HERE AND HUMAN

Vernon Scannell on BBC Desert Island Discs in 1987

In the warm room, cushioned by comfort,

Idle at fireside, shawled in lamplight,

I know the cold winter night, but only

As a far intimation, like a memory

Of a dead distress whose ghost has grown genial.

The disc, glossy black as a conjuror’s hat,

Revolves. Music is unwound: woodwind,

Strings, a tenor voice singing in a tongue

I do not comprehend or have need to -

‘The instrument of egoism mastered by art’ -

For what I listen to is unequivocal:

A distillation of romantic love,

Passion outsoaring speech. I understand

And, understanding, I rejoice in my condition;

This sweet accident of being here and human.

Later, as I lie in the dark, the echoes

Recede, the blind cat of sleep purrs close

But does not curl. Beyond the window

The hill is hunched under his grey cape

Like a watchman. I cannot hear his breathing.

Silence is a starless sky on the ceiling

Till shock slashes, stillness is gashed

By a dazzle of noise chilling the air

Like lightning. It is an animal screech,

Raucous, clawing; surely the language of terror.

But I misread it, deceived. It is the sound

Of passionate love, a vixen’s mating call.

It lingers hurtful, a stink in the ear,

But soon it begins to fade. I breathe deep,

Feeling the startled fur settle and smoth. Then I sleep.

Vernon Scannell

1922-2007

From the Poetry Anthology Being Human,

third in the poetry series edited by Neil Astley,

as reviewed in The Guardian on May 14th, 2011

WORDS

Out of us all

That make rhymes, 

Will you choose

Sometimes -

As the winds use 

A crack in a wall

Or a drain,

Their joy or their pain

To whistle through -

Choose me.

You English words?

I know you;

You are light as dreams,

Tough as oak,

Precious as gold,

As poppies and corn,

Or an old cloak;

Sweet as our birds

To the ear;

As the burnet rose

In the heat of Midsummer;

Strange as the races

Of dead and unborn;

Strange and sweet

Equally,

And familiar,

To the eye,

As the dearest faces

That a man knows,

And as lost homes are;

Than oldest yew, -

As our hills are, old, -

Worn new 

Again and again;

Young as our streams 

After rain;

And as dear

As the earth which you prove

That we love.

Make me content 

With some sweetness

From Wales

Whose nightingales

Have no wings, -

From Wiltshire and Kent,

And Herefordshire, 

And the villages there, -

From the names, and the things

No less.

Let me sometimes dance

With you,

Or climb

Or stand perchance

In ecstasy,

Fixed and free

In a rhyme,

As poets do.

Edward Thomas

1878-1917

poets.org

OCEANS

Juan Ramon Jimenez

I have a feeling that my boat

has struck, down there in the depths,

against a great thing.

And nothing

happened! Nothing . . . Silence . . . Waves . . .

- Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,

and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?

Juan Ramon Jimenez 

1881-1958

Oceans -  translated from the Spanish by Robert Bly

The  Ecco Anthology of International Poetry

Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956. One of Jiménez's most important contributions to modern poetry was his advocacy of the French concept of "pure poetry.”

THIS IS BAD

Gottfried Benn

Someone hands you an English thriller,

highly recommended.

You don’t read English.

You’ve worked up a thirst

for something you can’t afford.

You have deep insights,

brand new and they sound

like an academic glossing Hoelderlin.

You hear the waves at night

ramping against the shore

and you think: that’s what waves do.

Worse: you’re asked out

when at home you get better coffee,

silence, and you don’t expect to be amused.

Awful: not to die in summer

under a bright sky

when the rich dirt

falls easily from the shovel.

Gottfried Benn

German  expressionist poet, essayist and novelist

1886-1956

“This Is Bad’ translated from the German by Harvey Shapiro

From the ECCO Anthology of International Poetry.

THEIR LONELY BETTERS

As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade
To all the noises that my garden made,
It seemed to me only proper that words
Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.
A robin with no Christian name ran through
The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew,
And rustling flowers for some third party waited
To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.

Not one of them was capable of lying,
There was not one which knew that it was dying
Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme
Assumed responsibility for time.

Let them leave language to their lonely betters
Who count some days and long for certain letters;
We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep:
Words are for those with promises to keep.


W.H. Auden
1907-1973

ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST

Father heard his children scream
from: Ruthless Rhymes, 1898

from Perverted Proverbs


What is Enough? An idle dream!
  One cannot have enough, I swear,
Of Ices or Meringues-and-Cream,
  Nougat or Chocolate Eclairs,
Of Oysters or of Caviar,
Of Prawns or Pate de Foie Grar!

Who would not willingly forsake
  Kindred and Home, without a fuss,
For Icing from a Birthday Cake,
  Or juicy fat Asparagus,
And journey over countless seas
For New Potatoes and Green Peas?

They say that a Contented Mind
  Is a Continual Feast; — but where
The mental frame, and how to find,
  Which can with Turtle Soup compare?
No mind, however full of Ease,
Could be Continual Toasted Cheese.

For dinner have a sole to eat,
  (Some Perrier Jouet, ’92,)
An Entree then (and, with the meat,
  A bottle of Lafitte will do),
A quail, a glass of port (just one),
Liqueurs and coffee, and you’ve done.

But should you want a hearty meal,
  And not this gourmet’s lightsome snack,
Fill up with terrapin and teal,
  Clam chowder, crabs, and canvasback;
With all varieties of sauce,
And diff’rent wines for ev’ry course.

Your tastes may be of simpler type; –
  A homely glass of “half-and-half,”
An onion and a dish of tripe,
  Or headpiece of the kindly calf.
(Cruel perhaps, but then, you know,
“‘Faut tout souffrir pour etre veau!”)

‘Tis a mistake to eat too much
  Of any dishes but the best;
And you, of course, should never touch
  A thing you know you can’t digest;
For instance, lobster; — if you do,
Well, — I’m amayonnaised at you!

Let this be your heraldic crest,
  A bottle (charge) of Champagne,
A chicken (gorged) with salad (dress’d),
  Below, this motto to explain –
“Enough is Very Good, may be;
Too much is Good Enough for Me!”



Jocelyn Henry Clive 'Harry' Graham ( 1874 - 1936)

from PARADISE ILLUSTRATED: A Sequence

'Come', spoke the Almighty to Adam,
'There's work to do, even in Eden.'

'I want to see what you call them,'
The Lord said. 'It's a good day for it.'
'And take your thumb out of your mouth.'
He added. (Adam was missing his mother.)

So they shuffled past, or they hopped,
Or they waddled. The beasts of the field
And the fowls of the air,
Pretending not to notice him.

'Speak up now,' said the Lord God briskly,
'Give each and every one the name thereof.'

'Fido,' said Adam, thinking hard,
As the animals went past him one by one.
'Bambi', 'Harpy', 'Pooh',
'Incitatus', 'Acidosis', 'Apparat',
'Krafft-Ebbing', 'Indo-China, 'Schnorkel',
'Buggins', 'Bollock' -

'Bullock will do', said the Lord God, 'I like it'.
The rest are rubbish. You must try again tomorrow.'

'Can't you let her name something?'
Begged Adam. 'She's always on at me
About the animals.'

'Herself a fairer flower,'
Murmured God. 'Hardly necessary.
I would say. But if it makes her happy . . . .'


o-o


'What a trek!' Eve muttered.
'The animals came to Adam . . .
Well, Mohammed must go the mountain.'

'What's that you said', the Almighty asked.
But she was on her way.


o-o


'Lady's finger,' said Eve.
'Lady's smock'.
'Lady's slipper'.
'Lady's tresses . . . .'

She paused.
'Adam's apple.'

'No,' said the Lord.
'Strike that out.'

'Old man's beard, then.'
She sped towards the mountain.

'Lily,
Rose,
Violet,
Daisy,
Poppy,
Amaryllis,
Eglantine,
Veronica,
Marigold,
Iris,
Marguerite,
Pansy,
Petunia,
Jasmine,
May.'

'I'm worn out,' she gasped.
'Belladonna -
And that's all for today.'


o-o


'She's better at names than you were,'
The Lord observed.
'They all sound womanish to me,'
Said Adam, nettled.




DJ.Enright
1920-2002