Lake Look-alikes

Download audio file read by Glyn Moody.

In the depths of the summer doldrums, when the atmosphere
Hangs heavy like an old, bedouin blanket, then
It is skin-still.  Often, its waters appear
To seep upwards, infinite diffuse ten-
tacles that suck down air and soak in light
Until the other shore is quite smeared away,
And what was a lake, to the too-credulous sight
Seems a boundless sea.  Sometimes, on a day
Of clouds and wind and rain, its back rucks
To jagged-edged waves, as if, in jest,
A thousand weather gods a million tucks
Had made, tugging tiny wires with nary a rest.
These are among the faces of the Lago di Garda;
As varied – and unsubtle – as a neophyte actor at RADA.

(28.7.96)

In Grodno

Download audio file read by Glyn Moody.

Five o’clock in the morning.  First they took
My offending, visa-less passport, then they came
For me.  Hauled out, politely but in a manner that brook-
ed no discussion, I abandoned my Polish couchette shame-
facedly, as if already admitting to crook-
dom before the People and the comrades who in their name
Guarded the ultimate frontiers.  Perhaps I shook
As I left the Vilnius sleeper (though I blame
The cold spring air), and gave a vague look
At the concrete block which made up the place’s fame.
A city that, found in any book,
Would be deemed too unlikely, so starkly the same,
So bleak.  Except for a square of amber light
Where a man stood obliviously, and shaved away the night.

(25.7.96)