SOPHIE HANNAH
First of the Last Chances
For Phoebe with love
Acknowledgements
Some of these poems have previously appeared in the following publications: The Times Literary Supplement, Critical Quarterly, The New Delta Review, The Hudson Review, Mslexia, PN Review, Poetry Review, The Gift: New Writing for the NHS (Stride), Earth Has Not Anything to Shew More Fair (Shakespeare’s Globe and the Wordsworth Trust), Last Words: New Poetry for the New Century (Picador).
‘Brief Encounter’ was commissioned by First NorthWestern Trains, ‘Where to Look’ was commissioned by Acoustiguide for the reopening of Manchester City Art Gallery, and ‘Seasonal Dilemma’ was commissioned by the British Council for their 2001 Christmas card.
The eight poems of ‘A Woman’s Life and Loves’ were commissioned by Ann Martin-Davis for a music touring project called ‘Cycles’. ‘Cycles’ was sponsored by ClearBlue and produced with funds from the RVW Trust, the Britten–Pears Foundation, the Performing Right Society Foundation for New Music, Southern and South East Arts, and the Arts Council of England.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Long for This World
You Won’t Find a Bath in Leeds
Out of This World
Wells-Next-the-Sea
Six of One
Seasonal Dilemma
Second-hand Advice for a Friend
Dark Mechanic Mills
Martins Heron Heart
Tide to Land
The Shadow Tree
He is Now a Country Member
Silk Librarian
God’s Eleventh Rule
Where to Look
Brief Encounter
The Cycle
Black River
The Cancellation
The Guest Speaker
Everyone in the Changing Room
Your Funeral
Away-day
Mother-to-be
Now and Then
Healing Powers
Homeopathy
Your Turn Next
To a Certain Person
0208
Leave
Ante-Natal
On Westminster Bridge
Ballade of the Rift
Wedding Poem
Royal Wedding Poem
GODISNOWHERE (Now Read Again)
Metaphysical Villanelle
Squirrel’s the Word
First of the Last Chances
A Woman’s Life and Loves
View
Equals
Postcard
Match
Bridesmaid
Test
Charge
Favourite
About the Author
Also by Sophie Hannah
Copyright
Long for This World
I settle for less than snow,
try to go gracefully as seasons go
which will regain their ground –
ditch, hill and field – when a new year comes round.
Now I know everything:
how winter leaves without resenting spring,
lives in a safe time frame,
gives up so much but knows he can reclaim
all titles that are his,
fall out for months and still be what he is.
I settle for less than snow:
high only once, then no way up from low,
then to be swept from drives.
Ten words I throw into your changing lives
fly like ten snowballs hurled:
I hope to be, and will, long for this world.
You Won’t Find a Bath in Leeds
From the River Cam and the A14
To the Aire and the tall M1,
We left the place where home had been,
Still wondering what we’d done,
And we went to Yorkshire, undeterred
By the hearts we’d left down south
And we couldn’t believe the words we heard
From the lettings agent’s mouth.
He showed us a flat near an abbatoir,
Then one where a man had died,
Then one with nowhere to park our car
Then one with no bath inside.
With the undertone of cheering
Of a person who impedes,
He looked straight at us, sneering,
‘You won’t find a bath in Leeds.’
‘We have come to Leeds from Cambridge.
We have heard that Leeds is nice.
A bath is seen in Cambridge
As an integral device,
So don’t tell me that a shower
Is sufficient to meet my needs,’
I said. I received a glower
And, ‘You won’t find a bath in Leeds.’
He fingered a fraying curtain
And I said, ‘You can’t be sure.
Some things in life are uncertain
And that’s what hope is for.
One day I might meet Robert Redford
At Bristol Temple Meads.
I’ve found baths in Bracknell and Bedford
And I might find a bath in Leeds.’
He replied with a refutation
Which served to increase our pain
But we didn’t head for the station
Or run for a rescue train,
Though we felt like trampled flowers
Who’d been set upon by weeds.
We told him to stuff his showers
And we would find a bath in Leeds.
Some people are snide and scathing
And they try to undermine
Your favourite form of bathing
Or the way you write a line.
At night, while you’re busy praying
That your every plan succeeds,
There are killjoys somewhere saying,
‘You won’t find a bath in Leeds.’
A better definition
Might be reading all of Proust,
But the concept of ambition
Has been radically reduced.
While the London wits are burning
Their cash in the Groucho Club,
In Yorkshire we’re simply yearning
To locate an enamel tub.
I win, Mr Bath Bad Tiding.
I have not one bath but two.
En-suite in the sweet West Riding
And no bloody thanks to you.
I may never run fast, or tower
Over Wimbledon’s top seeds
Or hit sixes like David Gower
But I have found a bath in Leeds.
Out of This World
Cannot remember grass between my toes
or how it feels when feet and tarmac touch.
Cannot recall my life before I rose
and I have had to rise above so much
that first I hit the roof-rack of the car,
then my ascent bent back a lamp post’s head.
I have, without exception and so far,
risen above a tower of what’s been said,
above a mountain range of what’s been done
to people, books and cities that I love.
I’ll risk head-on collision with the sun
if I have one more thing to rise above.
What if the risen suffocate in space?
You send us up, not knowing where we’ll go.
Would it be such a terrible disgrace
if just this once, I were to sink below
the quilted warmth of your intended slur,
your next offence, soft as a feather bed?
I’d prove more difficult to disinter
t
han knobbly tree roots or the tenured dead
and after having done my stint in blue
and subsequent to equal time in green
it will not matter if I dropped or flew
out of this world. Out of this world, I mean.
Wells-Next-the-Sea
I came this little seaside town
And went a pub they call The Crown
Where straight away I happened see
A man who seemed quite partial me.
I proved susceptible his charms
And fell right in his open arms.
From time time, every now and then,
I hope meet up with him again.
Six of One
I put it to my indecisive friend:
we step up our surveillance of the shops.
He shakes his head and says he’d like to spend
some time in jail, one year or two years, tops,
to ascertain which he prefers, the robbers or the cops.
He sighs and mentions double-sided coins.
He knows full well that his reaction peeves
his colleagues, but he argues if he joins
a bad crowd for a while, then when he leaves
he’ll know for sure he likes policemen slightly more than thieves.
I say he couldn’t stand two years inside.
True, he replies, but think of my release.
I can’t confirm what’s right until I’ve tried
what’s wrong. He tells me I’m the one he’ll fleece.
I grin. He might like confrontation rather more than peace.
Gently, I tell him not to be a fool.
Why not? he says. He tried the bottom set
before the top at comprehensive school.
I say Remember…. No. He might forget.
He’s not convinced that credit suits him any more than debt.
Listen, I shout, that noise. He bites his nails
while I pursue the yelp of an alarm
to a smashed window. As our siren wails
I grab my indecisive partner’s arm
hoping by now he feels protection has the edge on harm.
He shrugs me off. No progress has been made
since his long, non-committal day began.
I scream It’s over! Finished! – a tirade
that would provoke a more conclusive man.
He asks me why I think this sort of ending’s better than
Seasonal Dilemma
Another Christmas compromise. Let’s drink another toast.
Once more we failed to dodge the things that put us out the most.
To solve this timeless riddle I would crawl from coast to coast:
Which is worse at Christmas, to visit or to host?
To spend a week with relatives and listen to them boast,
Try not to look too outraged when they make you eat nut roast
Or have them drive their pram wheels over each new morning’s post?
Which is worse at Christmas, to visit or to host?
Dickens, you let me down. You should have made Scrooge ask the ghost
Which is worse at Christmas, to visit or to host?
Second-hand Advice for a Friend
I used to do workshops in schools quite a lot
And some classes were good, although others were not,
And when sessions went wrong, in no matter what way,
There was one standard phrase every teacher would say.
Each time couplets were questioned by gum-chewing thugs
In reluctant time out from the dealing of drugs,
Some poor teacher would utter the desperate plea:
‘Show Sophie Hannah how good you can be.’
This phenomenon cannot be simply explained
Since I don’t think it’s something they learned when they trained.
You do not have to say, for your PGCE,
‘Show Sophie Hannah how good you can be.’
You do not have to say it to work or to live
But compared with advice that I’ve heard teachers give
Such as, ‘Don’t eat in classrooms’ or ‘Straighten your tie’,
I’ve arrived at the view that it ranks pretty high.
Outside the school gates, in the world of grown men,
It’s a phrase I’m inclined to recite now and then.
I don’t see why I shouldn’t extend its remit
On the offchance it might be a nationwide hit.
I’ve a friend who I reckon could use it. And how.
We’ve had a nice day so let’s not spoil it now.
I am no kind of teacher, and yet I can see
That you’re not in the place where you clearly should be.
No answering back – just return to the fold.
We’ll have none of your cheek and you’ll do as you’re told
By the staff of Leeds Grammar, St Mark’s and Garth Hill,
All those manifestations of teacherly will
Who join dozens of voices in dozens of schools
That make grownups of children and wise men of fools.
Stop behaving like someone who’s out of his tree.
Show Sophie Hannah how good you can be.
Dark Mechanic Mills
A car is a machine. It’s not organic.
It is a man-made thing that can be fixed,
Maybe by you, as you are a mechanic
Although I must admit that I have mixed
Feelings about your skills in this connection.
You shrug and say my engine sounds ‘right rough’.
Shouldn’t you, then, proceed with an inspection?
Looking like Magnus Mills is not enough.
Resemblance to a Booker Prize contender
Has a quaint charm but only goes so far.
When servicing formed the entire agenda,
When I had no real trouble with my car,
Our whole relationship was based upon it,
This likeness, but you can’t go in a huff
If I suggest you open up the bonnet.
Looking like Magnus Mills is not enough.
I lay all my suggestions on the table:
Fuel pump or filter, alternator, clutch,
The coil or the accelerator cable
Or just plain yearning for the oily touch
Of a soft rag in a mechanic’s fingers.
That’s not your style at all. You merely grin.
Is it your Booker confidence that lingers?
I don’t know why. You didn’t even win.
You laugh as if you can’t see what the fuss is
When I explain my car keeps cutting out.
I know that Magnus Mills has driven buses;
That’s not the way I choose to get about.
I’m sorry that it has to end so badly
But I am up to here with being towed
And I’d take a clone of Jeffrey Archer, gladly,
If he could make my car move down the road.
Martins Heron Heart
No doctor cares enough
to analyse the content of my veins,
my blood that bears a rough
resemblance to a Stagecoach South West Trains
timetable. Start, please start,
Wokingham Bracknell Martins Heron heart.
Send a mechanic, quick,
the best you have. Should your mechanic fail
to get me going, stick
me on a train to Egham, Sunningdale,
Virginia Water, Staines.
It’s true; those Waterloo to Reading trains
prove all your theories wrong –
medicine, science. I am on the mend,
doctor, thanks to a long
list of the Sunday running times. Attend
my bedside. Tick your chart.
Wokingham Bracknell Martins Heron heart
Tide to Land
I know the rules and hear myself agree
Not to invest beyond
this one night stand.
I know your pattern: in, out, like the sea.
The sharp north wind must blow away the sand.
Soon my supply will meet your last demand
And you will have no further use for me.
I will not swim against the tide to land.
I know the rules and hear myself agree.
I’ve kept a stash of hours, just two or three
To smuggle off your coast like contraband.
We will both manage (you more easily)
Not to invest beyond this one night stand.
To narrow-minded friends I will expand
On cheap not being the same as duty-free.
I’ll say this was exactly what I planned.
I know your pattern: in, out, like the sea.
It’s not as if we were designed to be
Strolling along the beach front, hand in hand.
Things change, of natural necessity.
The sharp north wind must blow away the sand
And every storm to rage, however grand,
Will end in pain and shipwreck and debris
And each time there’s a voice I have to strand
On a bare rock, hardened against its plea.
I know the rules.
The Shadow Tree
In the lake, a reflected tree dangles
while its counterpart squats on the land.
Together they look, from some angles,
like a hand growing out of a hand.
Trunk to trunk, bark to water, they stand.
One is real, that would be the contention,
while the other, illusion or fake,
First of the Last Chances Page 1
