Collected Poems

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Collected Poems Page 38

by Anthony Burgess


  We don’t care why or how.

  We’re happy enough with now.

  No discomfort, no disease,

  Gentlemen living at their ease,

  Everything designed to please

  In good Victoria’s reign.

  Darwin, Marx, electric light,

  The Church of England taking fright

  As new ideas put old to flight

  Were they right, I wonder –

  Stay as you are, refuse to move,

  Stick in your comfortable groove,

  Sheltered from storm and thunder.

  But destiny beckons me yonder

  To dare the unknown, unseen.

  Back to my time machine.

  WORDS GETTING IN THE WAY

  The man without words

  Wants to be in love

  Without words getting in the way.

  What words could match

  Her fairness of face?

  What words could catch

  Her grace?

  The language of birds

  In the blue above –

  Even that’s unequipped to say

  In the magic sand

  What magic she brings

  To all surround-

  Ing things.

  Why should I waste

  Time and brain and breath

  On what bores me to dusty death?

  Let me taste

  Her lips, not your words on mine –

  Entwine her within my strong embrace

  To a wordless man like this

  A sigh can say no more

  Than all of your bor-

  Ing intellectual play.

  How can I kiss

  With words getting in the way?

  I’m sick of each day

  With each tiresome tome

  That you drag from a special shelf.

  I know a tree

  Where poetry may

  Proceed to hang itself

  I’m sick of each night

  That I spend at home

  With a polysyllabic theme.

  Insipid alien

  Sesquipedalian writings

  Make me scream

  Don’t answer me when

  I ask once again:

  By all that’s sacred, how may

  I hold her tight

  With words getting in the way?

  No matter how powerful or subtle or fine

  I’m weary of working with words that you write

  An actor enacting another man’s lines

  But now that I’m seeing her, now it’s tonight

  The things I must say are the things I must say.

  It’s she and it’s I,

  It’s her and it’s me –

  No one but we

  Tonight.

  No poet need try

  To fly in the way

  Singing’s the right

  Sonnets to say.

  It’s she and it’s me,

  And I and it’s her –

  And I prefer

  It so.

  As soon as I see

  The flame on her cheek,

  Then I will know

  Just how to speak

  I’m sick of each day

  With each tiresome tome

  That you keep on a special shelf.

  I know a tree

  Where poetry

  May proceed to hang itself.

  ‘SLAVERY’

  Slavery slavery

  Which he’s dressed up in his bravery

  Up to some unsavoury escapades

  I’m made

  To moan in my slavery.

  Slavery slavery

  Which he’s returned from his knavery

  Full of what he gave her and she gave him

  I grimly groan in my slavery.

  Slavery

  Oh the anguish

  No language

  Cut off from my culture,

  Served from my sect

  The viper and the vulture

  The tribal dialect

  with a loincloth round my middle

  And a priest upon the griddle

  I would gambol to a fiddle

  Made of human gut

  But I’m cut

  Off

  ‘NONE BUT THE COWARD’

  None but the coward

  Deserves the fair, for

  Brave men die

  But the coward’s always there.

  What should a woman

  Supremely care for –

  Two live arms

  Or a statue in the square?

  I admit that bull or rogue ram

  Will need an eventual butcher’s knife

  But it’s not in my programme –

  A medium sensual sort of life.

  I don’t like to eat

  Meat raw in my paw,

  I prefer it dressed by my wife

  Hardly empowered

  To get in there,

  I’d rather survive

  And thrive

  And if you’re agreeable, wive.

  And, like every coward,

  Stay alive.

  I am, let one imagine

  Lord Hamlet – one imagin-

  -ation that can take in every side,

  But wide to take a murder in its stride.

  But not wide enough.

  ‘HE BOUGHT ME FROM A SARACEN’

  He bought me from a Saracen

  Who bought from some Turks

  Who used me in the garrison

  To build the public works.

  Though he keeps me in food

  And no longer in the nude

  …

  He bought me from a Grecian

  Minister of works

  Who’d bought me from a Venetian

  Who bought me from the Turks

  Who’d bought me from the Arabs

  ‘SEVILLA, SEVIYA – OR SEVIJA’

  Sevilla, Seviya, Sevija – or Seville.

  Call it what you will

  It’s the same town,

  Not a tame town – no shame at all

  Nothing much happens in the morning:

  They’re recovering from the evening.

  Nothing much happens in the afternoon:

  They’re waiting for the moonlight to fall

  On Sevilla, Seviya, Sevija – or Seville.

  Come here when you will.

  Crane your necks at

  All the sex at your beck and call.

  ‘I LOVE HATE’

  I love hate.

  The teeth that growl and grate

  And bate me.

  So hate me.

  Hate is the wind

  That sweeps the winter clean,

  Scoured and unskinned

  By the gold and green.

  As for love,

  And the dove-cooing lies

  And the eyes that glow –

  Love can get up and go.

  So hate me, hate me,

  Make me tough.

  I hate love,

  I love hate.

  I’d love the world more

  If it would hate me enough.

  Hate is the state

  That turns men tough

  I’d adore

  The world more

  If it would only hate me enough.

  Hate me.

  Hate.

  A TIME FOR MUSIC

  You’ve got to liv wiv zest Liz luv

  If you farm port of a roman fleueve

  On the riverain on the sane side

  Where I’ll fake you for a ride,

  An Avon of a joke

  Inn Eden where you’ve been rest to soak

  Down the wurling Winderpool

  Of a swashbuckling machine,

  Bint shrunk into a minikin.

  It’s a long ford that has no crossing

  And its lakes a tot of frank pakenhamming

  With hots of katzenjamming

  Chopping up the best back notes

  To fate you
with flewts and notes

  And a host of hobos.

  I hope I’ve taught your dido heart

  Numbling your private parts

  In an anthem of praise I’ve raised

  A cannibal in a hamilcart;

  I shope itsall bean great greene fun

  Liz luv and you’ve slept your cool

  Sunlike a river hooligan

  Assort of Rogue Riderhood cum again

  In a bally Volga boat-school

  My dearest moneybun

  ‘WHAT I’D LIKE TO DO’

  What I’d like to do

  To you

  Is too painful to be true.

  I’d like to

  Thrust here

  Grind there

  Behind there.

  Ooooo –

  What I’d like to do to you!

  ‘EIGHT AND TWENTY YEARS’

  Eight and twenty years

  The Scythians scourged Asia

  With insolence and oppression

  But King Cyaxares smote them,

  Smote them, smote them,

  Brought them low.

  King Cyaxares – praise him –

  Toppled Nineveh’s towers.

  King Cyaxares – praise him –

  Had the Assyrian by the beard.

  Lo, the empire of the Medes

  Stretches almost to Babylon.

  Praise the son of Cyaxares,

  Our noble Astyages,

  Who keeps the peace

  And maintains our empires.

  ‘TO BE A KING, TO BE A KING’

  To be a king, to be a king

  Is a high and mighty thing.

  The one who’s wise and not the fool

  Shall wear the crown and rule.

  And rule.

  To be a king, to be a king

  Is a high and mighty thing.

  The one who’s strong and also clever

  Shall wear the crown for ever.

  For ever.

  To be a king, a king

  Is a mighty thing.

  He who’s wise and not the fool

  Shall rule and rule.

  To be a king, a king

  Is a mighty thing.

  He who’s strong and clever

  Shall rule for ever.

  ‘A DRINK. WHAT IS A DRINK?’

  A drink. What is a drink?

  A machine for cooling the throat,

  Injecting speedy sugar into the pancreas,

  Getting high.

  Eating’s not a feast.

  It’s an existential function.

  Administering extreme unction,

  The waiter’s not a priest.

  A drink. What do they think a drink is? What is a drink?

  A machine to wet the dry.

  For sugaring the pancreas.

  For getting high.

  Highballs.

  I don’t like it

  What? I like it.

  I don’t like it.

  What? Liking it.

  Liking these folks

  Who like to be slaves

  Liking their cokes

  And Gillette shaves

  Liking their bosses

  And buses and bikes

  Like the likes and dislikes.

  The people don’t talk

  They bully or whine,

  They snort or they squeak

  I don’t like it.

  What? Your liking it.

  I don’t like it.

  What? Your not

  Liking me liking it.

  How do you stomach

  The stuff that they scoff?

  Even its look

  Puts me off.

  BED

  ‘Rest’, says my bed.

  ‘When all is said,

  Rest, rest is best.

  The day is fled,

  All red,

  Into the west.

  Forget, forget

  The men you met,

  The book you read,

  The bread you ate.

  Sleep lies ahead.

  Rest your head,

  Heavier than

  A chest of lead.

  I am ready

  To hold your heavy head

  Steady,

  Steady,

  Steady.’

  ‘Heady.’

  Ho hez hy hed.

  BEAR

  ‘See – there, there.’

  Where?

  ‘There –

  A hairless bear,

  Walking about the square.’

  But you shouldn’t stare

  At a hairless bear.

  You wouldn’t care

  For folk to stare

  If you didn’t have

  Your share of hair,

  Like that poor bear there,

  That hairless bear,

  That bare bear,

  Bare bear –

  ‘Black sheep?’

  No, that hairless bear

  Glaring around

  The square.

  ‘I’M WEARY OF WORKING WITH WORDS THAT YOU WRITE’

  I’m weary of working with words that you write

  An actor enacting another man’s lines.

  But now that I’m seeing her, now it’s tonight,

  The things I must say are the things I must say.

  It’s she and it’s I,

  It’s her and it’s me –

  No one but we

  Tonight.

  No poet need try

  To fly in my way

  Justify the night

  Say sonnets to say.

  It’s she and it’s me,

  It’s I and it’s her –

  And I prefer

  It so.

  As soon as I see

  The flame on her cheek,

  Then I will know

  Just how to speak

  ‘HOW DARE I DARE TO DREAM’

  How dare I dare to dream

  That all I dream is in vain?

  And dare I dare believe

  That sweet joy

  Springs from pain?

  How dare I dare to hope

  That such a lowly thing as I

  Could steal himself a pair silver wings

  And fly,

  To dare the heavens

  Where she in beauty

  Dares me –

  Unworthy me,

  How dare I head the call

  That bids me claim the final prize?

  I’d stumble and I’d fall – before her eyes.

  How dare I dare to dream

  That all I dream is not in vain?

  And dare I dare believe

  That sweetness

  Springs from you

  How dare I dare to hope

  That such a lowly thing as I

  Could steal himself a pair of silver wings

  And fly.

  To dare the heavens

  Where she in beauty

  Dares men

  Unworthy me

  How dare I hear the call

  That bids me claim the final prize?

  I’d stumble and I’d fall – before her eyes

  ‘HIS BOWELS ARE OF GOLD, HIS VEINS OF SILVER’

  His bowels are of gold, his veins of silver.

  The blood of his veins is rubies fine-powdered.

  His head is a city, strong of wall and turret,

  His member is the straightest tree of the forest…

  ‘I’M SICK OF A KINGDOM WHICH IS A JEWELLED PRISON’

  I am sick of a kingdom which is a jewelled prison,

  Of the wine of bondage and the roasted meats of

  servitude.

  Give me the free wind of the morning and the sun

  that burns not from malice,

  And the brook for wine and the berries and nuts

  of the wild wood.

  I am sick of kinds and princes, for their words

  are an emptiness,

  Their favour is water in a furnace, their smiles

 
; are shadows.

  A voice within says: the king is but a king,

  But you Gyzat, are a man and a free man.

  Your nobility outreaches the king’s hand and

  outtops his crown.

  ‘LEX FOR LAW AND ORDER’

  Lex for law and order,

  Peace within our border,

  Factory wheels are turning,

  Here’s an end of yearning.

  Loyal hearts are burning

  With patriotic joy.

  Lex is our boy.

  ‘I WOULDN’T FRIRK URANUS’

  I wouldn’t frirk Uranus,

  He gives me a pain in the anus.

  I wouldn’t frirk with Neptune,

  Neptune’s tune is not a hep tune.

  So pounce on me, Puma.

  You’re no idle rumor, right?

  I’m in the humor,

  So pounce on me, Puma, tonight.

  I don’t want to frirk with Mars.

  Mars is covered with stars and scars.

  I don’t want to frirk with Venus,

  That blind kid Cupid would get between us.

  So pounce on me, Puma, etc.

  ‘HERE ON THE FINAL PYRE’

  Here on the final pyre

  See that page with its curled ends

  Rolling into the fire.

  Here’s what the poet sang:

  This is the way the world ends:

  Not with a whimper. BANG.

  ‘A BIRD SAT HIGH ON A BANYAN TREE’

  A bird sat high on a banyan tree,

  Carolling night and carolling day,

  And on the heads of the passers-by

  And each bemerded passer-by

  Cried loud in anger on that bird

  Carolling night and carolling day,

  Wiping from his eye.

  And still that bird upon the tree,

  Carolling night and carolling day,

  Ignored the plaints of the passers-by.

  Let us like birds upon the tree,

  Carolling night and carolling day,

  Ignore each hairless passer-by,

  And say…

  ‘BEASTS AND MEN ARE MADE THE SAME’

  Beasts and men are made the same –

  Here a one and there a two,

  And with these three they play the game

  Of doing what they have to do.

  ‘OH, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE’

  Oh, love, love, love –

  Love on a hilltop high,

  Love against a cloudless sky,

  Love where the scene is

  Painted by a million stars,

  Love with martinis

 

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