Hill
(i.m.
Geoffrey Hill)
Remove
your hard-hat, turn off the hazard lights.
You do the philosophy in different voices,
with Heraclitus travel through gloom. You think
the deceased are not the dead: the dead
do not cease.
Your
poem had an effect on me: it smelt like
cold music, exercise of war. It points away from
you, who are dead, who was not thought out or down.
Nor is music sound.
Deities
use us as the lenses
through which they see the shadows of themselves
gather wing. As one sweeps one is swept
in turn. Stories froth through us.
In our time
the masters
of the white vans refine what
cannot be said. The frowning nurse fulfils
the prophecy. The kite-flyers fish for gods.
Roadsides strew with canisters of nox.
The
assembled dead are new-fallen
sibilant leaves. Call-waiting music
purls among the many tongued ghosts.
A question concerns the Sibyl: is strong
art made by the angry, or the unwise.
The void.
Heading
towards the speed-awareness course
that had been delayed due to your death
you said the higher arcs of heaven take space
among the bearded dead.
Your
pockets are full of lint, your chest of Christ.
The soles of your shoes are aligned. Your dust
serves for bones and in the exhausting flames you are
shelved. Lucifer was your match. Your roots
trouble the soil.
The
Landing
The
landing was uneventful.
I descended the steps three or four at a time,
but I did not like reaching the bottom.
We found we could jump unusually high.
Everything gleamed: this
was the first landing, the first I remember,
I remember walking on it, and observing closely
the dust on the surface, I could even
touch it, and under the gleaming door hear
father’s weakening breathing.
Old
Couple
How deformed they are, the older couples,
worn down to practicalities, bones
of the necessary: barking
at each other. There is an egotism of two
a solipsism in the way they
open a door, the colossus of what they were alas
measuring them upon the ground.
The lettuce curls the milk turns
in the fridge close the door. This is your home.
You do the philosophy in different voices,
with Heraclitus travel through gloom. You think
the deceased are not the dead: the dead
do not cease.
cold music, exercise of war. It points away from
you, who are dead, who was not thought out or down.
Nor is music sound.
through which they see the shadows of themselves
gather wing. As one sweeps one is swept
in turn. Stories froth through us.
In our time
cannot be said. The frowning nurse fulfils
the prophecy. The kite-flyers fish for gods.
Roadsides strew with canisters of nox.
sibilant leaves. Call-waiting music
purls among the many tongued ghosts.
A question concerns the Sibyl: is strong
art made by the angry, or the unwise.
The void.
that had been delayed due to your death
you said the higher arcs of heaven take space
among the bearded dead.
The soles of your shoes are aligned. Your dust
serves for bones and in the exhausting flames you are
shelved. Lucifer was your match. Your roots
trouble the soil.
I descended the steps three or four at a time,
but I did not like reaching the bottom.
We found we could jump unusually high.
Everything gleamed: this
was the first landing, the first I remember,
I remember walking on it, and observing closely
the dust on the surface, I could even
touch it, and under the gleaming door hear
father’s weakening breathing.
How deformed they are, the older couples,
worn down to practicalities, bones
of the necessary: barking
at each other. There is an egotism of two
a solipsism in the way they
open a door, the colossus of what they were alas
measuring them upon the ground.
The lettuce curls the milk turns
in the fridge close the door. This is your home.