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A field of stubble; all the grain is gone, The straw is baled and led, the headland bare Unless you count the weeds that carry on From now till ploughing. Look! A springing hare Goes thumping through the soft midsummer dust. His forepaws tap the ground; with muscled might His hind legs overtake and flex and thrust And throw him forward in ecstatic flight - Lubb-dupp. As though his heart were in his feet He gallops in exaggerated mime, His tireless iambs counting out the beat That underpins the dandelion time. Rehearsing joy, anticipating fear, He dances for the turning of the year.
In the Barbara Hepworth Sculpture
Garden Snide giggle of soft rain on foliage As I recognised him in the garden. Tenth statue among the damp shrubs. Apollo. I shed tears in exchange for his wet blessing, Apotheosis of a naughty whim. There was a tangle of steel reinforcement Beckoning from a lump of broken concrete That somebody had chucked into a skip; A lucky find, a nice bit of rough trade Calling out, asking to be taken home. Compassion for the beauty in found things Gave me the right to take it; now it lives Lovely in long grass in my own garden, Moss on its plinth, rust on the twisted rods That mimic the perfection of Apollo. That’s how I live, occasionally blessed By random glimpses of the sad old god Who wanders through the wreckage of the world Twanging the slack strings of a busted lyre, Seeking an echo in a mortal heart.
Away in the west lives mighty Sly With his peasant’s thews and his poet’s eye; He has dinosaur ribs, he has coconut hair And the spindly legs of a Mackintosh chair. Sly is a long-dog, thin as a rail With umbrella feet and a shoestring tail. His bodily wind has the pungent smell Of the breeze that blows from the jaws of hell. He is lightning when putting himself to his speed, Though its not very often he sees the need. His actions are few, but his thoughts run deep; A philosopher-dog who needs his sleep. He sleeps in a heap from morn till night Like a dead dog dropped from a dizzying height, Rising and falling like dough in a draught With occasional mutterings fore and aft. His ears are deaf and his eyes are blind And the itch for a bitch never crosses his mind. This is the way he was born to lie – Slothful, somnolent, celibate Sly.
from sequence "The
Suitors", in which the hangers-on of a bitch in season are
likened to the unsavoury claimants of Odysseus' Penelope.
Beady-eyed wide-boy, cheerful polymath Who’s never quite as good at anything As anybody else. Oh, he can fly But not as the swift flies, not as the kestrel. He gets there, though, after his own fashion, And he can swim, but not as the swan swims. Even his scavenging is overshadowed By that of gulls, his small predations by The lordly heron. His are little skills Thoughtlessly exhibited ad infinitum In his own idiosyncratic world. I asked him once, “Mallard, my feathered friend, What do you do, exactly? What are you for?” His reply was a wink and a wet shrug; “Oh, you know, Squire – bit of this, bit of that; Bit of ducking and diving. Grab what’s going. Know what I mean, Squire, eh? Know what I mean?”
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