club-footed ghoul come near me.I am not yet born, console me.I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.I am not yet born; provide meWith water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees…
I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantriesTo the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams:Thence to Smoky Carrick in County AntrimWhere the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud which jamsThe little boats beneath the Norman castle,The pier shining with lumps of crystal salt;The Scotch Quarter was a line of residential…
Building motley housesAnd knocking down your housesAnd always building more.The doll was called Christina,Her under-wear was lace,She smiled while you dressed herAnd when you then undressed herShe kept a smiling face.Until the day she tumbledAnd broke herself in twoAnd her legs and arms were hollowAnd her yellow head was hollowBehind her eyes of blue.He went…
Sitting alone in the empty dining hall…From the chandeliers the snow begins to fallPiling around carafes and table legsAnd chokes the passage of the revolving door.The last diner, like a ventriloquist’s dollLeft by his master, gazes before him, begs:‘Only let it form within my hands once more.’
Through fields of mustard and under boldly embattledMays and chestnutsOr between beeches verdurous and voluptuousOr where broom and gorse beflagged the chalkland–All the flare and gusto of the unenduringJoys of a seasonNow returned but I note as more appropriateTo the maturer mood impending thunderWith an indigo sky and the garden hushed except forThe treetops moving.Then…
Through that forest of dead wordsI would hunt the living birds –So I write these lines for youWho have felt the death-wish too,All the wires are cut, my friendsLive beyond the severed ends.
Their knickers are made of crepe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python,Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with head of bison.John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey,Kept its…
Man’s heart expands to tinker with his carFor this is Sunday morning, Fate’s great bazaar;Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now,And you may grow to music or drive beyond Hindhead anyhow,Take corners on two wheels until you go so fastThat you can clutch a fringe or two of the windy past,That you can…
To reveal a lawn where a great yellow ball rolls back through a hoopTo rest at the head of a mallet held in the hands of a child.And these were the joys of that house: a tower with a telescope;Two great faded globes, one of the earth, one of the stars;A stuffed black dog in…
When I was five the black dreamscame;Nothing after was quite the same.When I woke they did not care;Nobody, nobody was there.In my childhood trees were greenAnd there was plenty to be seen.When my silent terror cried,Nobody, nobody replied.I got up; the chilly sunSaw me walk away alone.My mother wore a yellow dress;Gentle, gently, gentleness.The dark…
