Two 8th century portraits

for GMB

one. The farmer Dagfinn Erlendson

Farmer. Oarsman.
An axeman to his king
when his king required
to stroke some foreign skulls.

He sailed to Lindisfarne

Farmer – he sowed
flames upon the monastery
and set down with his fellows
the man-wheat on the stones.

He wandered Lindisfarne –
surveyed the land,
observed the seasons,
took a farmer’s guess
to the time of harvest.

Farmer – he threshed
words from the clerics’ room.
A thousand poems flailed,
then ground to ash.

He sailed from Lindisfarne.

Farmer. Husband.
A good man to his wife.
A good man, provider
to his people and himself.



two. His wife Gunhild Sigurdottir

“He came back from the wars.

My son and three daughters
had helped with no man around.

We had managed the land,
we had mastered the ground

and come the Autumn he fell
from the ship to the sea

from the sea to the beach
from the beach to his home.

His words were closed
for the winter – stored by –

but he drank his ale and we hoped
in Spring his words would come.

And his words came.

He held to me some paper.
I took it, he whispered. I took it

and saw runes and ogres,
a dove and a bear.

It’s still hanging, there,
by our son’s bed,

where he dreams.”

Lunar self-portrait

The Moon drew herself
in charcoal – soft now,
smudged horizons,
took care to shade
her darkside, her lightside
shone in paper, thin,
removed from printer
and rippable by wind
and breeze and breath
alone – quite believable
as cheap, as tattered.

The Moon drew herself,
revealed in portrait
her craters, mountains,
canyons present
in impressionistic
implications and swirls
of black and smear
on white and dirtied.

The Moon drew herself –
her audience halved
to those who laughed
a biting snigger
and those who looked
one second longer.

Eighteen Cuba Libres plus one birthday drink on me

for Heather and for April 2006

1. Cuba Libre

A Cuba Libre
is rum, lime and cola

That’s rum for filling
a black hole in the belly,

(a feature of which is
it can never be failed.)

That’s lime for freshening
a spark in the mouth,

(a feature of which is
it appeals to the flesh.)

That’s cola for sweetening
the spark-filler of the drink

(a feature of which is
it requires some sweat.)

Cuba Libre:
filler, spark and sweetening.

2. Dogs

At each point we set guards,
protectors, canine defenders –
a wall of bricks of dogs of honour.

Brick one – Fatima, who stayed
faithful when spread-eagled faithless.

Brick two – Lizzie, who swam
while the vultures circled us.

Brick three – Franz, who held you
fifty feet above the wind.

And others, more bricks
securing, anchoring against
the many currencies of Cuba.

3. The Malecon

One grey sliver to keep the ocean away
with black flags to keep the curious away
with tower blocks to keep traditionalists away
and colonial splendour to annoy the modernists.

One beige streak to stop the people leaving
with stadiums to stop the baseballs from leaving
with crowds to stop the Revolution from leaving
and billboards to annoy former colonists.

One yellow streak to keep everything in
with tourists to bring their tourist money in
with CoCo taxis to bring those tourists in
and those tourists to annoy the communists.

4. Sour oranges

From the sour orange tree
picked, sliced and dripped
into each of our mouths
and not sour at all.

Perhaps those that fell
developed the sourness,
an otherness of flavour
that could draw our mouths.

But not those that stuck
secure with the tree
who stayed with their partner
and never leapt free.

It was Lazarus who
dripped the juice into our mouths.
Perhaps the fallen raise
those stuck to the ground?

5. Michael in Camagüey

was a child who asked questions
of his mother in church.
Asked why there were angels
of white but no angels
of black in the church.
And he was told to be quiet.

He was a child who asked questions
of his father in his study
about the white angels, and why
he saw none of black
staring back in the church.
And was ignored, then sent away.

And soon Michael asked questions
of a book of biology
and found no answer to his troubles
so buried those troubles
and asked no questions about angels again.

6. A fantasy of Jorge’s missing arm

“Who needs two arms?
Who needs ten fingers?
Who needs a need
to need both hands?

“I lost this when I fought him
or maybe when I lost him
or perhaps the day I landed
twisted, broken, down the mountain.

“Or it fell off when I asked her
or maybe when she let go
or perhaps the day I jumped up
and landed on a no-show.

“What missing arm? I swear it’s there
and functioning quite happily.
I never lost my arm, you lost your eyes
by staring at the sun in Cuban skies.

“Who needs those fingers anyway?
I can do without the half of them.
And whatever things I require to do
I’ll find a way to master them.”

7. Fire flies

I saw an extra road with extra cars
speeding by above on the road we were on
and was wrong in image and quality.

You looked up and saw the stars
moving amongst true stars and branches
and saw a fire greater than mine.

And no-one else spotted those lights.
We asked and no one saw them.
And yet one of us saw them.

You were the one who saw the lights.

8. Free translation from Jose Marti 1

“In the pierced frame
of a Moorish window,
the pale moon
meditates, giving.

“Pale in a couch
of red Tórtola silk,
Heather silently lifts
a violet from her tea.”

9. Revolution Square and Carlos

Yes, quite right, Carlos.
What did José Marti ever do
for you and the people of Cuba?

He may have raged against the armies
of the Spanish and the dancers
of foreign ballets and polkas,
he may have fought the battles
and lost his life but he never
lost an arm nor left a face
quite beautiful for the Revolution.

So he achieved nothing but writing –
only a locust of words
battling across the skies
and up the towers of Colonial lies
to collapse them.

He was just a poet and seems
just to have his face in the mind
of every tour guide in Cuba.

{And two weeks later:
What had Carlos done for us?
Well he remembered us for a start.
And a good start;
it shows heart.}

10. Free translation from Jose Marti 2

“I already know:
a flower can be made of meat
with the power of affection.
And can make a sky and a boy.

“The scorpion
can also be made of meat,
and the worm from the rose,
and the sirens frightful.”

11. Surrealist Ché,

in the Latin way,
in the streets of Santa Clara,
has a goat upon his shoulder
and a prisoner in his sleeve.

And still dressed as a soldier
Ché can believe the hands
he has, so huge, are maps
of the lands to be freed.

And still with parade as belt
can march the trousers wide
in safety over the railtrack
on the streets of Santa Clara.

But Ché can’t move
his bronze surrealist feet.

12. Bongo journey

Lead us here, there
and back to here
and round about
and back to there.

Beat, beat the drum
and follow feet
of men who take
you down the street.

Count one and two
and find the shop
before a house
where walkers stop,

awakening
the man within
to sell the boy
a right guid yin.

Take the bongos
back to Scotland,
take them via
Rotherhithe, England.

13. Colonial House / Farm House

“I own the house,
I won the house,
I rent the house to tourists
who take their photographs
and share them
with their loved ones
and their dearest.

“But they never look to ask me
if I have a mind about their pictures
if I have a care about their lenses
or objection to their shutters.

“They’re only tourists
in my home, my house.
Only tourists with their lenses.”

(Their eyes half-watching
our eyes that are ignored.)

14. Vinjales Caves

The Cathedral lit up by one flame.
Can you remember the name
of the man who led us through
only a little, through a few
of the caves, the many miles
of stone passages and piles
of midget frogs in the dark?
His flame died, and with a spark
came to life again – resurrected –
and we walked on, protected
by his light if not his name.
This Man of the Flame.

15. Boomerang

In Vinjales I gave
your boomerang away.
I threw it and it stayed
stubbornly away

while the boy ran
to find it and throw it
back over the farmhouse
and he knew it,

he knew how to throw
it so that it would return
to his feet with no need
to run out and return

it to his hands with effort.
A boy who knew how
to throw a boomerang
instinctively and how

to return all things to his feet.
(And I will continue
my ignorance of throwing
by never returning

to Cuba.)

16. Ché’s Zither

“Christ, what a man,
what a handsome man
what a rebel of a man,
I want him…”

But no pictures of him
strumming his zither,
caressing the board
and fondling strings.

“Christ, what a man,
what a handsome man
what a rebel of a man…”

And sexless, no love
for the music nor any other –
only the many stern gazes
for the masses and the crowds.

“Christ, what a man,
what a handsome man…”

The zither sits, unseen
to be played and shines
by photographs of the legend
those photographs have made.

“Christ, what a man…”

17. Kite flying

Let’s fly our kite by El Moro
where the grass rolls to the sea;
it will be our only chance
to see it fly and dance
quite effortlessly
as we must leave tomorrow.

***

But we have crashed our kite by El Moro
where the sea rolls to the grass
so a chance is still there
to see it first stare
down at us and fly past
us some tomorrow.

18. Climbing steep roads in Cuba
(or “Salsa for Beginners”)

The first stage is to choose a suitable vehicle
that handles well.

Next to ignore instructions and be led
by the curves and swell

of the geography placed before you
and move along

keeping close to the pull of a gravity
that is locally strong

and attractive; sweating with the effortlessness
of it all.

It may take you by surprise so be careful
not to fall.

And allow the landscape, all those bumps,
and rhythms to guide

the movement of your line from one
to the other side.

At which point: stop where the incline
reacts and regrets

the movement made upon it
and never forgets.

One birthday drink on me

You may remember I
bought a thing for you when
I had some convertibles in pocket,
(less than ten)

and I needed to lose them
before we left for the sky
and returned to grey.
So what did I buy?

I bought that glass for you
with Cuba Libre written on it
and while I can’t fill it up
I can fill this sonnet

with one birthday drink on me –
these Cuban words I give for free.

Text mechanically recovered from loose leaves and marginalia of the Exeter Book

Trans. Lady Meredith Browne-Chasterton


With wind of invader each winter solstice
he chose the path that broken might lead to them.

For ten years in open wilderness
of tower wreckage, water tanks
of blackened vehicles – abandoned, bombed,
by either side, the flags eroded
to reveal one mark, both marked as black.

For ten years he hunted invading armies
and each year left him alone, away
from the men who would kill him
alone, away the rebel fell
to ground well stocked with footprints.

“Whose feet have walked these roads and left
a trace, a passing evidence groaning
in dust and mud and coverings
of rags and arms of militia?
Where are the enemy? Where do I sight them?
Where are the tanks that crandle to thunder
and thunder to crush me, weigh on my body?
Where is this enemy, this death on the land?

“I have walked ulcered and blistered
drunk from rivers polluted
and frozen where dams were constructed by others
who would speak only if I were to chance
on their faces; but I can never, can never,
find hope of finding them – never
see a corpse of one slaughtered invader
who invaded my land.

“I have marched the cities in ruins
in villages painted the blood of my brothers,
the red of my uncles.

“I have levelled my gun at horizons
dark pulses suggesting an enemy gathered
but each turning to trees, a copse I have slept in.

“I remember the time this earth was flooded
by wheat, by a life, by summer in passing.

“I remember crowds of cities on holiday
praying by the water reflecting a sun
and consuming the breeze to motionless.

“But now winter solstice and wind
throw the trees down, the moon
broken through branches unleafed and unread
for ten carbonised years, tenfold charcoal burnings.
And with each winter Invader,
personified as absence,
is stronger, is nearer, more likely to fall.”

He took the path south, then to north
wind he sang cold for a second:

“You earth-dead, you burnt land
take over Invader.”

Conversation between Sun and Moon

Moon, fogged and misted,
asked Sun, now searching,
do the Stars search too?

No, Sun looked up,
in view of all searches
only one searches true.

But, Moon clouded,
you star just like them
and are star in name.

But, said Sun,
I search you, Moon,
for the game, the game.

Nursery rhyme: starlingtree

starlingtree starlingtree
sycamore sycamore
wingnested beakfallen
birdfested starlingtree

what lifts the leaves for you?
sycamore starlingtree
featherborn leaf-in-hope
starlingtree sycamore

what hides under wings for you?
overcast shadowtree
rhymingform branchedly
sycamore sycamore

starlingtree shadowedly
leapt-out horizonly
sycamore paintedtree
birdlike incessantly

Crofter McNicol’s five bold skies

Black sky; brown sky;
brindled crow-sky;
night of the single
starred and banded sky
that never darkens on itself;
white-glory sky
of photonegativity.

Oh white face,
oh white sky,
black, brown, brindled
and single starred.

Sky upon me and be
a source of island wonder;
sky upon me now
and wonder, wonder
sky and stolen air.

The real that is lost in language

One thing more, one thing
for consideration, for view
as the witness dismounts
and the witness takes a pew
and removes the stand from thought.

One thing more, one thing
the judge all-purpled
in truth and glory
in tooth and story
where the dentals fight bilabials
and plosives simmer down.

One thing more, one thing
the prosecutor asks the court
for a picture of the guilty
good sport! good sport! defence lawyers cry
as the court artist holds up emptiness
and the stenographer begins to cry.

Nine Creation Myths

N.B. Best regarded as individual poems and read some distance apart



1.3
Like music the rain sang through the land
on trees the water sang harmony
in fifths and tumbled to ground in thirds.

And drops, as stars, shone light to light
and each pulled themselves towards the light
of sodden galaxies and puddles.

The water took form - two legs, two arms,
a brain, a body - mankind rose up
and walked wet footsteps away to cry.



3.1
Like a man blinking up from hard dreams
of not-being and of nothingness
Time awoke to find the Space between.

Some meditation shattered to glass
falling and revealing distances
from one iced edge to one molten shard.

And in being distanced Time angered
its way through Space - start point to the end
shattering glass, shattering futures.



2.2
Like children the Committee sorted
the marbles of creation and swapped
tit for tat for health and wealth and land.

They comodified the service roots,
they progressed compliant continents,
they improved, engaged, they self-assessed.

A project plan of geography
emerged and going forward, promised,
Better Life, Better Planet for All.



3.2
Like a false paradox of echoes
beating walls without a shouted voice
Earth reflected at black emptiness.

Some mirror, mirror took off away
and again came one creation day
when Earth in substance appeared in space.

Where from, who from, who made the mirror
reflecting life where life was duller
than light, where life was nothing at all?



2.3
Like a butcher the Poet rumbled
amongst the box of knives and cleavers
and pulled out the tool for crafting Man.

She, the artist, sliced words to make Man
in cool image of Herself, in art
and left loneliness alone to die.

A conspiracy of emptiness
conspired to vanish all traces
and leave Artist and Man together.



1.1
Like rain the music, notes infinite,
fell on each other colliding down,
their explosions slaved to gravity.

And gatherings, collections gathered
their wits together singing music
unheard and simpler in their cadence.

Chords coalesced to movements in modes
of distance through time through passages
and this universe grew from music.



2.1
Like a poet the Butcher slaughtered
the Beast in adequate lines to show
the best features of His creation.

His knife took to the throat and opened
passages for breathing, throwing out
the blood and muck that spoiled the space.

An empty cavity with promise
of continuum and galaxies
and life quiet within the darkness.



1.2
Like stars the particles floated black
surrounded by water surrounded
by particles of earth suspended.

And the water drew itself away
to the east and the earth kept westward
bound to itself as landscape stationed.

The water called it oceanic
to be itself, the land rose higher
and claimed itself, forever, winner.



3.3
Like time when it reveals unwrapping
the gift for children fully woken
it passed that humans appeared on Earth.

Some city, where not one had darkened
undersides on its towered parkland,
stood amongst the song the city sang.

From nowhere Man and Woman wandered
the streets, continuity broken,
unaware of an emergency.