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)

The Chasm

Some have held (regretfully) that when our god
(Or gods) turns his/her or their face
From the world, horror occurs.  Innocence is sod-
den with the blood of massacres, as fledgling nations are efface-
d and cast into that sudden, inexplicable chasm of aban-
donment.  Then, confronted by this negative theoph-
any, all the saintliest impetrations on earth
Or in heaven – even from a Jesus, an Isis, a Gan-
esh, a Prometheus or a Mohammed the Proph-
et – are (or so these exegetes maintain) worth
Not a jot.  I wouldn't presume to judge; but
I can say that when a nugatory father is lax
For a second, his child can be hurt – bruised or cut – 
That quotidian tragedy does happen behind our backs.

(19.6.1997)

“to proto alouminocarto”

“You will already know 1002
Other uses for Sanitas...” the wily
Hellenic marketing exec softly coo-
s.  And it is true: it did indeed prove highly
Handy in our London kitchen, that roll we brought
Back from the hillside flat in Kioni, and which cost
860 drachmas when it was bought
From the village shop.  But never will it have crossed
The mind of that modern teller of tales
The 1003rd: as synecdoche, reminding
Us how, at dusk, at the end of his toil,
Helios bent over Levkas towards the mainland vales
Of night, and turned the Ionian Sea into a blinding
Sheet, a fiery surface of shook foil.

(18.6.1997)

Centre Point

We sat, passive world-watchers, in the Touch-
down Café at the top of a litter-filled Tottenham Court
Road.  Opposite reared up the much-
bruited “modernist masterpiece” – thought 
By many to be devoid of inhabitants bar
A haughty CBI and a gaggle of homeless deep
In its unlovely bowels.  Between us, on the pavements, as far
As the falcon’s eye can see, teem the peop-
le: a blue-skinned African with passionate eyes;
A girl (half-Japanese), translucent in the sun;
A shaggy derelict, with a scab on his head like a prize;
A Latvian punk slouching around for fun.
Here is a turning-point, where the centre cannot hold;
But this time, it’s good, for we are so weary and old.

(16.6.1997)

In Transit

Arriving, I found a queue in the gardens, and so ob-
viously joined it.  A pasty, spotty, crop-haired youth
With a rifle (the special essence and limit of whose job 
Was to block admittance to the Vilnius consulate uncouth-
ly) gestured with a thumb towards an office.  Here,
I waited, before being called to fill
In some Cyrillic forms, passing on to a counter (mere-
ly to obtain a stamp) and then proceeding to the cashier's till
Where I would pay (outrageously) for the visa.  But first, what
I needed was a photo; so upstairs, past unravell-
ing electrics, to a babushka with a Polaroid who put the fin-
ishing touches to this epic of the Byelorussian state.  Not
That I was asking much: just to travel
Through a country I was already technically in.

(16.6.1997)

Ubi Sunt?

Where am I, then?  Pilies gat-
ve, Daukanto aikšte... broad, empty streets,
Delapidated rococo palaces, poor squat
houses (lop-sided and crumbling), feats
Of stucco-work hidden behind soaring white
Northern baroque facades.  Up on the Toom-
pea, down Kohtu and the long Pikk Jalg...tight
Cobbled alleys, walls of ochre, a dome,
Towers and turrets visible over gird-
ling battlements.  So where can I be?  In fact,
Vilnius and Tallinn, though in a way you’d not have erred
Much guessing Buda or Prague.  But, to be exact, 
These Baltic capitals lie centuries further back,
Offering all that the others – and we – sadly now lack.

(4.4.1997)

Clapham Uncommon

It seemed like any other autumn evening.
The foliage of the deciduous trees decorously glided
To earth: a gamut of fertile browns with a leavening
Of yellows and a tinge of russets.  The light, provided
By a superseded but fatherly sun, seeped
Away into the velvety, swaddling, five o’clock gloom.
Above us, Concorde’s silver beak peeped
Out from the curving, milky clouds, its boom
Like an Aztec god with colic.  Yes, it all
Looked exactly the same as we toddled off to tea,
(As any good child must at that hour).  Yet, small
Though it was, some tiny thing had changed — which we
Were well aware of, that mellow night-fall
In October, thinking of the spring to come, to be.

(4.4.1997)

A Classic

The problem, then, facing the Greek pol-
eis – those on the mainland, but excluding Sparta through its lack
Of appropriate traditions, on the islands, and among the col-
onies found to the far West and along the Black
Sea coast – was this.  Having created
The basic elements of the classical temple, it proved
Impossible to reconcile them completely.  Stated
Simply, either the extreme triglyphs were moved
Past the centre of the columns, or the latter stood
Proud of the former, leading to an ungain-
ly overhang.  Some said symmetry should never
Be sacrificed; others, though, held good
Design meant following function; all maintain-
ed the end-result should be a possession for ever.

(4.4.1997)

Fratelli d'Italia

An hour we’ve been at the airport.  “But how can you talk
Of Narrative?”  “ — The Narrator, then?”  “Here comes Proust,”
Says Jean-Claude, smiling indulgently.  “Walk
Into the kitchen — ” (majolica on the narrow shelves, roost-
ing like multi-coloured turkeys) “ — the champagne’s in the fridge,”
Antonio shouts.  “Reliable?  Don’t make me laugh....”
"Remember ‘Les Demoiselles’....”  “Or the Charles Bridge
Back in Prague.”  “Aber,” asks Klaus, “on whose behalf
Does the author speak?”  Silence, broken by the clink
Of yellowing table silver, and of sirens next
Door.  “ — Pure Varèse, don’t you think?”
Until, after a hundred such sallies, perplexed
And homesick, I whisper: “book, never end.”  For in truth
These were my brothers, once, in a land called Youth.

(4.4.1997)

The Greeks In The East

Nobody buys food in Venice: there are no
Corner shops or supermarkets in the city.
Nor do people live here: go
To a doorway and you find only hotels.  But pretty
Well the world is an artist, to judge at least
By the galleries and museums found at every turn.
Hardly moribund, each summer this carneval feast
Of non-physical nourishment must spurn
Its visitors for simple lack of space.  Could 
This be the sinking West’s future: to make
A glorious exhibition of itself?  If so, we should
Not talk of loser or coloniser, since this is a game of take
And mutual take.  Look at St Mark’s Square:
Half the Japanese nation is happy to be there.

(4.4.1997)

The Greeks In The West

Back to the Palazzo Grassi, this time
To see ‘The Greeks in the West’.  At first, I’d not
Intended to go: it hardly sounded prime
Viewing – some sandstone fragments, a pale pot
Or two.  But there, re-oriented, it dawned on me
And my muddled, senescent brain what a colossal show
This was.  It supplied, through a lucid exege-
sis in the best tradition, a sense of how what we know
As the Classical was forged – from the origin of the Doric
To the perfecting of the temple’s majestic hexastyle.
Moreover, each room directed my attention
To the inescapable fact that much of this historic
Achievement was the work of the margins: while
Athens fiddled, the colonies burned with invention.

(4.4.1997)

The Word In The Stone

A legend: two warrior-brothers put slaughter
Behind them; live (with their sister) in a rough hut
— and here the tale, passed from mother to daughter,
From father to child, moves into myth — where a rutt-
ing cervo arrives from the east, with a bough of golden
Fruit in its antlers.  At dusk a wolf carries wood:
The men burn great fires (“O remember the olden
Times of blood; let us pray as we once stood,
Together.”)  Its gist I do not comprehend,
But its truth I have literally seen, carved in granite,
At The Stones of the Gods show, in Bergamo.
The image of a stag, a man’s head blend-
ing with the disk of the rising sun — that story: can it
Not be from five thousand years ago?

(3.4.1997)

Echt Oder?

I linger in the Rosenkavalier restaurant,
Eat goulash soup and Wiener schnitzel, sip
Hundertwaßer’s mineral water.  Want-
ing are only the strains of the marvellous yet mindless trip-
le-time lilt of Johann Strauß’s Blue Danube waltz 
To make me feel rather too close to the heart
Of the unbearably kitsch in Österreich, of the cloying and false.
Yet just here really is the barycentre, the start
Of all the Gaßen in Mitteleuropa.  This place,
A mezzanine in the Südbahnhof, is station-
ed between the east and south platforms; deft
Migrations of peoples across this anonymous space
Route them back to every ex-nation
Of the Royal and Imperial.  Austria is what is left.

(3.4.1997)

Lake Look-alikes

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.

(3.4.1997)

Motorini Di Roma

The composer Respighi detected it in a city
Of pines and fountains.  The Fontana di Trevi’s thunder
And Piazza Navona’s High Baroque rivers are pretty
Familiar; as for the trees, well, no wonder
If, in the original urban landscape, they’re
More of a rarity (some fine specimens round
By the Forum).  But it’s not in wood or stone, where
All is classical nobility, or in the lush sound
Of a tone-poem representing these,
That the whiff of La Dolce Vita is caught most fresh.
Its essence is found in the petrol-polluted breeze
That winds its mad-cap way through the tangled mesh
Of side-streets, marking out the giddy track
Of a langorous Roman borne off on a moped’s back.

(3.4.1997)

Javan Batik

“Batik?” “Tidak.”  Snootily we fanned the pitch
Away in the thick hot sponge of air
That was Jalan Malioboro: a steaming, rich
Soup of Asia, Yogya’s thoroughfare — 
And the very heart of Java.  Not that we weren’t led
By the nose.  We went to see the ‘closing days’
Of the ‘government students’ show; naïvely said
Which were the pick of the lot, gave our praise,
And only smelt a rat when our choices were hung
Barring the door.  A trap, with sickly-sweet tea
As part of the bait.  We parried, finally, with a tongue-
in-cheek offer, an insult of a price.  He
Then it was who was forced to say: “Tidak — no.”
Outside, we savoured the crowds’ jumbled flow.

(3.4.1997)

The Legacy Of Odysseus

The famous ‘Cave of the Nymphs’, where Ulysses hid
His accumulated wealth on waking in Ithaca, we did
Not see.  Nor, in Stavros, could we locate
The remains of his palace (not that great,
By all accounts).  Laertes’ Farm we saw;
Basically olive trees, some stones and nothing more.
Polis, too, we found – a glorious place.
But of ancient sunken cities, not a trace.
And yet this was his isle.  Rocky,
And double-humped, every inch of this land
Is his, while a glance to sea always gives
The feeling he has just, at last, arrived.  His stocky,
Unmistakeable frame, and his crafty hand
Are manifest in every village.  Odysseus lives.

(3.4.1997)

Watching Water Wrackets

Fat lads with sea-shrivelled willies, a turtle,
Rivers of curious numbers, the usual dog
Latin (postea vero quisque) — all hurtle
Out of a picture drowning in memories, a huge log-
Jam of obsessions: welcome to a Greenaway flaunt
Entitled ‘Watching Water’.  And where should he hold
Such an acqueous orgy but in my most-belovèd haunt,
The Palazzo Fortuny?  Venice and its tourism, bold
Young ladies pert amidst tempests, lapidary men
Called George flung lagoon- and sky-ward: they flow
Through that house as if a secret tap were open,
Perhaps the one in a room they never show.
An encounter, then, I just really could not miss;
But, for Pete’s sake, is somebody taking the piss...?

(3.4.1997)

Odyssey

The saga began at an unspeakable hour of the day
When we left London and took a taxi-cab
Down to Gatwick.  From there, half-way
Across Europe to Cephalonia airport, to grab
An oven-hot coach and begin a journey straight
Out of fable.  First, the city of Argostoli,
And its impossibly narrow streets.  Undulat-
ing like an eel, our bus moved on to worse folly,
Negotiating the goat-track roads that cling
To the curves of the unsayably beautiful head-
lands and turquoise bays delimiting the isle, to bring
Us to Fiscardo.  From the quay, we gingerly thread-
ed our way along the ship’s gang-plank to embark
On the short last leg of our voyage.  But hark....

(3.4.1997)

Future Past

It could be a face from a distant year N
Thousand: some scathing Schwarzenegger clone,
A super-cool, super-steel android hulk with a yen
For plastic violence.  OK, say this is erron-
eous: perhaps some abstract construct — planes
Of anger scything hurled volumes.  In any 
Case, it is faux Fascist, colonising domains
Stamped ‘Force’, ‘Tomorrow’, ‘World’ and two-a-penny
Slogans of that ilk.  But it’s a toy out of gear, 
The lines limp, the colours dull-drab hues
Of blue-black and mud-red on a ground
Of soiled yellow.  The failure is in the year:
1958.  It’s old news,
Hankering after a Futurism never very profound.

(3.4.1997)

Nostalghia For Bagno Vignoni

The Piazza d’Acqua.  Andrej Tarkovsky came
Here, rhyming with his creation Gortchakov (a poet
Like his father), who, in turn, would stroll the same
Time-worn locations, brought (and misled, so it
Seems) by the guide Eugenia, following in the foot-
steps of his compatriot, an eighteenth-century composer, un-
named.  The home-sick writer finds himself put
On the spot by the lunatic Domenico: he is the one
Who must bear across the waters a lit candle to save
The world – and himself.  The ersatz biographer at last
Traverses the almost-empty baths’ wet pav-
ing, and somehow regains Mother Russia, and his past.
No such tangled plot drove us to the square;
And unlike others we walked on air.

(29.3.1997)

The Distance

A lad, apt for nonsense and foolish acts,
I walked (alone) a new-found city, along a road
(The fifth) of Heaven and Hell – or so, when taxed
To name it, the natives had me believe.  Bestowed
(At first) with massy civic monuments
Of classic and rococo cast, sudden there came
A switch, as stark as white to black. Hence-
forth, a dismal view of dwellings, shame-
fully neglected, decrepit, the people poor, down-
Trodden, sad.  And as I passed among
Them, most fixedly at me nigh all the town
Did stare.  Then, a lady of pitying mien and young,
Said: “You do know you're in Harlem...?”  And I was much
Amazed: for I’d heard that day not a word of Dutch.

(28.3.1997)

Sailing To Tuonela

Arriving at the terminal hall of the western docks
In Helsinki, I entered into limbo.  I thought
I’d hop on the early boat to Tallinn, but flocks
Of Finns, obviously on the razzle, had already bought
Up every ticket.  Weirdly, they milled around
With empty suitcases and holdalls, rather as though
For a stay that did not require clothes.  I found
A place just before departure.  So
Lucky, it seemed – until I boarded what
Turned out to be a ship of fools, packed to the gunwhales
With merrymakers drinking like there was no tomorrow.  Blunder-
ing outside, I saw in the distance a dazzling spot
Amidst the morning’s night: a swan, circling over the funnels
Of a vessel – also full, but fathoms under.

(28.3.97)

No. 1

Serried ranks of smelly old men
In dubious raincoats had fingered repeatedly
The plastic cover of this by-now ven-
erable copy from the Epsom public library
Gramophone collection — or so it seemed
To this pasty and prim 1970s ad-
olescent.  A shot of the Hungarian Quartet gleamed
Weakly from the dust-jacket front, a bad
And blurred duotone; and on the back,
Ponderous pontifications — long,
Enjambed.  But when I heard the cello’s four
Rising notes to heaven, I knew I was smack
Bang in the middle of the cleanest, most lucid and strong
Classical music ever to hit a score.

(5.1.1997)

Year On(e)

The flagging cadence of the seasons motors round:
One year on.  But my turning mind
Stays charged with the ascents and crossings to be found
Within that time.  You, disinclined,
When urged to step towards the Mayan sun
Up the pyramid of Chichen Itza; and you,
Sick of the mighty High Atlas journey begun
Below, but regretless in Ouarzazate.  How through
The sea’s grey swatch to Inishboffin we went
Sounding out — though still greenish mariners — past 
Every rock to the edge of the map; and finally, pent
Over Prague’s Charles Bridge, we tuned ourselves (Ma Vlast).
This year, then, we have been linked by a new-forged ring,
Plugged into love — and switched on like anything.

(14.12.1996)