Penelokan

Out of Ubud the long straight road
To Penelokan is a good fifty miles of up,
Until the town itself, precariously stowed
On the lip of the huge crater’s deep cup.
In the centre, the still-smouldering cone
Of the live volcano; to the right, a blue cres-
cent moon-shaped lake, and to the left, black stone-
cold lava in a sheet.  A site of paradise, no less.
I gazed; and could have gawped more, had
A local boy not tried (“Only look...”) to eke
Out a life by selling me his gew-gaws.  I cussed
Him away, rude and imperious.  This was a bad
Move: clouds fell over the valley and peak
Like a circular shroud.  The Balinese gods are just.

(29.7.1997)

Maths, Murgatroyd And Murder

A Saturday.  Maths (of course) the first class
For VIc.  Multiplying the times he has done
So, Mr Kerman checks the roll-call, pass-
ing down the exiguous set of unknowns.  Only one 
Name has to be subtracted: Alan Mur-
gatroyd.  Off sick is the number he
And his mates have hashed together.  But with too-per-
fect rigour, as if a step axiomatic to the nth degree, 
I add: “Up at the Albert Hall, sir, queu-
ing for the Proms.” Decades after, I gather he’s died
In an easily avoided car smash.  I calculate if those few
Seconds and their centimetres had counted, if I was the divide.
For at root, however well or badly we behave,
The sums of our actions are those we will kill or save.

(9.7.1997)