Woman weep Weep for your child, your child who is sick, your child who is dying, you child who will die Weep But she will not die yet This sickness is not the end She will recover from this But weep woman Weep Comfort her too She needs your comfort She will not die yet She was dying the day she left your womb She is dying now Weep woman Weep Your child knows that she will die She is aware of her real sickness of which illness is but physical representation She will die in other ways first It is for this you must weep Woman Weep woman The pain you felt in labour is not to be compared with suffering, that of she who is dying but who will not die yet Weep woman The tears are for yourself, you who bore this life who is dying Weep woman Weep The bed is warm Your hand is warm pressing upon hers The fever is past now There will be recovery soon but not for the dying
We had our first snow today, she said, in her letter Winter had been a long time coming We had waited for it, expected it for months whilst shed trees stood leafless, the wind's bite grew colder, the nights started in the afternoon but despite two morning of frost and the preparations for winter, it wasn't to be felt in our bones till now
We had always equated winter with snow It began with the first snow's fall and ended with the final thaw Less time consistent the snow for us was a more practical definition than that of any calendar
Gillamoor looked great that day, the done-heather brown over the hillside, bare trees exposing the moor to view Surprise View still surprises by its continuing ability to do so The low November sun sought out the shades as numerous as the lights of brown in your hair That day I was not hurtling down the motorway to meet you I was cutting over the moors to the North East's coast It wasn't you I was meeting that day but you'd have enjoyed the drive and the subsequent lunch on the pier by the sea
1974 Strath (UK) 1980 THE RAINBOW AND OTHER POEMS (Heckmondwyke, Fighting Cock Press) 1988 Iota 1990 Verve (USA) 2007 MIND AND BODY (York, Fighting Cock Press)
I leave you here now before you leave me You are about to go I guess you knew all the time just what you would do You tried so to love me but could never be true with your right foot in his world and the wrong one in mine I go now before you do I haven't the strength to watch you go I'll make it easy for your reasoning to accept your action without remorse There will be tears in several eyes both yours and mine
Six a.m. The full early morning moon lit my way to you though the traffic was thick
Away the next morning Four a.m. The moon not yet risen Beyond the city limits the vehicles I shared my twentyone miles of road with numbered only seven The last seven miles I was completely alone but for a cat that crossed my path The leaves were fallen in the road Brown windswirled leaves shone up in headlights, crackled under tyres that trod on leafstrewn highways The trees, shed now of clothes, were naked in the dark, exposed to the searching glare of lights that shone not with full intensity through emotion-clouded glass, yet clear enough to perceive the new blossoming that will occur come spring
So this is Brighton home of Dowdon, George and sundry other socalled poets of lesser note The beach is all pebbles and none of them flat enough for skimming They have a peculiar way too of numbering the streets consecutively up one side and down again the other
There were so many beautiful girls about walking around I looked at them all and thought of you You were not there amongst all those beautiful girls I could not find you The motorway had been harsh the climate warm until the fog descended around five a.m. I could have stayed but you were not there I left made fruitless phone calls filled the car with petrol, myself with tea, drove down to the dead-end coast watched the ocean's roar I thought of you in New York or flying the Atlantic, perhaps in Belgium, in a train or maybe even back in London now and looking for me I need you more than ever now though you don't know why nor can Tomorrow I shall make retreat to wait some more but not to stand around nor to serve for aught less than return's totality
I guess I always knew it couldn't be true I only said what I knew I must Only what I knew in my heart over which I had so little control
No one told any lies of consequence We saw the problems as they came Saw through them No need to speak of demolition and a falling
I used you like you use Laurie You used me like Laurie uses you Not that Laurie came between us It was just ourselves and you and I
You want my love but need it less I need your love but want it less You rebel to try to loose yourself I rebel to try to find myself
Go hide yourself in the busy city streets and leave me to the wild high moors We'll meet again and not by accident There still will be no need to speak.
Why are your poems so full of country images? It was the confessed citylovingliving girl who asked I hadn't noticed It was he who knew the countryside who answered he whose thoughts roamed about the wild moors lapped about the shores of a lake became thick as forests rose high as the birds Yet he lives in a city Sheffield's not a city she said Not like London New York San Francisco What's a city? He thought of the wilder parts of Hampstead Heath The Serpentine that serves well as any lake the forest around Walthamstow and Epping The birds sing over London too He thought of the journey along Attercliffe Road or up Brightside to the motorway of traffic lights huge shops and factories She thought of The Tate The British Museum of supermarkets open until midnight Then they looked up at the sky in London there was a red dust glow New York was worse the stars were seen in a haze over Sheffield but on Brackenhill Common every star shone clear and bright.
there was a ten percent loss of sound under bridges the noise too of other traffic at times disrupted bach's b minor mass direct from st. pauls over the car radio carried us from settle to wakefield we weren't after perfection were totally satisfied with ninety percent
You left me several packets of your special hotel coffee Its pure ground freshness has spoilt my tastebuds for the supermarket's instant brand that leaves the palate flat Now every cup of coffee that I drink reminds me of you the strong aroma in a tiny cup the elusiveness of the really perfect brew I drink — drank deeply There's one packet yet left I cannot buy it over here so I drink now a weaker brew and I've started looking for some better coffee to buy but I'll not find anything to more than substitute.
We left the valley in sunshine climbed steeply to the high hills where sheep outnumbered far the passing cars There the rain met our ascent with mist obscuring the views Surrounded by mist and by moor we were totally enclosed in our own world The beat of the rain and the bleating of sheep were alien sounds I wanted to explain unable to show the beauty of grass and heatherclad moorland the tarn shimmering in sunlight to our right and Penyghent rearing up in front of us There was none of this to be seen Enshrouded in our own world it mattered only that we were there
Sat in the car on Royd Moor Lane, by a rubbish tip and a tar machine, a dog named Robert came walking by, hopping on three feet Its front, right paw lay limp and we watched that dog named Robert go by before resuming our kissing
1972 FOR HER VOLUME ONE (Pontefract, Poet's Press of Osgoldcross) 1988 Z Magazine (Isle of Man) 1991 Camellia (USA) 1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International) 1999 Unlikely Stories (Internet)
her eyes are the most beautiful eyes in the world her eyes have seen the glamour of life her eyes have seen the sordid seemy side her eyes live in fear of life her eyes live in hope for life her eyes see without looking her eyes talk too much her eyes are two in number that is functional her eyes cry saltwet tears her eyes are happy laughing eyes her eyes are the most beautiful eyes in the world
The bones of the dead city lie rotting in mud The bones in the quagmire are rotten with bugs Bugs are feeding on the bones of the dead city Bacterial decay is ripe in the bones in the quagmire Enzymatic action is rotting the quagmired bones Decomposed bone turns slowly to dust The Laws of Thermodynamics and the Laws of God demand it What lived now dies The total universal energy is not changed The bones of the dead city lie in the quagmire Bugridden mud is the scene of decay Bacteria, once dormant now thrive and multiply The city is dead, even its bones which lie in the mud where another colony now lives
"wise men say only fools rush in but I can't help falling in love with you" - Popsong lyric by Johnny Mercer and Rube Bloom
i was never so wise as to avoid the rush of the crosswinds on the motorway the quiet of the service station is disturbed by the early morning birds singing in the dawn over the tarmac so i breakfast shave wash cleanteeth and wait listening to pop music on the car radio waiting o I always was the precipitous fool i know last night i said i love you when you answered how can you that did it I knew then that i could not help myself
(1st public performance, Lincoln Centre, New York 1962, Conductor: Hindemith. 1st public performance in U.K., York Minster, 13th May 1972, Conductor: Frances Jackson)
I
Crescendo
It is quiet today in New York Flowers bloom in New York today The air is still waiting The sounds of war are distant We who hear you now know here in York in '72 for the first living time in public the crescendo builds Did they in New York in '62 know too ? And yourself as Jackson now the Minster reverberating with the sounds of your becoming epitaph The seal is set it cannot now be broken The movement will come to an end It lies still
II
(Allegro)
It goes on Your breakfast is served Life retains its hum-drum reality But there's a stirring in the air Ah Hindemith they knew you well those who perceive the chords in the air not yet cut not yet surmised No awareness of scissors the sharpness is an octave higher There's life in the magic still Who knows where it leads ? Beneath the city the subway carries its herd of commuters The traffic sits waiting for the red to change to green as amber flashes There can be nothing pedestrian here The movement is leading home
III
Canzonetta in triads and two ritornelli
The music is written There are no words to be said And yet can even the tongue cease its quest ? The quiet rumblings are soon enough heard The words cannot be stopped The music is not all that is written
IV
Phantasy on "Veni Creator Spiritus"
The time has come Hindemith You knew you old devil you You knew the spirit was not created only for you But you took it Yet it took you too and you left leaving us this this your fantasy You are gone from New York You are gone too from York Play it out orchestra and organ your musical orgasm It is coming for you It is coming for us None of us can escape You have left us this It was all you had And we needed it This you couldn't take We thank you for leaving us our own fantasy All creation ends in creation Only the dust is lost O Master Musician go now depart in peace We send you flowers but no tears We will bury you as befits The flowers will bloom tomorrow on your grave You are done with us But we are not done with you
