Collected Poems (1958-2015)

by Clive James

Symptoms of Self-Regard

  As she lies there naked on the only hot

  Day in a ruined August reading Hugo Williams,

  She looks up at the window cleaner.

  Who has hesitantly appeared.

  Wishing that he were Hugo Williams

  She luxuriates provocatively,

  Her fantasy protected by the glass

  Or so she thinks.

  Would that this abrasive oaf

  Were Hugo Williams, she muses –

  Imagining the poet in a black Armani

  Bomber jacket from Miami Vice,

  His lips pursed to kiss.

  Suddenly, convulsively, she draws

  The sheet up over herself

  And quivers, having at last realized

  That it really is Hugo Williams.

  He sinks out of sight,

  His poem already written.

  He signs it ‘Hugo Williams’.

  The blue overalls have come in handy.

  He takes off his flat cap,

  Letting his silken hair fall free.

  Hugo Williams has gone back to being handsome.

  The poet has come down to earth.

  Richard Wilbur’s Fabergé Egg Factory

  If Occam’s razor gleams in Massachusetts

  In time the Pitti Palace is unravelled:

  An old moon re-arising as the new sets

  To show the poet how much he has travelled.

  Laforgue said missing trains was beautiful

  But Wittgenstein said words should not seduce:

  Small talk from him would at the best be dutiful –

  And news of trains, from either man, no use.

  Akhmatova finds echoes in Akhnaten.

  The vocables they share a fortiori

  Twin-yolk them in the selfsame kindergarten

  Though Alekhine might tell a different story.

  All mentioned populate a limpid lyric

  Where learning deftly intromits precision:

  The shots are Parthian, the victories Pyrrhic,

  Piccarda’s ghost was not so pale a vision,

  But still you must admit this boy’s got class –

  His riddles lead through vacuums to a space

  Where skill leans on the parapet of farce

  And sees Narcissus making up his face.

  After Such Knowledge

  Great Tom: Notes Towards the Definition of T. S. Eliot

  by T. S. Matthews

  I saw him when distaste had turned to nightmare

  Near the end of this interminable book:

  As if the terraced cloudscape were a staircase

  And he himself yet palpable, his sandals,

  Achillean by asphodel uplifted,

  Propelled their burden’s effortless ascent –

  A tuft of candid feathers at each shoulder

  Proclaiming him apprentice, cherished fledgling

  To overhanging galleries of angels.

  And so, the poet first and I behind him,

  But only he a freedman hieing homeward,

  My quarry turned towards me. I cried ‘Master!

  We all knew you could make it!’ and embraced him –

  Since, being both Sordello and Odysseus,

  I forgot my teacher’s substance was a shadow,

  And gathered uselessly the empty air.

  ‘Just passing through?’ he chuckled as I teetered,

  Perhaps to ease the anguish of my gesture.

  ‘If I were you I wouldn’t plan on staying,

  Unless you don’t mind falling through the scenery.’

  His smile, admonitory yet seraphic,

  Suggested Pentecost, the truce of Advent,

  The prior taste unspeakably assuaging

  Of the ineluctable apotheosis.

  ‘You remember T. S. Matthews, Sir?’ I asked.

  ‘T. S. Who?’ ‘He’s written your biography.’

  ‘Matthews … I suppose I knew him vaguely.

  A Time man. Is it awful?’ A platoon

  Of cherubim flashed past us on the banister,

  Posteriors illumined by the marble:

  The welcoming committee for Stravinsky,

  As yet some years below but toiling skyward.

  ‘Not quite as bad as most have said, but still

  A pretty odious effort.’ Here I wavered.

  Around his neck, the excalfactive Order

  Of Merit infumated, argentine,

  But the gaze above, both placent and unsleeping,

  Entlastende without tergiversation,

  Compelled the apprehension it prevented.

  And I: ‘It hasn’t got that many facts

  Which can’t be found in places more reputed –

  Notably your widow’s thoughtful preface

  To the MS of The Waste Land. That aside,

  The speculative content can add little

  To the cairn of innuendo stacked already

  By Sencourt’s T. S. Eliot: A Memoir.’

  I paused. And he: ‘Poor Robert was a pest,

  I’m sad to say. Well, all right: what’s the fuss then?’

  I caught a sudden flicker of impatience,

  Familiar yet ineffable. ‘Sir, nothing;

  For nothing can come of nothing. Matthews puzzles

  Repellently about those thousand letters

  You wrote to Emily Hale, but has no answers.’

  And he, diverted: ‘Nor will anybody,

  For another fifty years. I can’t believe, though,

  A full-blown book enshrines no more than these

  Incursions void of judgment. Therefore speak.’

  And I: ‘He rates his chances as a critic –

  Allowing you your gift, he dares to offer

  Conjectures that your ear verged on the faulty.

  You said, for instance, of St Magnus Martyr,

  Its walls contained inexplicable splendour.

  He calls that adjective cacophonous.’

  ‘He calls it what?’ ‘Cacophonous.’ ‘I see.’

  And I: ‘The strictures go beyond irreverence.

  His animus is manifest. Your consort

  He terms “robust” at one point; elsewhere, “ample”;

  Yet cravenly endorses in his foreword

  Her telling him in such a forthright manner

  To render himself scarce.’ A gust of laughter,

  Subversive of his sanctity, perturbed him.

  He conjured from the gold strings of his harp

  An autoschediastic lilt of love

  Which might have once been whistled by Ravel.

  And he: ‘She did that, did she? Excellent.’

  I said, ‘The pride you feel is not misplaced:

  Your wish that no biography be written

  Will not be lightly flouted. Forced to yield,

  Your wife will choose her author with great scruple

  Yet most of us who wish your memory well

  By now share the opinion that permission

  To undertake the task must soon be granted

  Lest unofficial books like this gain ground,

  Besmirching the achievement of a lifetime.’

  And he: ‘I’m sure the lass will do what’s best.

  One’s not allowed to give advice from here

  And care for earthly fame is hard to summon.

  It may, perhaps, however, please Another

  To whisper in her ear.’ He turned away,

  Declaring as he faded ‘It’s surprising,

  But this place isn’t quite as Dante said –

  It’s like the escalator at High Holborn,

  Except there’s no way down.’ So he departed,

  Dissolving like a snowflake in the sun,

  A Sibyl’s sentence in the leaves lost –

  Yet seemed like one who ends the race triumphant.

  What About You? Asks Kingsley Amis

  When Mrs Taflan Gruffydd-Lewis left Dai’s flat

  She gave
her coiffe a pat

  Having straightened carefully those nylon seams

  Adopted to fulfil Dai’s wicked dreams.

  Evans didn’t like tights.

  He liked plump white thighs pulsing under thin skirts in

  packed pubs on warm nights.

  That’s that, then, thought Evans, hearing her Jag start,

  And test-flew a fart.

  Stuffing the wives of these industrial shags may be all

  Very well, and this one was an embassy barroom brawl

  With Madame Nhu.

  Grade A. But give them that fatal twelfth inch and they’ll

  soon take their cue

  To grab a yard of your large intestine or include your glans

  Penis in their plans

  For that Rich, Full Emotional Life you’d thus far ducked

  So successfully.

  Yes, Evans was feeling … Mucked-

  up sheets recalled their scrap.

  Thinking barbed thoughts in stanza form after shafting’s

  a right sweat. Time for a nap.

  The North Window

  To stay, as Mr Larkin stays, back late

  Checking accessions in the Brynmor Jones

  Library (the clapped date-stamp, punch-drunk, rattling,

  The sea-green tinted windows turning slate,

  The so-called Reading Room deserted) seems

  A picnic at first blush. No Rolling Stones

  Manqués or Pink Floyd simulacra battling

  Their way to low-slung pass-marks head in hands:

  Instead, unpeopled silence. Which demands

  Reverence, and calls nightly like bad dreams

  To make sure that that happens. Here he keeps

  Elected frith, his thanedom undespited,

  Ensconced against the mating-mandrill screams

  Of this week’s Students’ Union Gang-Bang Sit-in,

  As wet winds scour the Wolds. The moon-cold deeps

  Are cod-thronged for the trawlers now benighted,

  North. The inland cousin to the sail-maker

  Can still bestride the boundaries of the way-acre,

  The barley-ground and furzle-field unwritten

  Fee simple failed to guard from Marks & Spencer’s

  Stock depot some time back. (Ten years, was it?)

  Gull, lapwing, redshank, oyster-catcher, bittern

  (Yet further out: shearwater, fulmar, gannet)

  Police his mud-and-cloud-ashlared defences.

  Intangible revetments! On deposit,

  Chalk thick below prevents the Humber seeping

  Upward to where he could be sitting sleeping,

  So motionless he lowers. Screwed, the planet

  Swerves towards its distant, death-dark pocket.

  He opens out his notebook at a would-be

  Poem, ashamed by now that he began it.

  Grave-skinned with grief, such Hardy-hyphened diction,

  Tight-crammed as pack ice, grates. What keys unlock it?

  It’s all gone wrong. Fame isn’t as it should be –

  No, nothing like. ‘The town’s not been the same’,

  He’s heard slags whine, ‘since Mr Larkin came.’

  Sir John arriving with those science-fiction

  Broadcasting pricks and bitches didn’t help.

  And those Jap PhDs, their questionnaires!

  (Replying ‘Sod off, Slant-Eyes’ led to friction.)

  He conjures envied livings less like dying:

  Sharp cat-house stomp and tart-toned, gate-mouthed yelp

  Of Satchmo surge undulled, dispersing cares

  Thought reconvenes. In that way She would kiss,

  The Wanted One. But other lives than this – .

  Fantastic. Pages spread their blankness. Sighing,

  He knuckles down to force-feed epithets.

  Would Love have eased the joints of his iambs?

  He can’t guess, and by now it’s no use trying.

  A sweet ache spreads from cramp-gripped pen to limb:

  The stanza next to last coheres and sets.

  As rhyme and rhythm, tame tonight like lambs,

  Entice him to the standard whirlwind finish,

  The only cry no distances diminish

  Comes hurtling soundless from Creation’s rim

  Earthward – the harsh recitativo secco

  Of spaces between stars. He hears it sing,

  That voice of utmost emptiness. To him.

  Declaring he has always moved too late,

  And hinting, its each long-lost blaze’s echo

  Lack-lustre as a Hell-bent angel’s wing,

  That what – as if he needed telling twice –

  Comes next makes this lot look like Paradise.

  SELECTED VERSE LETTERS

  To Martin Amis: a letter from Indianapolis

  Dear Mart, I write you from a magic spot.

  The dullsville capital of Indiana

  At this one point, for this one day, has got

  Intensity in every nut and spanner.

  Soon now the cars will sing their vast Hosanna

  And pressure will produce amazing grace.

  Drake-Offenhauser! A. J. Foyt’s bandanna!

  Velazquez painting Philip at the chase

  Saw something like these colours, nothing like this race.

  Ten thirty. Half an hour before the start.

  The press-box at the Brickyard is up high.

  We sit here safely, emperors set apart,

  And kibbitz down as those about to die

  Cry Morituri … Yes, but so am I,

  And so are you, though not now. When we’re older.

  Where death will be the last thing we defy,

  These madmen feel it perching on their shoulder:

  The tremble of the heat is tinged with something colder.

  But that’s enough of talk about the weather.

  To rail against the climate’s not good form.

  My subject ought to be the latest feather

  Protruding from your cap. I mean the Maugham.

  I offer you, through gritted teeth, my warm

  Congratulations on another coup.

  Success for you’s so soon become the norm,

  Your fresh young ego might be knocked askew.

  A widespread fear, I find. Your father thinks so too.

  The prize’s terms dictate an expedition

  To distant lands. That makes you Captain Kirk

  Of Starship Enterprise. Your Five-Year Mission:

  To Boldly Go etcetera. You can’t shirk

  The challenge. This award’s not just a perk:

  Queer Maugham’s £500 are meant to send

  Your mind in search of fodder for your work

  Through any far-flung way you care to wend.

  Which means, at present rates, a fortnight in Southend,

  So choosing Andalusia took nerve.

  It’s certainly some kind of foreign part.

  A bit close-flung, perhaps, but it will serve

  To show you the left knee, if not the heart,

  Of European Culture. It’s a start.

  Like Chesterfield advising his young son

  (Who didn’t, I imagine, give a fart)

  I’m keen to see your life correctly run.

  You can’t just arse around forever having fun.

  The day’s work here began at 6 a.m.

  The first car they pumped full of gasoline

  And wheeled out looked unworldly, like a LEM.

  A Mass was said. ‘The Lord is King.’ The scene

  Grew crammed with every kind of clean machine.

  An Offenhauser woke with shrieks and yells.

  The heart-throb Dayglo pulse and Duco preen

  Of decals filled the view with charms and spells

  As densely drawn and brilliant as the Book of Kells.

  BORG WARNER. BARDAHL. ‘Let the Earth rejoice.’

  ‘May Christ have mercy.’ LODEST
AR. OLSONITE.

  America exults with sponsored voice

  From Kitty Hawk to ultra-Lunar flight.

  RAYBESTOS. GULF. Uptight and out of sight!

  The Cape. BELL HELMETS. Gemini. Apollo!

  Jay Gatsby put his faith in the green light.

  Behold his dream, and who shall call it hollow?

  What genius they have, what destinies they follow!

  The big pre-race parade comes down the straight

  While hardened press-men lecherously dote

  On schoolgirl majorettes all looking great

  In boots and spangled swimsuits. Flags denote

  Their provenance. The band from Terre Haute

  Is called the Marching Patriots. Purdue

  Has got a drum so big it needs a float.

  And now the Dancing Bears come prancing through,

  Their derrières starred white and striped with red and blue.

  From Tucson, Kokomo and Tuscaloosa,

  From over the state line and far away,

  Purveying the complete John Philip Sousa

  The kids have come for this one day in May

  To show the watching world the USA

  Survives and thrives and still knows how to cock its

  Snoot. Old Uncle Sam is A-OK –

  He’s strutting with bright buttons and high pockets.

  Hail, Tiger Band from Circleville! Broad Ripple Rockets!

  Objectively, perhaps, they do look tatty.

  This continent’s original invaders

  Were not, however, notably less ratty.

  Torpedoes in tin hats and leather waders,

  Hard bastards handing beads around like traders –

  Grand larceny in every squeak and rattle.

  The whole deal was a nightmare of Ralph Nader’s,

  A corporate racket dressed up as a battle:

  The locals kissed the Spaniard’s foot or died like cattle.

  The choice between the New World and the Old

  I’ve never found that clear, to tell the truth.

  Tradition? Yes indeed, to that I hold:

  These bouncing brats from Des Moines and Duluth

  Seem short of every virtue except youth.

  But really, was there that much more appeal

  In stout Cortez’s lack of ruth and couth

  Simply because it bore the papal seal?

  It’s art that makes the difference, and Art means the Ideal: