The Passage Of Isotropy

Physics assumes – more or less has to – that its great
And holy laws remain the same wherever
You go; and this, therefore, is the unstate-
d idea that informs all our lives (though never
Propounded as such).  But I have discovered a land,
Beyond an unsuspected frontier, where the rules
Are much different.  Now, the cup I once held in my hand
So firmly, squirms and evades the grasp; stools
And tables that yesterday stood so obedient have start-
ed to inch slyly forward, nudging me cheek-
ily; while previously rock-solid walls secretly part
To swallow up the very things I seek.
From this, I deduce a lemma of my own invention:
Isotropy breaks down for the fourth dimension.

(28.1.1998)

The Tragedy Of...

Since it brings ill-luck to name it, let’s
Say I am like the monarch of the Scottish Play:
No matter how fair (or foul) it gets,
I pace out my life from day to day,
Happily revelling in each present and motley delight.
I should be weaponed up on my battlements, scan-
ning for the wood that will come, the great might
That may prevail.  Yet I’d be more than a man
Had I the mettle and valour enough to see
Off the ultimate army – a fearsome, ancient en-
emy that affords us neither hope nor mercy – composed of three
Hateful witches called How, Where and When.
In the end, I can only wait, an impotent Macbeth
(Whoops, I said it), to be toppled by that varlet Death.

(17.8.1997)

Surabaya Johnny

Surabaya airport, Java.  The date
Doesn’t matter.  I first noticed the man
As he puckered and sucked his smouldering Havana with a great
To-do, sat back and proceeded to fan
Himself with an battered old copy of the thoughts of The Great
Helmsman.  He wore a linen suit and tan
Shoes, had hair en brosse and a face whose state
Flickered between weariness and wiliness.  But this is a sham.
What I saw was an Asian woman, aglow
With love as she dropped water with undiminish-
ed patience into the eyes of her stone-still child.  (And so,
- Ta-da! - the sonnet’s obligatory couplet to finish:)
In the light of that mother for whom her son was so bonny,
What am I, but some Surabaya Johnny?

(17.8.1997)

Herd And Scene

Did Herr Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schüssel really
Call the Bundesbank’s boss a “right old sow”?
The leading Austrian weekly magazine spent nearly
Ten pages going royally (and imperially) to tow
-n on the subject, as it weighed this, and pondered that,
In an orgy of Viennese navel-gazing.  Whether you
Know about the bores in question is simply a matt
-er of herd: ours (oh!) or theirs (who?).
This is yesterday’s News, nothing less
Than history – itself just grubby local tittle-
tattle where meaning is farrowed only later, when the mess
Has cut its cord to the past, and been cleaned up a little;
Then base “Did you hear?”s and “Did you see?”s
Become, behind the scenes, pigging Thucydides.

(17.8.1997)

Golden Oldies

It’s a sure-fire hit with the general pub-
lic when the bug-eyed monsters descend from their improbably rough-
looking flying saucers and proceed, not to rub
Out the primitive earthlings, but to take the very stuff
And essence of their minds and to convert it into a small,
Friable icosahedron to take back
Home as a witty souvenir.  And it isn’t at all
Far-fetched.  As a mundane routine I stack
Up every digital word I have written, and the data
And tools I need for those I one day may pen,
On a single, shining CD-ROM.  Greater
Compilations than mine galactically man-
y have made; but I’m over the moon that when dull and old
A young, alien me lives immortal in gold.

(17.8.1997)

In Mozart’s Garden

Act four, scene three: a rich,
Intricate landscape.  Figaro enters in a cloak,
Bearing a lantern.  Dark is the night in which
All find themselves, when, to the sound of a broke-
n chord, masks are dropped, hands touch
And hearts are mended.  After the torments of this Mad
Day, its folly and caprices, the confusion of much
Else besides identities, it is time we bade
Farewell and lit the fireworks.  Let us hasten 
Then, friends, to the dance, to the game, content
In our hard-won knowledge of the need for mutual pardon;
For thus we shall be cherished (if chasten-
ed), as we follow the beat of the march transcendent-
al, at eve, in Mozart’s evergreen, D major garden.

(17.8.1997)

Montezuma’s Head-dress

As I wandered idly through some ex-Hapsburg eth-
nological museum heaped up with the lumber of emp-
ire – odd foreign objects acquired through the death
Of tedious mad uncles, the marriage of unkem-
pt and idiot sons, and the bribery of oleaginous court-
iers – I came to a dark room.  There, mounted
On the blackest of velvets, I found what I had sought
For years.  The history books have always recounted
That a few score marauding Spaniards conqu-
ered a million war-like Aztecs.  Now I saw
How a bunch of good-for-nothing, greasy hidalgos, pong-
ing of garlic and sweat, could seize a nation through poor
Montezuma: to view them as gods was just natural for a king
Whose head bore this delicate, iridescent thing.

(12.8.1997)

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)

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)