Giraffes in Hull, 14

  Greek beads, 248

  Greenham Common, 80

  Hare in the snow, 229

  Hare in the snow cresting, 229

  ‘Has she gone then?’ they asked, 152

  Heimat, 199

  He is the one you can count on, 226

  He lived next door all his life, 227

  Here at my worktop, foil-wrapping a silver salmon, 228

  Here I am in the desert knowing nothing, 200

  Her fast asleep face turns from me, 86

  Heron, 177

  Herring girl, 58

  He’s going on holiday to lonely, 192

  Holiday to Lonely, 192

  How hushed the sentence is this morning, 43

  Hungry Thames, 244

  Hungry Thames, I walk over the bridge, 244

  I can’t say why so many coffin-makers, 46

  Ice coming, 20

  I’d climbed the crab-apple in the wind, 179

  If I wanted totems, in place of the poles, 218

  If no revolution come, 83

  If only, 38

  If only I’d stayed up till four in the morning, 38

  If you had said the words ‘to the forest’, 186

  I hung up the sheets in moonlight, 85

  I imagine you sent back from Africa, 98

  I know that no one dare judge another’s need, 230

  I lay and heard voices, 50

  In a back garden I’m painting, 69

  In a wood near Turku, 92

  In Berber’s Ice Cream Parlour, 184

  In deep water, 103

  I never stop listening to you sing, 237

  In memoriam Cyril Smith 1913–1945, 99

  In Rodmell Garden, 68

  In the chemist’s at night-time, 77

  In the corded hollows of the wood, 182

  In the Desert Knowing Nothing, 200

  In the goods yard the tracks are unmarked, 62

  In the tea house, 120

  In the tea house the usual, 120

  In the tents, 116

  In the weightlessness of time and our passage within it, 105

  In the white sheets I gave you, 205

  Inside out, 47

  I remember years ago, that we had Christmas roses, 91

  I see the boys at the breakwater, 167

  I should like to be buried in a summer forest, 233

  I should like to be buried in a summer forest, 233

  ‘It is finished,’ said Christ. Blood ebbed from his face, 22

  Its big red body ungulps, 211

  It’s evening on the river, 177

  It’s not the four-wheeled drive crawler, 136

  It’s past nine and breakfast is over, 68

  It starts with breaking into the wood, 55

  It was not always a dry well, 176

  It was the green lorry with its greasy curtain, 18

  It was too hot, that was the argument, 142

  It was you I heard, your tiger pad on the stairs, 45

  I’ve approached him since childhood, 99

  Jacob’s drum, 15

  Lady Macduff and the primroses, 104

  Lambkin, 149

  Landscape from the Monet Exhibition at Cardiff, 93

  Later my stepson will uncover a five-inch live shell, 135

  Lead me with your cold, sure hand, 190

  Lemon sole, 50

  Let us think that we are pilgrims, 155

  Little Ellie and the timeshare salesman, 245

  Long long have I looked for you, 54

  Lutherans, 187

  Malta, 153

  Mary Shelley, 105

  Missile launcher passing at night, 124

  Mr Lear has left a ring in his room, 39

  Mr Lear’s ring, 39

  Music plays gently. Yesterday’s morning paper, 249

  My nephews with almond faces, 79

  My sad descendants, 111

  My train halts in the snowfilled station, 93

  Near Dawlish, 86

  Nearly May Day, 168

  Need, 230

  New crops, 139

  Next door, 226

  Next door/is the same as ours, but different, 226

  Not going to the forest, 186

  Now I write off a winter of growth, 75

  Now the snowdrop, the wood-anemone, the crocus, 104

  Now winter comes and I am half-asleep, 244

  O engines, 139

  Of course they’re dead, or this is a film, 194

  Off the West Pier, 180

  Often when the bread tin is empty, 94

  Old Jeffery begins his night music, 144

  Old warriors and women, 31

  Ollie and Charles at St Andrew’s Park, 90

  On circuit from Heptonstall Chapel, 146

  One more for the beautiful table, 148

  One year he painted his front door yellow, 227

  One yellow chicken, 178

  On his skin the stink, 195

  On not writing certain poems, 162

  On smooth buttercup fields, 156

  On the white path at noon when the sun, 247

  O that old cinema of memory, 16

  Our day off, agreed by the wind, 116

  Out of the Blue, 12

  O wintry ones, my sad descendants, 111

  Patrick at four years old on Bonfire Night, 112

  Patrick, I cannot write, 72

  Patrick I, 72

  Patrick II, 73

  Pedalo, 207

  Permafrost, 133

  Pharaoh’s daughter, 70

  Piers Plowman: The Crucifixion & Harrowing of Hell, 22

  Pilgrims, 155

  Ploughing the roughlands, 136

  Poem for December 28, 79

  Poem for hidden women, 81

  Poem in a Hotel, 193

  Poem on the Obliteration of 100,000 Iraqi Soldiers, 201

  Porpoise washed up on the beach, 102

  Preaching at Gwennap, 145

  Preaching at Gwennap, silk, 145

  Privacy of rain, 163

  Rain. A plump splash, 163

  Rapunzel, 117

  Refrigerator days, 242

  Restless, the pæony truss tosses about, 132

  Rinsing, 182

  Rubbing Down the Horse, 197

  Russian doll, 59

  Safe period, 174

  Sailing to Cuba, 179

  Say we’re in a compartment at night, 36

  Scan at 8 weeks, 206

  Seal run, 128

  See this ’un here, this little bone needle, 58

  Shadows of my mother against a wall, 140

  She comes close to perfection, 37

  She kept Uncle Will’s telegram, 117

  She’s next to nowhere, feeling no cold, 236

  She swam to me smiling, her teeth, 207

  Ships on brown water, 32

  Sisters leaving before the dance, 160

  Skips, 218

  Sleeveless, 41

  Small, silvery, slipping, 248

  Smoke, 31

  Snowdrops, Mary’s tapers, 154

  Snow Queen, 54

  Snug a devil’s toenail embedded, 47

  So how decisive a house is, 71

  Sometimes in the rough garden of city spaces, 232

  Speak to me in the only language, 12

  St Paul’s, 78

  Sylvette Scrubbing, 215

  Tall ship hanging out at the horizon, 60

  Tea at Brandt’s, 249

  That lake lies along the shore, 164

  That morning when the potato tops rusted, 202

  That old cinema of memory, 16

  That’s better, he says, he says, 149

  That violet-haired lady, 52

  That violet-haired lady, dowager-, 52

  The air-blue gown, 109

  The apple fall, 69

  The argument, 142

  The bald glasshouses stretch here for miles, 143

  The bathers, where are they? The sea is quite empty,
166

  The Bike Lane, 194

  The blessing, 48

  The boy in the boat, the tip of the pole, 229

  The bride’s nights in a strange village, 96

  The butcher’s daughter, 56

  The coffin-makers, 46

  The conception, 205

  The cuckoo game, 55

  The damson, 67

  The deserted table, 88

  The Diving Reflex, 212

  The dream-life of priests, 158

  The dry glasshouse is almost empty, 143

  The dry well, 176

  The father is a writer; the son, 89

  The footfall, 45

  The form, 42

  The grass looks different in another country, 151

  The greenfield ghost, 57

  The greenfield ghost is not much of a ghost, 57

  The halls are thronged, the grand staircase murmurous, 48

  The hard-hearted husband, 152

  The haunting of Epworth, 144

  The horse landscape, 113

  The land pensions, 137

  The land pensions, like rockets, 137

  The last day of the exhausted month, 87

  The long arm hangs flat to his lap, 147

  The man on the roof, 13

  The man who gave little Ellie his forever, 245

  The mare with her short legs heavily mudcaked, 146

  The night chemist, 77

  The other babies were more bitter than you, 73

  The Our Father, the moment of fear, 203

  The panting of buses through caves of memory, 17

  The parachute packers, 100

  The parachute packers with white faces, 100

  The peach house, 143

  The plum tree, 108

  The plum was my parents’ tree, 108

  The point of not returning, 42

  The point of not returning/is to go back, but never quite back, 42

  The Polish husband, 66

  The potatoes come out of the earth bright, 128

  The rain’s coming in, 36

  The rain was falling down in slow pulses, 141

  There he stands, blind on slivovitz, 41

  There’s a stone set in the car-park wall, 19

  The room creaked like a pair of lungs, 177

  The scattering, 234

  The sea’s a featureless blaze, 153

  The sea skater, 119

  The sentence, 43

  The Silent Man in Waterstones, 220

  The slowly moving river in summer, 70

  The soft fields part in hedges, each, 124

  The spill, 34

  The summer cabins are padlocked, 92

  The surgeon husband, 228

  The thing about a saddle is that second, 197

  Thetis, 115

  Thetis, mother of all mothers, 115

  The traffic halted, 66

  The Wardrobe Mistress, 221

  The wasp, 244

  The white receiver, 206

  The winter fairs are all over, 91

  The wood-pigeon rolls soft notes off its breast, 140

  The writer’s son, 89

  They are hiding away in the desert, 201

  The Yellow Sky, 202

  They fly/straight-necked and barely white, 53

  This evening clouds darken the street quickly, 78

  This is Jacob’s drum, 15

  This is the wardrobe mistress, touching, 220

  This is what I want, 217

  This path is silky with dust, 204

  Those shady girls, 158

  Those shady girls on the green side of the street, 158

  Those words like oil, loose in the world, 34

  Three Ways of Recovering a Body, 191

  Three workmen with blue pails, 171

  Tiger lookout, 242

  Tiger Moth caterpillar, 243

  Time by Accurist, 219

  To Betty, swimming, 183

  Today in a horse landscape, 113

  Today is barred with darkness of winter, 80

  Tonight I’m eating the past, 109

  Tonight there’s a crowd in my head, 235

  To Virgil, 190

  Two miles or so beyond, 213

  Two of us on the tired pavement, 40

  Two spines curve in, 243

  Uncle Will’s telegram, 117

  Up at the park once more, 90

  US 1st Division Airborne Ranger at rest in Honduras, 147

  Viking cat in the dark, 238

  Virgin with Two Cardigans, 19

  Waiting. I’m here waiting, 193

  Walking at all angles, 14

  Washed silk jacket by Mesa, 219

  Weaning, 74

  We are men, not beasts, 250

  We’re strung out on the plain’s upthirst, 181

  What I get I bring home to you, 130

  When I held you up to my cheek you were cold, 59

  When my grandmother died my father

  eulogised her, 13

  When you grow tired of the flame, 240

  When You’ve Got, 222

  When you’ve got the plan of your life, 222

  Where have you been, my little daughter, 56

  Where have you gone, 67

  Where the great ship sank I am, 212

  Whichever way I turned on the radio, 187

  Whooper swans, 53

  Wild strawberries, 130

  Winter 1955, 181

  Winter fairs, 91

  With his hands he teaches wind to move, 241

  Without remission, 35

  With short, harsh breaths, 44

  You came back to life in its sweetness, 198

  You put your hand over mine and whispered, 162

  Your dry voice from the centre of the bed, 174

  You’re breast-up in the bubbling spaces you make for yourself, 183

  Zelda, 64

  Copyright

  Copyright © Helen Dunmore 1983, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1994, 1997, 2001

  First published 2001 by

  Bloodaxe Books Ltd,

  Highgreen,

  Tarset,

  Northumberland NE48 1RP.

  This ebook edition first published in 2011.

  www.bloodaxebooks.com

  For further information about Bloodaxe titles please visit our website or write to the above address for a catalogue.

  The right of Helen Dunmore to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN: 978 1 78037 009 5 ebook

 


 

  Helen Dunmore, Out of the Blue: Poems 1975-2001

 


 

 
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