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LATE SONG
Now the paths’colours are dwindling
and all the brightness has gone,
count I the notches I’m whittling,
singing a very late song;
hearing the rot in the building
hearing how time past me flees,
hark to the fire as it’s sinking
and to the wind in the trees.
Quietest of quiet with me sharing,
no more the loved one could bear;
where stumbling lines I’m preparing
finish at night, no-one’s there.
Nothing remains — much was precious —
nothing, now time past me flees,
nothing, now fire burns to ashes
and the wind blows in the trees.
Now that my country forgets me
What I say here, no-one’s heard,
I’ll serenade, if they’ ll let me
those whom it doesn’t disturb;
sing to the rot in the building,
sing to the time as it flees,
sing to the fire as it’s sinking
and to the wind in the trees.
REQUIEM FOR A FASCIST
In every way you were the type they favoured,
today I’m shocked to think we were so close;
the revelling I liked you also savoured
your week-long rambles were the ones I chose.
Like me you found it similarly shocking
that clever-clever stuff without real urge,
that picking over words and silly mocking;
a lovely wildness was what you preferred.
who knows when you, while marching to decay,
became aware of that insignia on them?
You lie a fallen man on Judgement Day.
By my own hand life for you could have ended;
yet none of us had patience, as we ought,
to show the way in words you comprehended:
your death is ours, it’s also my fault.
These lines I’m writing for you in the evening,
as crickets rub their legs with shrilly sound,
you loved that, and the sticky sap that’s seeping
from alders rank where beetles circle round.
That we should not forget Death and Beginning,
when everyone has bread and with it wine,
like one possessed, exuberantly singing,
shall, brother, be this sad lament of mine.
INSPECTING A NEW ROOM
The window frames are eaten through with rust,
the courtyard holds a rotting pile of dust,
a busy spider spins his silken thread,
a tomcat shows the sun its scabby head.
A faded bedspread on the narrow bed,
an iron washstand, shelf for books I’ ve read,
two chairs, a table and a narrow chest,
a coatrack and a couch make up the rest.
No brass band blares, no neighbour makes a sound,
just muddled noises reach me from the ground,
a place to mediate — I feel its spell:
here I can write and know I'll do it well.
TOMORROW THE MILKMAN WILL KNOCK
IN VAIN
Knocking at the door tomorrow morning
is the milkman waiting to be paid;
knocking all in vain tomorrow morning,
finding that no bottles are displayed.
Midday and the landlord eyes the Rust wine,
which he keeps to give me when I pass;
midday and the landlord takes the Rust wine
pours it into someone else’s glass.
And tomorrow evening shall the cat come
*cross the sill and rub against the glass;
and tomorrow evening shall the cat come
sniffing through the putty the sweet gas.
SELF PORTRAIT 1946
Hair is bushy and bedraggled
and with strands of grey bespangled,
in my gut a painful gripping
now my heart has started tripping.
What I hate is the half-hearted,
me and money are soon parted;
what I know’s not much, but solid
all those know-it-alls can sod it.
From the first the poor have won me,
sympthy is often shown me;
and I’ve needed it in shovels —
for we’re all the same poor devils.
Blue and swollen veins are showing,
undeterred my pen is flowing;
daily pleasure writing gives me:
something of it will outlive me.
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