Counting Backwards

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Counting Backwards Page 29

by Helen Dunmore


  Cyclamen, blood-red 174

  Dancing man 293

  Dark, present, scattering night 95

  Dead gull on Porthmeor 143

  Death, hold out your arms for me 70

  Decoding a night’s dreams 333

  Dedication 60

  Deep in busy lizzies and black iron 243

  Dense slabs of braided-up lupins 343

  Depot 170

  Dis 88

  Diving girl 216

  Do they wake careless and warm 288

  ‘Doesn’t it look peaceful?’ someone said 133

  Dolphins whistling 145

  Domestic poem 400

  Don’t count John among the dreams 128

  Drink and the Devil 239

  Driving along the motorway 138

  Dropped yolks of shore-lamp quiver on tarmac 310

  Dublin 1971 344

  Dumb, his lips swathed 354

  Everything changes to black and white 144

  Fallen angel 153

  Father, / I remember when you left us 261

  February 12th 1994 53

  Ferns on a hospital window 215

  Festival of stone 42

  First, the echo 213

  First, the retreat of bees 173

  Fishing beyond sunset 208

  Five Versions from Catullus 59

  Florence in permafrost 384

  For all frozen things 328

  For the length of time it takes a bruise to fade 127

  For those who do not write poems 132

  For three years I’ve been wary of deep water 364

  Fortune-teller on Church Road 193

  Four cormorants, one swan 51

  From behind the curtain an open window 215

  Frostbite 220

  ‘Fuck this staring paper and table 410

  Getting into the car 137

  Getting the Strap 247

  Ghost at noon 227

  Giraffes in Hull 167

  Girl in the Blue Pool 52

  Give me that red tub like a child’s drawing 79

  Glad of these times 138

  Gorse 151

  Greek beads 228

  Greenham Common 409

  Harbinger 91

  Hare in the snow 208

  ‘Has she gone then?’ they asked 346

  He is the one you can count on 204

  He lived next door all his life 205

  He must stir himself. No more hiding 43

  He takes the temperature of his heart 100

  He wears a silver bell 108

  He’s going on holiday to lonely 236

  Hearing owls 160

  Heimat 243

  Her children look for her 56

  Her fast asleep face turns from me 415

  Here at my worktop, foil-wrapping a silver salmon 207

  Here I am in the desert knowing nothing 244

  Here is the bowl. Do I want it still 62

  Here they are on the beach where the boy played 48

  Here, where the old Industrial School was 37

  Heron 308

  Herring girl 282

  Hold out your arms 70

  Holiday to Lonely 236

  Hornsea, 1952 41

  How busy we are with the dead in their infancy 112

  How cool the lovely bulb of your roundness 141

  How hushed the sentence is this morning 196

  How rangy they are, and lean, these leaves 206

  How the sick body calms itself 315

  Hungry Thames 224

  I am the captainess of laundry 110

  I can’t say why so many coffin-makers 198

  I don’t need to go to the sun 29

  I dreamed my love became a boat 157

  I have a little sister, she has no breasts 54

  I Have Been Thinking of You So Loudly 115

  I have never known you easily 40

  I Heard You Sing in the Dark 119

  I hung up the sheets in moonlight 414

  I imagine you sent back from Africa 356

  I know that no one dare judge another’s need 209

  I know them by their shoes 99

  I lay and heard voices 273

  I love it when you look at me like this 155

  I love these flowers that lie in the dust 129

  I never stop listening to you sing 217

  I Owned a Woman Once 80

  I remember years ago, that we had Christmas roses 355

  I see the boys at the breakwater 296

  I should like to be buried in a summer forest 212

  I was in the kingdom of pointed raspberries 225

  I was up and watching 102

  I’d climbed the crab-apple in the wind 310

  I’ve approached him since childhood 359

  Ice coming 173

  If I wanted totems, in place of the poles 264

  If I were the moon 57

  If no revolution come 412

  If only 192

  If you had said the words ‘to the forest’ 316

  If you lie down at the Spit on this warm 49

  If you were to reach up your hand 132

  In a back garden I’m painting 397

  In a wood near Turku 420

  In Berber’s Ice Cream Parlour 314

  In crack-haunted alleys, overhangs 125

  In deep water 364

  In memoriam Cyril Smith 1913-1945 359

  In Praise of the Piano 22

  In Rodmell Garden 396

  In Secret 55

  In such meadows the days pass 34

  In the chemist’s at night-time 406

  In the corded hollows of the wood 313

  In the Desert Knowing Nothing 244

  In the dusk of a forest chapel 358

  In the goods yard the tracks are unmarked 389

  In the tea house 383

  In the tents 377

  In the weightlessness of time and our passage within it 367

  In the white sheets I gave you 249

  ‘Indeed we are all made from the dust of stars’ 140

  Inside out 199

  Inside the Wave 24

  Is it Lethe or is it dock water? 109

  ‘It is finished,’ said Christ 175

  It is the same electrical impulse as ever 78

  It is your impulse I remember 155

  It starts with breaking into the wood 278

  It was not always a dry well 305

  It was the green lorry with its greasy curtain 170

  It was too hot, that was the argument 336

  It was you I heard, your tiger pad on the stairs 197

  It wears a smell of earth, not air 118

  It’s evening on the river 308

  It’s not the four-wheeled drive crawler 331

  It’s past nine and breakfast is over 396

  Its big red body ungulps 255

  Jacketless, buckled, pressed from the voyage 64

  Jacob’s drum 168

  La Recouvrance 120

  Lady Macduff and the primroses 365

  Lambkin 344

  Landscape from the Monet Exhibition at Cardiff 421

  Later my stepson will uncover a five-inch live shell 329

  Lazarus 354

  Lead me with your cold, sure hand 233

  Leave the door open 30

  Lemon and stars 159

  Lemon sole 273

  Lemon tree in November 95

  Let us think that we are pilgrims 349

  Lethe 109

  Life and death are in the hands of God she said 56

  Litany 127

  Little Ellie and the timeshare salesman 226

  Little papoose 57

  Long long I have looked for you 277

  Longman English Series 82

  Lutherans 317

  Malta 348

  Mary Shelley 367

  May voyage 162

  Melancholy at one A.M. 158

  Mimosa 45

  Missile launcher passing at night 386
r />   Mr Lear has left a ring in his room 192

  Mr Lear’s ring 192

  Music plays gently 229

  My daughter as Penelope 35

  My life’s stem was cut 31

  My mind aches where I cannot touch it 158

  My nephews with almond faces 408

  My people 67

  My sad descendants 373

  My slim volume, polished almost to nothing 60

  My train halts in the snowfilled station 423

  Narcissi 144

  Nature came to us abhorring sharp edges 115

  Near Dawlish 415

  Nearly May Day 297

  Need 209

  New crops 334

  Newgate 89

  Next door 204

  Nightfall in the IKEA Kitchen 46

  No matter how wide the snowfield 94

  No one else remembers that room 53

  No, not a demonstration 140

  No, they won’t gather their white skirts 137

  Not going to the forest 316

  Now I write off a winter of growth 404

  Now the snowdrop, the wood-anemone, the crocus 365

  Now winter comes and I am half-asleep 224

  O engines 334

  O that old cinema of memory 169

  O wintry ones, my sad descendants 373

  Odysseus 132

  Odysseus to Elpenor 26

  Of course they’re dead, or this is a film 238

  Off the West Pier 310

  Off-script 140

  ‘Often they go just before dawn’ 161

  Often when the bread tin is empty 424

  Old Jeffery begins his night music 339

  Old men with sticks and courteous greeting 100

  Old warriors and women 185

  Ollie and Charles at St Andrew’s Park 419

  On circuit from Heptonstall Chapel 341

  On drinking lime juice in September 315

  On growing a black tulip 225

  On his skin the stink 239

  On looking through the handle of a cup 63

  On not writing certain poems 291

  On smooth buttercup fields 350

  On the other side of the sky’s dark room 129

  On the same posts each evening 111

  On the white path at noon when the sun 227

  One A.M. 158

  One more for the beautiful table 343

  One year he painted his front door yellow 205

  One yellow chicken 309

  Ophelia 157

  Our day off, agreed by the wind 377

  Our family, swimming again 306

  Out of the Blue 165

  Patrick at four years old on Bonfire Night 374

  Patrick, I cannot write 401

  Patrick I 401

  Patrick II 402

  Pedalo 251

  Permafrost 328

  Pharaoh’s daughter 399

  Pianist, 103, 101

  Picture Messages 108

  Pictures of a Chinese nursery 398

  Piers Plowman: The Crucifixion & Harrowing of Hell 175

  Pilgrims 349

  Plane tree outside Ward 78 28

  Playing Her Pieces 100

  Ploughing the roughlands 331

  Plume 132

  Pneumonia 149

  Poem for December 28 408

  Poem for hidden women 410

  Poem in a Hotel 237

  Poem on the Obliteration of 100,000 Iraqi Soldiers 245

  Porpoise washed up on the beach 363

  Preaching at Gwennap 340

  Pressed in the soil’s black web, nursed by the rough 91

  Prince Felipe Prospero (1657-1661) 108

  Privacy of rain 292

  Rain. A plump splash 292

  Rapunzel 379

  Re-opening the old mines 23

  Refrigerator days 222

  Restless, the pæony truss tosses about 327

  Rim 62

  Rinsing 313

  Rubbing Down the Horse 241

  Russian doll 283

  Safe period 303

  Sailing to Cuba 310

  St Paul’s 407

  Say we’re in a compartment at night 190

  Scan at 8 weeks 250

  Seal run 323

  Second marriages 416

  See this ’un here, this little bone needle 282

  See, you have fallen asleep in spite of me 307

  September Rain 68

  Seven years old last birthday 35

  Shadows of my mother against a wall 335

  She comes close to perfection 191

  She kept Uncle Will’s telegram 378

  She swam to me smiling, her teeth 251

  She’s next to nowhere, feeling no cold 216

  Ships on brown water 186

  Shutting the Gate 21

  Sirmio 59

  Sisters leaving before the dance 289

  Skips 264

  Skulking 99

  Sleeveless 194

  Small, polished shield-bearer 91

  Small, silvery, slipping 228

  Smoke 185

  Snow Queen 277

  Snowdrops, Mary’s tapers 349

  Snug as a devil’s toenail embedded 199

  So, how decisive a house is 400

  Some swear by vinegar and some by newspaper 118

  Sometimes in the rough garden of city spaces 211

  Sometimes, but rarely, the ancestors 134

  Spanish Irish 155

  Sparrow 61

  Speak to me in the only language 165

  Spring of turf and thrift, tangle of fleece, sheep-shit 58

  Step by step, holding the thread 121

  Still as the water is 113

  Still life with ironing 155

  Subtraction 66

  Such a connoisseur of borrowed light! 147

  Surely it’s not too much to ask 148

  Sweet pepper 307

  Sylvette Scrubbing 260

  Taken in Shadows 103

  Tall ship hanging out at the horizon 284

  Tea at Brandt’s 229

  Ten Books 64

  Terra Incognita 50

  That dream when we were young 94

  That lake lies along the shore 293

  That morning when the potato tops rusted 246

  That old cinema of memory 169

  That violet-haired lady 275

  That’s better, he says, he says 344

  The air-blue gown 371

  The apple fall 397

  The argument 336

  The bald glasshouses stretch here for miles 338

  The Bare Leg 32

  The bathers, where are they? 295

  The Bike Lane 238

  The blessing 200

  The blue garden 133

  The boy in the boat, the tip of the pole 208

  The bride’s nights in a strange village 353

  The butcher’s daughter 279

  The Captainess of Laundry 110

  The chink of hammers is a song 42

  The coffin-makers 198

  The conception 249

  The cuckoo game 278

  The damson 395

  The dark fabric of night not torn 160

  The dark, present, scattering night 96

  The Day’s Umbrellas 111

  The Deciphering 112

  The deserted table 417

  The Diving Reflex 256

  The dream-life of priests 287

  The dry glasshouse is almost empty 337

  The dry well 305

  The Duration 48

  The father is a writer; the son 418

  The Filament 121

  The footfall 197

  The form 195

  The Gift 113

  The grass looks different in another country 345

  The greenfield ghost 281

  The grey lilo 130

  The halls are thronged, the grand staircase murmurous 200

  The Halt 38

  The hard-hearted husband 346<
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  The haunting of Epworth 339

  The horse landscape 375

  The Hyacinths 91

  The Inbox 78

  The Kingdom of the Dead 116

  The knight 358

  The Lamplighter 37

  The land pensions 332

  The last day of the exhausted month 415

  The Last Heartbeat 117

  The long arm hangs flat to his lap 342

  The Malarkey 75

  The man on the roof 166

  The man who gave little Ellie his forever 226

  The mare with her short legs heavily mud-caked 341

  The marshalling yard 389

  The midwife whose omniscient hands 403

  The night chemist 406

  The Night Workers 92

  The obvious story, my darling 88

  The Old Mastery 117

  The other babies were more bitter than you 402

  The other side of the sky’s dark room 129

  The Our Father, the moment of fear 247

  The Overcoat 118

  The panting of buses through caves of memory 170

  The parachute packers 361

  The peach house 337

  The Place of Ordinary Souls 34

  The plum tree 370

  The point of not returning 194

  The Polish husband 393

  The potatoes come out of the earth bright 323

  The Queue’s Essentially 110

  The rain was falling down in slow pulses 336

  The rain’s coming in 190

  The room creaked like a pair of lungs 301

  The rowan 135

  The scattering 213

  The schooner La Recouvrance is almost at the horizon now 120

  The sea skater 382

  The sea’s a featureless blaze 348

  The sentence 196

  The shaft 29

  The Silent Man in Waterstones 265

  The slowly moving river in summer 399

  The Snowfield 94

  The soft fields part in hedges, each 386

  The spill 188

  The stars come so close 159

  The summer cabins are padlocked 422

  The surgeon husband 207

  The swans go up with slow wing-beats 51

  The Tarn 113

  The thing about a saddle is that second 241

  The Torn Ship 102

  The traffic halted 393

  The tree outside the window 28

  The Underworld 20

  The Wardrobe Mistress 266

  The wasp 224

  The white receiver 250

  The window swings and squeaks in the sun 392

  The winter fairs are all over 420

  The wood-pigeon rolls soft notes off its breast 335

  The writer’s son 418

  The Yellow Sky 246

  Then I think how the train 263

 

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