Photographs At Heptonstall One On stone Yorkshire walls they sit four who have come expecting surprise, the sky a cloudless blue, cows grazing lost in a frosted sunshine. Buttercups dispirit the grass, yellow smiles nodded affably, oddly, intact for no other reason than them being there. And you are here to entertain or be entertained. The one without smiles wears red shoes, holds a fistful of buttercups high in remembrance of what there is around. There is nothing around. Stone Yorkshire walls black, jagged as teeth serve an idle purpose: that which has spoken cannot be contained, no such isolation exists though there be much whitening of bones. Two It is hard at nineteen to be electrified by words lifting themselves from white pages, have them eat themselves, always there, always there. It is hard at nineteen to be given words you felt but could not have spoken. I met you first at POETRY in a bookshop, lifted you down, nondescript, a little dull, opened up and left myself. I took you home, used you as lonely men would use pornography, each word spoken over and again. I ran to everyone with your excellence, words spilled from my mouth like the cross of Christ bleeding into the hearts of those who do not care, the world's worship ended. At University they said do not become attached, but it was too late, I had already given over my senses. In me your words rant rages I have known, am knowing still, in me your words tamper with a temper far too difficult to mention. Three The others said you've looked long enough, come to the pub. I said go and I shall follow, religions are not so easily vanquished. I stood and looked at white stone, the flame red of the lotus bearing down still, grass and wild flowers beckoning, the mentioning of names, Sylvia Plath-Hughes. I could not leave without presents. I had only buttercups you knew so well. I laid them down and said these are not medicines but are yellow, my way of smiling at you, woman I never knew but know now, then followed the others long since gone. Four 23 Fitzroy Road to dead slate, Hitler gas, Christ's sweet crown. No cross touches your dead head, too raw and real to be alive, beautiful as babies who first fix eyes then smile as Beethoven in the opening of his sixth. I said vodka please and vodka please and bored them with your brilliance. I came with those who do not love you as I love you, splendid mother dead in your blacks. They took me home but I stayed there, grey and dull, miles from anywhere, miles from home. Five Isis mother of my being, I, too, know mirrors, moons reflecting seas that devestate. I, too, have known electric smiles that dance away heartbeats, the doctor saying I understand, how do you feel, looking through windows never cleaned at something not yet there. There is nothing ever there mother of the bible each night I lay my head to fasten shut my eyes, imagine somewhere dynasties making golden moons, effigies of God, Auschwitz, those places used and then abandoned as history, the black boot of your Daddy slouching on, long and isolated, mutterings of a moon gone wrong. Six And this is what I meant, this is what I have always meant, here with death, the cold, the isolation of the wind cutting skinds, the terror of eyes that see nothing, the mouth fixed into a vacancy, then mumblings of the past coming like a lioness to kill, efface the evening, dragging language back to light the fire of a god, here, Yorkshire, the cold eye of fever informing the flowers, the long passage of a love passing through, the innocence of soul, I wide-eyed at something special now gone although spirits haunt in their infancy then vanish, the last word spoken in departure.
John Cornwall
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