga in the mothballs

  don’t be sentimental you won’t be wanting it again

  send it along we’ll put it in the pot with the rest

  with your love requited and unrequited

  the things taken too late the things taken too soon

  the spirit aching bullock’s scrotum

  you won’t cure it you won’t endure it

  it is you it equals you any fool has to pity you

  so parcel up the whole issue and send it along

  the whole misery diagnosed undiagnosed misdiagnosed

  get your friends to do the same we’ll make use of it

  we’ll make sense of it we’ll put it in the pot with the rest

  it all boils down to blood of lamb

  [Poems in French, 1937–1939]

  elles viennent

  autres et pareilles

  avec chacune c’est autre et c’est pareil

  avec chacune l’absence d’amour est autre

  avec chacune l’absence d’amour est pareille

  they come

  different and the same

  with each it is different and the same

  with each the absence of love is different

  with each the absence of love is the same

  être là sans mâchoires sans dents

  où s’en va le plaisir de perdre

  avec celui à peine inférieur

  de gagner

  et Roscelin et on attend

  adverbe oh petit cadeau

  vide vide sinon des loques de chanson

  mon père m’a donné un mari

  ou en faisant la fleur

  qu’elle mouille

  tant qu’elle voudra jusqu’à l’élégie

  des sabots ferrés encore loin des Halles

  ou l’eau de la canaille pestant dans les tuyaux

  ou plus rien

  qu’elle mouille puisque c’est ainsi

  parfasse tout le superflu

  et vienne

  à la bouche idiote à la main formicante

  au bloc cave à l’oeil qui écoute