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I am telling myself the story of my life, |
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stranger than song or fiction. |
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We start with the joyful mysteries, |
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before the appearance of ether, |
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trying to capture the elusive: |
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the farm where the crippled horses heal, |
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the woods where autumn is reversed, |
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and the longing for bliss in the arms |
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of some beloved from the past. |
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I said 'Your daddy loves you'. |
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I said 'Your daddy loves you very much'; |
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he just doesn't want to live with us anymore'. |
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The plane comes down behind enemy lines |
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and you don't speak the language. |
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A girl takes pity on you: |
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she is Mother Theresa walking among the poor, |
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and her eyes have attained night vision. |
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In an orchard, drenched in blue light, |
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she changes your bandages and soothes you. |
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All day her voice is balm, |
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then she lowers you into the sunset. |
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Hers is the wing span of the quotidian angel, |
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so her feet are sore from the walk |
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to the well of human kindness, |
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but she gives you a name and you grow into it. |
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Whether a tramp of the low road or a prince, |
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riding through Wagnerian opera, |
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you learn some, if not all, of the language. |
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And these are the footsteps you follow |
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- the tracks of impossible love. |
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12 days in Paris, |
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and I am awaiting for life to start. |
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In the lobby of the Hotel Charlemagne |
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they are hanging photographs |
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of Rap artists and minor royalty. |
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All cigarettes have been air-brushed from these pictures, |
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making everyone a liar, |
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and saving no-one from their folly. |
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As proud as Lucifer, I do nothing to hide |
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my kerosene dress and flint eyes |
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- which with one steady look, are able to restore |
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to these images their carcinogenic threat. |
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So what if this is largely bravado? |
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I have only 12 days in Paris |
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and I'm waiting for life to start. |
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I'm setting out my stall behind a sheet of dark hair, |
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and you, the hostage of crazed hormones, |
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will be driven to say: |
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'I am the next poet laureate |
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and she is the cherry madonna, |
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and all of the summer is hers.' |
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At first I don't notice you, |
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or the colour of your hair, |
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or your readiness to laugh. |
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I am tying a shoelace, |
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or finding the pavement fascinating |
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when the comet thrills the sky. |
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Ever the dull alchemist. |
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I have before me all the necessary elements: |
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it is their combination that eludes me. |
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Forgive me ... I am sleepwalking. |
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I am jangling along to some song of the moment, |
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suffering its sweetness, |
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luxuriating in its feeble approximation of starlight. |
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Meanwhile there is a real world ... |
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trains are late, doctors are breaking bad news, |
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but I am living in a lullaby. |
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You might be huddled in a doorway on the make, |
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or just getting by, but I don't see it. |
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You are my one shot at glory. |
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Soon I will read in your expression |
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warmth, encouragement, assent. |
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From an acorn of interest |
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I will cultivate whole forests of affection. |
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I will analyse your gestures |
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like centuries of scholars |
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pouring over Jesus' words. |
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Anything that doesn't fit my narrow interpretation |
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I will carelessly discard. |
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For I am careless... I'm shameless... and - |
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('Mayday, Mayday, watch the needle leave the dial') |
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I am reckless, |
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I am telling myself the story of my life. |
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Soon, I will make you a co-conspirator: |
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if I am dizzy I will call it rapture; |
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if I am low I will attribute it to your absence, |
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noting your tidal effect upon my moods. |
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Oblivious to the opinions of neighbours |
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I will bark at the moon like a dog. |
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In short, I'm asking to be scalded. |
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It is the onset of fever. |
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Yesterday they took a census. |
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Boasting, I said 'I live two doors down from joy.' |
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Today, bewildered and sarcastic, I phone them and ask |
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'Isn't it obvious? This slum is empty.' |
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Repeat after me: happiness is only a habit. |
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I am listening to the face in the mirror |
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but I don't think I believe what she's telling me. |
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Her words are modern, but her eyes have been weeping |
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in gardens and grottoes since the Middle Ages. |
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This is the aftermath of fever. |
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I cool the palms of my hands upon the bars |
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of an imaginary iron gate. |
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Only by an extreme act of will can I avoid |
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becoming a character in a country song: |
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'Lord, y'gave me nothin', then y'took it all away.' |
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These are the sorrowful mysteries, |
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and I have to pay attention. |
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In a chamber of my heart sits an accountant. |
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He is frowning and waving red paper at me. |
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I go to the window for air. |
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I catch the scent of apples, |
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I hunger for a taste, |
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but I can't see the orchard for the rain. |
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There are two ways of looking at this. |
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The first is to accept that you are gone, |
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and to light a candle at the shrine of amnesia. |
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(I could even cheat). |
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In the subterranean world of anaesthetics |
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sad white canoes are forever sailing downstream |
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in the early hours of the morning. |
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'Tell the stars I'm coming, |
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make them leave a space for me; |
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whether bones, or dust, |
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or ashes once among them I'll be free.' |
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It may make a glamorous song |
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but it's dark train of thought |
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with too many carriages. |
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There is, of course, |
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another way of looking at this: |
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'Your daddy loves you,' I said |
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'Your daddy loves you very much; |
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he just doesn't want to live with us anymore.' |
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I am telling myself the story of my life. |
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By day and night, fancy electronic dishes |
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are trained on the heavens. |
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They are listening for smudged echoes |
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of the moment of creation. |
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They are listening for the ghost of a chance. |
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They may help us make sense of who we are |
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and where we came from; |
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and, as a compassionate side effect, |
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teach us that nothing is ever lost. |
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So... I rake the sky. |
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I listen hard. |
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I trawl the megahertz. |
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But the net isn't fine enough, |
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and I miss you |
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- a swan sailing between two continents, |
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a ghost immune to radar. |
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Still, my eyes are fixed upon |
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the place I last saw you, |
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your signal urgent but breaking, |
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before you became cotton in a blizzard, |
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a plane coming down behind enemy lines. |
