Collected Poems

by Peter Redgrove

  the powerhouse draws itself up

  To attention like the old soldier

  it is; I expect smoke from the broken

  chimneys, from the colossal

  Hearth-chambers, but those

  are swifts coiling on the air

  as the music coils

  In the air that rushes

  sonorously through

  the river-doubled

  Trumpets and trombones.

  FROM THE VIRGIL CAVERNS

  INTRODUCTION

  ‘The change of perception is godlike.’

  Shirokov reported

  in the Independent on Sunday

  (2 May 1993) on the true

  Use of the cave paintings;

  the theory is that the boys

  entered the Distant Hall

  Crawling on their stomachs

  through the mud

  which represented dying

  Through the synaesthetic ordeal

  of the lower death-passage

  where the animals seemed

  To come alive, prancing

  in the extended senses

  of the Distant Hall

  Thus creating in the candidate

  his own particle

  of shared subconscious

  Which they brought out unbroken

  into the world

  through the other fissure, a Yoni

  A few feet higher where they are clothed

  with exterior cunt like a waterfall

  that fits them for society.

  I

  Also the stone track

  of a spiritual acrobat

  there are clefts

  And vaginal openings giving forth

  a floor of jewels

  and many formations;

  There are spires

  rising from the floor and pulling

  from the ceilings

  And often as they meet

  they meet as folded curtains

  draped on strong bars

  Or as semi-transparent screens

  pleated and folded,

  a lamp

  Shines as a rose through this alabaster.

  These bijouteries

  in formation

  In a cavern like a garage

  of old Chevrolets carved

  in wet marble appear

  In the flow of water

  covering everything,

  appear to be rushing forward and

  They are not in fact

  perfectly still since

  like freeze-frame

  They are moving through

  the millennia too slowly

  for any movement to be seen,

  Though in their stillness

  they bear about them the look

  of racing through a mild rain-shower

  Of mother o’pearl, speeding

  down pearly thoroughfares:

  bring your lamp

  To the cavern

  they are immediately present,

  and wet, and rosy

  With their presence.

  II

  The wet clock of stone

  seems stopped

  but all the surfaces

  Are moving under the water

  an inch

  in a thousand years

  The rafts of jade

  and mats of creamy alabaster

  owned by China

  And stopped under England;

  and the water-bright

  stalactites or linghams

  Slide as slowly

  downwards by the same clock

  in the caverns

  Where hollow spires

  spring up everywhere;

  the maternal water-sculptures

  Inherent in the rock

  constantly in bloom

  from within the stone;

  The caves are filling up

  with exceedingly slow

  spires and mirrors:

  The travelling church of the giants

  comes to approximate stillness

  in this rosy rock.

  III THE ARRIVAL

  So many of the walls

  depict robed guides:

  figures painted in ores

  And looming through the ever-wet

  walls; shining statues

  upon whose heads

  The waterfalls plash.

  For the humans

  whose smoky lamps paint

  Their ceilings in sfumage

  there are swifter guides,

  Wills-of-the-wisp

  Skimming the surface of the

  underground lake

  guide the penetrant oars

  And there is slow lightning

  pointing the arches, electricity

  from the dunes

  Rolling overhead …

  there is an echo

  like rubberlined doors

  Squashily opening and closing, for

  there is a ceremony

  hiding round every corner;

  And there are pillars of limestone

  whose table-top is hollow

  and contains

  A serving of mud; collected for centuries,

  small altars of mud

  so heavy it is pure; everything

  Here weighs heavy with purity; the sand

  underfoot drifts heavy

  because it is so pure,

  Washed and rewashed

  in the constant distillation

  of the cavern waters;

  The air is heavier here

  because of purity, and the great

  striding arches

  Are pure in form because water

  has worn them that way.

  Close to these pedestals

  In the presence of offered mud

  the walls are more nearly

  transparent, and the guiding figures

  Have approached nearer the surface,

  nearer to stepping forward

  through the stone,

  About to show their faces,

  wiping away the limestone crusts,

  like rubbing sleepy-sand away

  With the backs of their pebbled fists;

  a virgil has burst

  Through the rock-grain with its scents and lotions;

  whomsoever it is, a presence

  passing through the Virgil Caves,

  Passing through all the perfumes of Rock.

  IV THE INTERIOR MOUNTAINEER

  The hills hollow and chiming

  like bells

  to the gigantic labours

  Of water building

  its limestone cathedral,

  excavating bells

  From their native rock;

  the notes of them

  fitting each to each,

  In their millions the first congregation;

  the city of stone and water

  creating itself

  And telling us all about it

  from larynxes larger than

  terrene cathedrals

  And from tabernacles reaching

  round the world

  where milliards sing

  With each shower and gather

  into subterranean waters;

  and larynxes small

  As holed pebbles

  lined with crystals

  like radio sets

  Broadcast the cavern look

  to lie

  on hills that are

  Caverns inside, small enough

  to take home (you could not

  take the hills home),

  And listen to them there

  natural trannies

  tuned to the water-stations

  Or right down to the dust

  that is dancing

  to mountain vibration;

  And the dust

  of the great bass explosions

  in slate quarries whose air

  Is full of stone

  broadcasting. The face of

  this climber


  Is streaming

  with creative water

  as he swings himself down

  Through the roof’s point

  into the great hall

  via the shakehole or doline

  The water falling over him

  like an armour of glass

  his faded boilersuit charged

  Shining and new

  as dew is, ringing its bell.

  Above us, on the exterior slopes,

  Beyond the rock-roofs

  these woods are thickly

  stocked with stout pigs.

  RESERVOIRS OF PERFECTED GHOST

  (From the Virgil Caverns)

  Acres of the sky having

  floated down and settled in the woods,

  the bluebell canopy spreads beneath

  The green capes of the trees;

  heaven is so full of sky

  it cannot hold it – it falls

  Into the woods, and spreads, heaven

  skygazing in its woodland cavern;

  bend down and pluck with admiration

  A juicy stem; the blue bell

  salivates glass-juice on your fingers;

  lift this flower to your nose

  It smells not at all!

  it is all of them that smells:

  the sun reaches through the leaves

  And lifts the perfume out, gently

  from these masses, so as not to break it; keeping

  the shock of the blueness

  As it issues from underground;

  heaven must have gone deep,

  to arrive so.

  TSUNAMI

  The tidal wave

  it rushes upon the coast

  so fast everything

  Seems still, hangs for a moment

  like veined stone

  over the off-white hotels –

  It speeds-in faster than tigers

  running, its body striped

  with currents and bannered

  Armies of kelp, this great Crystal

  Palace toppling overhead,

  inside you can see

  The boarding-houses and chapels

  twisting over and over,

  the arms of the dock-cranes

  Knotting and unknotting

  inside the glossy flank;

  inscribed on the wheeling

  Precipices are shining

  whirlpools deep

  but stable as if drilled,

  Snaky corridors;

  he dives into one

  of these vaginas

  Before the wave-head

  champs him up

  in foaming teeth,

  And he is crest-carried along

  like a pilot

  in his cockpit,

  Pilot of Leviathan, while she

  roars and falls

  without ceasing to fall.

  He is buoyed

  in his personal maelstrom

  and makes a safe touchdown,

  Face-skidding

  on blackmirror mud

  that is salty

  And without horizon, or circumference,

  like God’s Hinder Parts;

  the hunched green wave far-off

  Is still pouncing under its cape

  and shouting as it goes

  and shuddering still

  As I am shuddering.

  ELDERHOUSE

  (Falmouth Café)

  Elderly and most

  dignified in her whitesugar

  coat, rinsing the plain

  China cups for the dishwasher,

  I requested tapwater

  in an ordinary tumbler

  And this started a procession

  of courtesy-gestures, in turn:

  ran the tap over the back

  Of her hand until it was cool,

  turned it off, off on

  to give me the clearest

  Available; I thanked her

  with my best smile, to which

  she replied ‘Have you

  A pension-book? if you have,

  go to the British Legion,

  they will give you a free

  Meal …’ I smiled and said

  I would do this in

  a couple of years, and smiled

  With more care and repeated thanks

  keeping my voice slightly

  high and elderly

  Which it was anyway though I did not quite

  have the pension-book, not quite;

  smiling we parted,

  She like a white officer, and I had

  contacted a friendship

  Of those who have grown old

  and offer me a glass

  from the elder house of waters

  With a ceremony that was private and kindly meant,

  drawing the water, in white, as if

  she had been and was still

  In service in a great house

  Among the waters;

  the friendship of those

  Who learn to grow old

  where our rooms are readying,

  old as waters.

  LAWN SPRINKLER AND LIGHTHOUSE

  (at the Lizard)

  A water-sprinkler seen in the seaward meadow,

  a complex ghost-pulse

  seen, low in the meadow

  By lighthouse-beam:

  a dew machine,

  a complex ghost-pulse

  Beaten out by the beam

  sweeping the meadow

  a screen of mist against which

  The lighthouse beam pumps carousel,

  the screen pulsing in itself,

  and the beam swinging across,

  The cycle of each drawing

  together, and drawing apart:

  the sprinkler’s almost invisible

  Dewy head bowing to the great beam.

  white shadow of the spray

  of the water-ghost vanishing

  And appearing again

  in a new place,

  pacing out its ghost-circle

  Under the orbit of the lighthouse,

  in the beam, white, faint

  like faint chalk

  On a dusky board, in the shadow

  of the whirling beam, felloe

  whirling round its nub

  Above; below the spray beating in

  several soft arcs of a shining house traced

  under the lighthouse,

  And with a turn of the clouds

  the full moon with its clouds

  full of its light.

  LIMESTONE CAT69

  for N.R.

  I

  I throw a pebble in the lake

  I see the shape

  of a sitting cat

  In the moment it leaves

  my hand, enthroned cat

  it breaks the roof

  Of the lake, the one pebble

  fills the surface

  with its shape:

  The vibrating depths

  organise themselves

  into that shape –

  In the lake’s dark

  the stone cat comes

  to life, prowling

  Like a night-companion. The mass

  of waters forms itself

  round the small host

  Which enters the church of waters

  and alters them, each ripple

  is aroused in a purr-shape,

  Which touches the lake’s rafters,

  in invisible chanting.

  II

  I search the shore for another cat

  to throw after the first

  and find only

  Buddha-stones – I throw

  Buddha in a pebble and again

  the whole lake

  Reorganises itself, something calmer

  sits down in its centre, but the cat-ripples

  prowl round

  The seated sage who ripples

  in his own time,

  Buddha and cat who

  Seeks his lap

  throug
h the whole lake,

  cat and Buddha –

  The same water in different

  sequences, cat prowls

  like a walking-master

  Who can with gold discs

  see in the lake-dark,

  Buddha sits.

  III

  I find a pebble

  like a child sleeping

  a stone baby curled

  Up into itself; if I throw it back

  into the cradle of waters

  it will wake up the cat,

  Then the Buddha, then itself

  in child-signatures, wet echoes,

  as it rearranges the water,

  Anything, it depicts

  anything:

  Catlake, Buddhawater,

  Sleepingchildlake;

  I threw a cat-pebble in

  to alter the religion

  To alter the water, like a woman

  pinning a cameo to her collar;

  the folds of her dress,

  The coiler, fall

  into a new pattern,

  of its own accord,

  Shaped by everything.

  HUGE OLD

  (from the Welsh Virgil Caverns)

  These are the huge old

  may trees so full of flowers

  they seem already woven into gardens

  On Hay Bluff

  the air like childhood air:

  on the Pilgrim mountains

  Silkier.

  Trees pour ghost

  from tree to tree;

  The torrents of scent

  splash into flowers, the flowers

  splash back again into scent;

  Each small flower blows

  sweet smell like a swirling fanfare:

  the health of it

  Is like low thunder, the great

  escarpment bending forward

  with a pressure of silence;

  The silence is scented even in the core

  of the wind-shadow.

  BUZZ

  I feared the miracle

  of the next day’s waking,

  my bed was jammed against the wall

  On my right, there was wallpaper

  with a vibratory pattern I forget,

  it went 3D and on the

  Other side was a sinister organist

  playing his metals: it is now

  the organs on my right side

  That are vulnerable, groin and pancreas.

  I wanted mental marvels

  from simple sleeping pills

  And caffeine tablets,

  got some from laburnum seeds,

  safe when dried.

  I fixed a little box with a buzzer in it

  on my bicycle-front to ride to school with,

  to signify I was being charged up

  Or electrified by the journey, batterybuzzer;

  the bicycle bell was for emergencies

  that would break the trance,