The Map and the Clock

by Carol Ann Duffy

  but when I grow up I’ll know. When I grow up

  I’ll pluck at my bedclothes to collect lost thoughts.

  I’ll roll them into balls and swallow them.

  HUGO WILLIAMS

  New Year Behind the Asylum

  There was the noise like when the men in droves

  Are hurrying to the match only this noise was

  Everybody hurrying to see the New Year in

  In town under the clock but we, that once,

  He said would I come our usual Saturday walk

  And see it in out there in the open fields

  Behind the asylum. Even on sunny days

  How it troubled me more and more the nearer we got

  And he went quiet and as if he was ashamed

  For what he must always do, which was

  Go and grip the bars of the iron gates and stand

  Staring into the garden until they saw him.

  They were like the animals, so glad and shy

  Like overgrown children dressed in things

  Handed down too big or small and they came in a crowd

  And said hello with funny chunnering noises

  And through the bars, looking so serious,

  He put his empty hand out. But that night

  We crept past quickly and only stopped

  In the middle of the empty fields and there

  While the clock in the square where the normal people stood

  And all the clocks in England were striking twelve

  We heard the rejoicings for the New Year

  From works and churches and the big ships in the docks

  So faint I wished we were hearing nothing at all

  We were so far away in our black fields

  I felt we might not ever get back again

  Where the people were and it was warm, and then

  Came up their sort of rejoicing out of the asylum,

  Singing or sobbing I don’t know what it was

  Like nothing on earth, their sort of welcoming in

  Another New Year and it was only then

  When the bells and the cheerful hooters couldn’t be heard

  But only the inmates, only the poor mad people

  Singing or sobbing their hearts out for the New Year

  That he gripped me fast and kissed my hair

  And held me in against him and clung on tight to me

  Under a terrible number of bare stars

  So far from town and the lights and house and home

  And shut my ears against the big children crying

  But listened himself, listened and listened

  That one time. And I’ve thought since and now

  He’s dead I’m sure that what he meant was this:

  That I should know how much love would be needed.

  DAVID CONSTANTINE

  Tullynoe: Tête-à-Tête in the Parish Priest’s Parlour

  ‘Ah, he was a grand man.’

  ‘He was: he fell out of the train going to Sligo.’

  ‘He did: he thought he was going to the lavatory.’

  ‘He did: in fact he stepped out the rear door of the train.’

  ‘He did: God, he must have got an awful fright.’

  ‘He did: he saw that it wasn’t the lavatory at all.’

  ‘He did: he saw that it was the railway tracks going away from him.’

  ‘He did: I wonder if… but he was a grand man.’

  ‘He was: he had the most expensive Toyota you can buy.’

  ‘He had: well, it was only beautiful.’

  ‘It was: he used to have an Audi.’

  ‘He had: as a matter of fact he used to have two Audis.’

  ‘He had: and then he had an Avenger.’

  ‘He had: and then he had a Volvo.’

  ‘He had: in the beginning he had a lot of Volkses.’

  ‘He had: he was a great man for the Volkses.’

  ‘He was: did he once have Escort?’

  ‘He had not: he had a son a doctor.’

  ‘He had: he had a Morris Minor too.’

  ‘He had: and he had a sister a hairdresser in Kilmallock.’

  ‘He had: he had another sister a hairdresser in Ballybunion.’

  ‘He had: he was put in a coffin which was put in his father’s cart.’

  ‘He was: his lady wife sat on top of the coffin driving the donkey.’

  ‘She did: Ah, but he was a grand man.’

  ‘He was: he was a grand man …’

  ‘Good night, Father.’

  ‘Good night, Mary.’

  PAUL DURCAN

  The Achill Woman

  She came up the hill carrying water.

  She wore a half-buttoned, wool cardigan,

  a tea-towel round her waist.

  She pushed the hair out of her eyes with

  her free hand and put the bucket down.

  The zinc-music of the handle on the rim

  tuned the evening. An Easter moon rose.

  In the next-door field a stream was

  a fluid sunset; and then, stars.

  I remember the cold rosiness of her hands.

  She bent down and blew on them like broth.

  And round her waist, on a white background,

  in coarse, woven letters, the words ‘glass cloth.’

  And she was nearly finished for the day.

  And I was all talk, raw from college-

  week-ending at a friend’s cottage

  with one suitcase and the set text

  of the Court poets of the Silver Age.

  We stayed putting down time until

  the evening turned cold without warning.

  She said goodnight and started down the hill.

  The grass changed from lavender to black.

  The trees turned back to cold outlines.

  You could taste frost

  but nothing now can change the way I went

  indoors, chilled by the wind

  and made a fire

  and took down my book

  and opened it and failed to comprehend

  the harmonies of servitude,

  the grace music gives to flattery

  and language borrows from ambition –

  and how I fell asleep

  oblivious to

  the planets clouding over in the skies,

  the slow decline of the Spring moon,

  the songs crying out their ironies.

  EAVAN BOLAND

  How the Wild South East was Lost

  for Robert Maclean

  See, I was raised on the wild side, border country,

  Kent ’n’ Surrey, a spit from the country line,

  An’ they bring me up in a prep school over the canyon:

  Weren’t no irregular verb I couldn’t call mine.

  Them days, I seen oldtimers set in the ranch-house

  (Talkin’ ’bout J. ‘Boy’ Hobbs and Pat C. Hendren)

  Blow a man clean away with a Greek optative.

  Scripture test, or a sprig o’ that rho-do-dendron.

  Hard pedallin’ country, stranger, flint ’n’ chalkface,

  Evergreen needles, acorns an’ beechmast shells,

  But stop that old lone pine you could squint clean over

  To the dome o’ the Chamber o’ Commerce in Tunbridge Wells.

  Yep, I was raised in them changeable weather conditions:

  I seen ’em, afternoon of a sunny dawn,

  Clack up the deck chairs, bolt for the back French windows

  When they bin drinkin’ that strong tea on the lawn.

  In a cloud o’ pipesmoke rollin’ there over the canyon,

  Book-larned me up that Minor Scholarship stuff:

  Bent my back to that in-between innings light roller

  And life weren’t easy. And that’s why I’m so tough.

  KIT WRIGHT

  ‘Unrelated Incidents’ – No. 3

  this is thi

  six a clock

  news t
hi

  man said n

  thi reason

  a talk wia

  BBC accent

  iz coz yi

  widny wahnt

  mi ti talk

  aboot thi

  trooth wia

  voice lik

  wanna yoo

  scruff. if

  a toktaboot

  thi trooth

  lik wanna yoo

  scruff yi

  widny thingk

  it wuz troo.

  jist wanna yoo

  scruff tokn.

  thirza right

  way ti spell

  ana right way

  ti tok it. this

  is me tokn yir

  right way a

  spellin. this

  is ma trooth.

  yooz doant no

  thi trooth

  yirsellz cawz

  yi canny talk

  right. this is

  the six a clock

  nyooz. belt up.

  TOM LEONARD

  Shakespeare at School

  Forty boys on benches with their quills,

  Six days a week through almost all the year,

  Long hours of Latin with relentless drills

  And repetition, all enforced by fear.

  I picture Shakespeare sitting near the back,

  Indulging in a risky bit of fun

  By exercising his prodigious knack

  Of thinking up an idiotic pun,

  And whispering his gem to other boys,

  Some of whom could not suppress their mirth –

  Behaviour that unfailingly annoys

  Any teacher anywhere on earth.

  The fun was over when the master spoke:

  Will Shakespeare, come up here and share the joke.

  WENDY COPE

  Bagpipe Muzak, Glasgow 1990

  When A. and R. men hit the street

  To sign up every second band they meet

  Then marketing men will spill out spiel

  About how us Glesca folk are really real

  (Where once they used to fear and pity

  These days they glamorise and patronise our city –

  Accentwise once they could hear bugger all

  That was not low, glottal or guttural,

  Now we’ve ‘kudos’ incident’ly

  And the Patter’s street-smart, strictly state-of-the-art

  And our oaths are user-friendly).

  It’s all go the sandblaster, it’s all go Tutti Frutti,

  All we want is a wally close with Rennie Mackintosh putti

  Malkie Machismo invented a gismo for making whisky oot o’ girders

  He tasted it, came back for mair, and soon he was on to his thirders.

  Rabbie Burns turned in his grave and dunted Hugh MacDiarmid,

  Said: It’s oor National Thorn, John Barleycorn, but I doot we’ll ever learn it …

  It’s all go the Rotary Club, it’s all go ‘The Toast Tae The Lassies’,

  It’s all go Holy Willie’s Prayer and plunging your dirk in the haggis.

  Robbie Coltrane flew Caledonian MacBrayne

  To Lewis … on a Sunday!

  Protesting Wee Frees fed him antifreeze

  (Why God knows) till he was comatose

  And didnae wake up till the Monday.

  Aye it’s Retro Time for Northern Soul and the whoop and the skirl o’ the saxes.

  All they’ll score’s more groundglass heroin and venison filofaxes.

  The rent-boys preen on Buchanan Street, their boas are made of vulture,

  It’s all go the January sales in the Metropolis of Culture.

  It’s all go the PR campaign and a radical change of image –

  Write Saatchi and Saatchi a blank cheque to pay them for the damage.

  Tam o’Shanter fell asleep

  To the sound of fairy laughter

  Woke up on the cold-heather hillside

  To find it was ten years after

  And it’s all go (again) the Devolution Debate and pro … pro … proportional representation.

  Over pasta and pesto in a Byres Road bistro, Scotland declares hersel’ a nation.

  Margo McDonald spruced up her spouse for thon Govan By-Election

  The voters they selectit him in a sideyways left defection,

  The Labour man was awfy hurt, he’d dependit on the X-fillers

  And the so-and-sos had betrayed him for thirty pieces of Sillars!

  Once it was no go the SNP, they were sneered at as ‘Tory’ and tartan

  And thought to be very little to do with the price of Spam in Dumbarton.

  Now it’s all go to the Nationalists, the toast of the folk and the famous

  – Of Billy Connolly, Muriel Gray and the Auchtermuchty Proclaimers.

  It’s all go L.A. lager, it’s all go the Campaign for an Assembly

  It’s all go Suas Alba and winning ten–nil at Wembley.

  Are there separatist dreams in the glens and the schemes?

  Well … it doesny take Taggart to detect it!

  Or to jalouse we hate the Government

  And we patently didnae elect it.

  So – watch out Margaret Thatcher, and tak’ tent Neil Kinnock

  Or we’ll tak’ the United Kingdom and brekk it like a bannock.

  LIZ LOCHHEAD

  Belfast Confetti

  Suddenly as the riot squad moved in, it was raining exclamation marks,

  Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys. A fount of broken type. And the explosion

  Itself – an asterisk on the map. This hyphenated line, a burst of rapid fire …

  I was trying to complete a sentence in my head, but it kept stuttering,

  All the alleyways and side-streets blocked with stops and colons.

  I know this labyrinth so well – Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street –

  Why can’t I escape? Every move is punctuated. Crimea Street. Dead end again.

  A Saracen, Kremlin-2 mesh. Makrolon face-shields. Walkie-talkies. What is

  My name? Where am I coming from? Where am I going? A fusillade of question-marks.

  CIARAN CARSON

  Poor Snow

  The violet

  light of snow falling.

  Its tiny darts

  make eye stripes.

  Dark flakes

  rapid, upwards.

  It’s restless, it can’t

  find whiteness.

  Its grey and violet

  trillion souls.

  DENISE RILEY

  Listen Mr Oxford Don

  Me not no Oxford don

  me a simple immigrant

  from Clapham Common

  I didn’t graduate

  I immigrate

  But listen Mr Oxford don

  I’m a man on de run

  and a man on de run

  is a dangerous one

  I ent have no gun

  I ent have no knife

  but mugging de Queen’s English

  is the story of my life

  I dont need no axe

  to split/ up yu syntax

  I dont need no hammer

  to mash/ up yu grammar

  I warning you Mr Oxford don

  I’m a wanted man

  and a wanted man

  is a dangerous one

  Dem accuse me of assault

  on de Oxford dictionary/

  imagine a concise peaceful man like me/

  dem want me serve time

  for inciting rhyme to riot

  but I tekking it quiet

  down here in Clapham Common

  I’m not a violent man Mr Oxford don

  I only armed wit mih human breath

  but human breath

  is a dangerous weapon

  So mek dem send one big word after me

  I ent serving no jail sentence

  I slashing suffix in self-defence

  I bashing future wit present tense

  and if necessary

>   I making de Queen’s English accessory/to my offence

  JOHN AGARD

  Alien

  … as a woman I have no country.

  – VIRGINIA WOOLF

  I have never returned

  wounded, to the white cliffs

  of Dover, knowing I rule –

  though a bit of shrapnel

  is my heart –

  over and over singing

  Elizabeth and England

  in the bottom of

  a gunboat.

  No. I walk these streets

  already beautifully paved

  with bones of enemies

  and women. I am subject

  to a proud succession,

  brave and noble sons

  in mufti, bowler hats.

  Who point to our great poets

  with their walking sticks

  of oak. Who will not bury

  my heart in Westminster Abbey,

  singing God the Father God

  the Son and God the Holy Ghost,

  this morning the serving maid

  burned the toast.

  Eliza sits below stairs to mend

  the linen here in England’s

  green and pleasant –

  and this land is my land

  to which I have never returned.

  GILLIAN ALLNUTT

  To a Cuckoo at Coolanlough

  Driving the perfect length of Ireland,