Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Angel #AngelRisingPartEight
She said her sacrifices never ceased
that it would come right, in the end, at least
and, if not, it wasn’t the end – oh, clever:
but, of course, she could not last forever.
Buttered words like these were not hers
in any case, just an ice queen’s borrowed furs.
Nor they a sister’s, a wife’s, a lover’s
and certainly not any sickly mother,
who was left behind, well provided for
but painted in, awaiting on dry floors
that never seem to come; contemplated
some cornered children’s hidden faces
punished until torn tears dug trenches,
left hanging outside white picket fences
pegged to lines. It takes time to fill moats
deep enough to launch and float a lifeboat
and some say water enough does not exist,
or that the effort is not worth the risk.
If an Angel came of stained-glass wings,
she’d crick her neck to hear her sing,
to console the needy and soothing bring
beneath night’s black cloak. You’d bury heads
in pillows soaked; pull over sheets in dread
in case her honeyed verbs batter ear drums
and your resolve dissolves to comfort crumbs:
Hearing slippering song, she comes, she comes.
I am awake, yet, last night, had such dreams,
I thought I was in Cymbeline.
Of tides that lap the shore
like dogs do lap at bowls
and in taking water, watch fall
more water drops than drink withal.
Or in theatres,
having seen plaster Shakespeares disappear
through high ceilings, above the Gods
where the end is just beginning
to consider sinning
and yet, he says, that ends only are this:
the lives you crushed after you had kissed,
gripped in your grubby hand;
squeezed until syrup slid down wrists
to congeal upon an ash cindered floor;
not as important as the journey to the doors
which fall forwards sequential in shape of iron keys
to form around the perfect slot,
you’ll twist and twist and twist,
but opening upon not a looping rope,
but torchlit tunnels made from telescopes.
If the end will come
and we can ascend,
we will await our time
upon these barren lunar rocks,
heave to,
settle here on sterile dust.
Watching for lifesigns
amongst spiky craters deep
to wake from sleep,
for when the moon will set
at the rise of sun.
Why did you come here, old friend,
after all these searching years?
Inside night’s half dark glass, I heard your laugh,
saw your full set, generous smile,
and how once, snow fell thick on Lemon Street,
penetrated cloth slippers, soaked your feet,
while you brought hot drinks to greet
those drivers stuck and slipping.
Recalled how long ago, I set out upon this voyage
to bring you home. But these visions of your song
reminds me how they’ve all gone,
all of them, how old fights become meaningless
in Satan’s borrowed wings’ half shadow.
I only can shake my puny, weathered fist,
and realize that the only risk
was to my already beaten reputation,
that I put a thief in my hollow mouth and cried,
‘you died, you died’ and you stayed dead.
Why take my bass guitar and wreathe yourself
in its deep timbre and sounds concentric
with plectrum pluck and song electric
flooding outwards while you sit within
until waves mesh, reverberate and bring
back what was sent?
But all my senses tell me this is false,
in our lifetimes you did not learn keys,
no majors, mixolydians or minors read,
yet here you sit and pleased to receive
that applause that should be, by rights, mine.
My instrument is placed in a wrong position
upon your knee,
hambone lamb-shanked fingers attack strings
and no harmony comes forth; feedback stings,
assaults my senses and confusion rings.
It seems in rhyme schemes,
distances between us only widen,
do not diminish,
but always grows further apart;
so, I did lack those black arts
in pact promised Faustus.
Even though I summon soft,
there exists not words enough
and Angels that do promise much, smile before they fall to
dust.
‘Well, it seems to me, old friend, that such magic
can only bring you sorrow,
don’t think of the past, but of tomorrow.
‘Long ago I left you here to swallow
words that did not exist in my time;
had not been coined and spent
in some sort of miserable attempt
to fill hungry bellies; pay rent,
or fog your thinking minds with smoke,
spin gummy ghost webs, cast carbon cloaks.
‘What are they now? Austerity, Brexit, Covid,
from every double-dealing politician’s tongue
slipped glib the phrase ‘get Brexit done’,
and all other declaratives under the sun
spilled from banal, negligent, evil lungs,
too lacking in any wit to catalogue here.
‘What’s done’s done, cannot be undone, move on,
immigrants on their paper boats still come.
I can’t rest if you bring me back:
Those final years, I tried so hard to retrieve
a possession lost who made me grieve,
broken she was, beyond any repair,
as for whys, for wheres, for in the ends she didn’t care,
that tear in her fabric was always there,
‘let forever be’, she cried, ‘let it be forever’,
she always opened to close reveal
what it was that would not heal;
in my compulsive pursuit, I broke us too.
‘Oh, my dear, you’d some part in it, true,
but here I am, if just for a short while.
You grasp it correctly, my friend,
wise journeys lie not without but within:
why travel to find the sublime
if diamonds spark within the mind,
say casually in some bar, ‘I’ve seen that too’
because, in these plurals lies the fallacy.
Or chant: ‘I am a great man, rare, unique’?
You will be found, if that’s indeed the truth,
and your indelible imprint put to use.
Most will not listen, will never hear
that which they do not want or fear.
As for me? Having sung my waking song,
take my hand and let’s move along.’
In doing so, now drill and row
hard seeds beneath the snow;
Angel possessed of melting breath will thaw what we will
sow.
This place, I know.
A dark path winding through thick trees ascending
purple mountainside, here’s a schoolboy wending
his meandering way.
Taking up this airy oxbow
while waters washed shrink slow,
sink deep within muddy floors
from rushed waterfalls without cause;
billow deciduous shedding and stiff pricking conifers
who score skies until they weep.
Beyond this rise,
rhododendroned corners deep
in twisted thickets creep
and border a five barred gate that creaks,
painfully shudders upon hinged bolts
when shouldered, reluctant to give up passage,
who knows all who hesitate are lost;
stranded sticklebacks who gasp and cough,
as imagination withers, bespiked by frost.
Some thousand interior stories loop and played
like celluloid, drama for his invisible crowd,
and any applause is not out loud,
but rattled gravels within this boyish cowl.
Why bring us here?
This place exhumes ancient fears,
it reeks, presumes a past perfect given voice, speaks
with obsolete breath unsweet,
vapours of mulch and peat decayed
beckons forward the lost who strayed,
scattered dot pixel pasts bleed onto a future page
that gnaws at its grey static edges.
‘I bring us to burn
what futures could there be:
what satisfaction can we get tonight?
Pinned moths upon green baize
and diamond nine balls, three by three
are cannonballs deployed at sea
from some unholed destroyer,
rolling upon backwash.
Let’s not force this unwilling gate,
or press our shoulders, flesh to iron,
there’s no point, we have laid these spooks to rest.
‘Just beyond his rise and around her corner lies
that old-framed lawn, expanding wide, an apron tied
to their house by strings,
where we might still see him ride,
cutting and trimming grasses down to size,
numerous unruly reeds that grow in clumps and defy
even his pump handled burnished flamethrower,
belching forth never enough flame to truly tame.
‘Yes, my friend,
they are beyond us now and far below,
we have put to sea, set sail, the distance grows
like space between planets,
and upon gorse moors, granite still stands tall,
even if they will never relinquish
sweet syrups crushed by fists,
or desist in pouring scorn into everything we valued,
like funneled oil clogging up arteries
to stopper the heart,
later retract, take it back,
as though such ideas were their own
and they had loved them all along.
We must set this gate upon its latch,
because the time has comes to purge our veins
see what has left and what remains.’
Wait. He remembers this tortoiseshell cat,
in ginger, white, black,
friendly in trust curled upon his lap, warm fur,
she would purr. And six kittens, unplanned
that, one day appeared from under his bunk bed
where she must have nested.
Later, carrying one of her litter with care,
to a small house built up there
upon what must have seemed a giant hill
to his small legs, and presented to his teacher
like a certificate: she ruffled his hair,
passed him hard ginger chocolates,
that delighted the lips and snagged the teeth
– still later yet, for a childish bet,
and at his friend’s bidding
he rode his bicycle down that same steep slope
because he had been forbidden.
It was not worth the beating,
and friends who urged him to do the same,
have long since flamed out,
lost to time, become shaping shadows.
Yet, his cat remains.
She enters this present undergrowth, hides;
upon her mouth, around her eyes
scars that were not so before,
some remembered accident, a small horror
that into this soft-stuffing body ploughed,
and she never again cried out loud,
but disappeared inside, somehow.
And, on casting this creature aside, I now recall,
when he was still small,
they screamed: “She once was your favourite,
unfeeling, deplorable and wretched,”
and then yoked a child’s back to barley sack
until those brittles buckled, wracked, snapped,
then asked to consider whether he was fit
to be bedded in that barn,
we would soon come upon,
if we took this turn.
‘Leave it now and do not stay,
come away Geordie, come away:
While in solid state your memory is still sound,
my friend, we should, I think plunge instead
into these caverns bent of dense rhododendron
overlapping, forming canopies overhead,
where once shrouded, he hid.
These deep holes that border her aprons green,
form pockets where they searched unseen,
for this is where his music died.
See dog-eared scrapbook, bulging wide,
its spine struggling to even contain
those childish cuttings of faded newsprint.’
This is the cruelest cut of all:
They chopped him dead,
filled his opened treasure chest with lead,
if he fell, he bled, then gasps,
“I’m shot, I’m shot,”
more in surprise you would think,
with blinding lights inside his head
watching Dakota fade to black.
Any amount of candle lit vigils,
will never bring back
music that the world now lacks,
which can only be imagined.
He was robbed, my friend, robbed,
by an vicious, malicious, smiteful God
and his agent, a notoriety seeking moron
masked behind pistol-whipped face
asking for autographs holding that same pen
he could not write with, but yearned,
had not learned, in envy burned,
some no brained budget chained
bargain basement Holden Caulfield.
The first of many, it must be said,
who variously tread that self-same path
to fame; the nearest way, a mug’s game.
While hateful do those two demons in disdain
sneer as time before him fluxed and changed.
Oh, how they mocked, called him out,
rewrote timelines in their own image,
yet, at the end, now they do pretend
all along they did acclaim, in repentance or defense.
Yet I am now willing to concede you were indeed
John, my friend, in baptism plunging
through fire. Opened my eyes to new ideas,
and headstrong in pursuit of life, burned bright,
and all too soon took flight.
Whilst here I remain in this place,
play rhythms in your shadow on plodding bass.
‘Just so, here’s one: “Let me tell you ’bout the Manfreds,
the music they were putting down,
like a song of love is a sad, sad song,
but don’t ask me how I know
you sat at the window and watched the rain
and tomorrow you’ll probably love again.”
Look. Underneath this underbrush glows
those fires that heat their cauldron boiling,
around the circumference they’re toiling,
“hubbly, bubbly, hubble, bubble”,
your three witches and their bitches' brew,
will do and do and do.’
I can see them plain, those three self-same,
who delight in bedraggled hearts cross moors and plains,
witness them wither in foul rains,
in that place where Matthew did for Charlotte
that she may never come home again.
Ah, how many nights did he lift that phone?
Sat black out here on the rim, alone,
queried what time is love, what time returning,
cord twisting, receiver burning,
through the deluge, watch stumbling drunken sot:
him pushing pennies into slots,
they swallow them all, they eat the lot,
rain hammering down upon the box,
until he hears five orange pips.
Turn the decades, turn, they no longer stand,
instead, here’s a mobile in his hand:
and yet the result is much the same.
Who’s to blame? He cares not,
It is not the writer of the song at fault,
but those who misappropriate and misquote,
tunelessly screaming at the top of their lungs
‘Goodbye, American Pie’, ‘Sweet Caroline’,
or something equally asinine,
in some pitiful corner of some piss-poor bar,
sour beers on tap, to huddle and crow.
If you have lips, then speak. What are you,
so withered, so decayed, so bride stripped bare,
of wild eyes and undershrubbed hair?
Can you hear me? Have you no words
to curdle milk and sour cream,
or do you live deep in our screams?
Angel, Angel, I hear your call
of one so cruel, of one so small,
from life’s edge I summon you forth and watch me crawl.
The first of these with eyes that tease,
he remembers them and how long it took,
before the organs from their sockets flopped,
once in her eyes, he there did see,
in seeming old, how she was young,
such cruelty that sprang forth from tongues,
air given birth from modest lungs,
that had no age within to fully form,
even as on those sinful lips spawned scorn
scattered forth, like pale-green seed corn
which yet had fully to take mature root.
Remember how once they had made love
on some sultry affectionate afternoon,
afterwards, how she wept, she swooned
with sobs torn and wrenched from her breast,
how she implored, how she begged,
“never leave me”, with tears that showered
lay listening to his chest for hours on hours.
Deeper yet, a face he did forget,
or at least he thought it had not haunted him
and yet, he now suspects it isn’t so.
How he did turn his back in love he lacked,
then side to side the mirror cracked,
in charms that come upon them. What chance?
They were young, newborn to romance
and looked for others with whom to dance,
no blame is here, soft fade, my dear,
he chides you not and sees it clear.
Here’s one that balefully would stare,
if indeed she’d eyes that had not rotted there,
fallen into that noxious cauldron, cooked,
to leave bone nose that’s fish-hooked,
vile in its aspect. In her hands, scissors sharp,
ground and ground upon whetting stones,
who yielded sparks, who issued moans
where once winsome digits plucked at harp.
She will take that bloody tool and lacerate,
into briefcase bundle hate,
put poisons onto his plate
then walk away. Until some day
she feels the need to unburden, writes to say,
some such excuse, he knows not what,
away, away, away.
Angel, of course, it must be you
arrived at last, how high you flew,
shimmered into view, too many words spilt, of milky hue.
How high she climbed,
manifest, made flesh from misplaced time,
that many a night and oft
as he tossed, she blossomed,
painted leaves upon his barren trees
and while all was lost he once believed,
she brought forth verse in new birth,
to make fertile his infertile earth.
Like a colossus she does bestride,
cried, “hit me” then bust, he will from behind her skirts
creep, and, like all other petty men, peep.
Now let him stroke, one last time,
that flushed cheek,
please this be the last,
he will let her forever pass.
Will she now to him speak?
Or to her crimson lips a finger press
and, in silence, there let it rest?
‘He sees her too.
She comes to him, not you.
Feels like Banquo himself - lesser, yet greater,
how, in death, he would not continue to hate her,
knowing how his line will not stretch out
until the crack of doom,
feel her, even now, fill up his empty room.
He will never get kings, nor be none,
and she wears a face you did not describe
in words set down,
or an aspect written upon these sheets,
therefore it is him, not you, she greets.
Her gaze is cool, like waters quench,
fill his soul’s empty lake
and his boy’s body drench.
Her hair’s cropped short, a laddish fringe
of black locks writing question marks there,
right modest in attire, mutters words of care
that draws him to plunge her cool deep bay,
where she will listen to what he must say.’
My friend, it is we who are betrayed:
she brings not water but with fire scorches,
flaming like a thousand torches,
in lighthouse false to wrack Cornish ships,
from headlands hard, from jagged cliffs,
to dash us both upon the rocks,
nothing but a siren she, with voices alluring
offering up sailor’s charms, spells reassuring,
yet bind ourselves hard to mast, fill ears with wax,
what we cannot defend, we will attack;
while we cannot depend on our antique sight,
hold hard, take flight.
I am awake, yet, last night, had such dreams,
I thought I was in Cymbeline.
And now, my Iago, once more gone,
having vaulted those same guard rails
that should protect all seamen who set sail,
and whilst we cannot bring him back
from the dead, he rests here, in our heads,
no resurrections, no rolling of stones,
when all is said and done,
a tomb becomes a tomb.
And some may say, it is foolish to try
to reach heavenwards, outwit that which owns the sky,
all who die, must die.
To those who would contest we say but this,
confound us with your sophistry,
bring forth your maps from prehistory,
in the attempt, there lies the charm,
to reawaken sick minds from harm,
it lies not within our grasp or gift
to name who must die, who must live,
but it lies within our grasp to forgive.
‘Even though you summoned soft,
there were indeed no words enough,
and boys that did promise much, wept then fell to dust.’
What voice is here?
Whose words now greet
with such power
it knocks us off our feet?
For now I think the coronas of the sun,
do from the centre outward slip,
to bode the ending of eclipse.
Now let’s part these final fronds
in remembrance fond
within cavern depths of forest green,
closing ever over and warm within
from flickering heart’s hearth,
hushed light coalesces from shadows dim
into solid shapes and beckoning.
‘Cast spells that can’t be broken,
for I am here, and I have spoken,
away with passive voice, away with pluraled third person.’
There are places in my memory
packed tight with your smile
that comfort, like thick woolen jumpers,
loose fit, hand knit in multi–coloured skeins,
placed under grey-green Christmas trees,
wrapped in swollen roomy taped packages
which threaten to burst
and spill any contents that they nurse.
You could pull these over knees,
tugged with fingers at the sleeves
once hot water had executed in careless pursuit,
a shrink wrapped second suit,
clinging tight to pale young skin,
still unblemished and paper thin,
upon the rug at your footstool
sit together to unravel and unmuddle wool.
Somewhere deep in Cymbeline
bedded in a dark room, taps drip,
and calling pipes creak as time slips.
Paths border greens in tessellation
where roses grow at the edge of creation,
see sallow white cat, yellow eyed,
of wild disposition scratch
at life’s lifted latch,
dig at dirt where damsons and plums birth
to drop pulpy stones into the earth.
A wicker screen in corrugations,
divides one choice from the next,
your studio that seems to span two halves
of home, bridges across the mind by arch;
forbidden to look beyond, let alone enter,
but did not Pandora herself
open the box that was sent her?
Upon pushing through, something stirred.
Those things displayed, I did not disturb
but looked and touched in wonder,
skies did not open, no thunder heard,
no lightning there did strike me dead,
I bring this confession to you instead,
and you now smile and stroke my head,
call me home and make good speed
on warm breeze of cinnamon and aniseed.
‘You have chicken pox, it strikes the young,
a mild fever, so put this under your tongue,
now come. It will not last long,
you were gifted a body that’s strong,
thoughts too deep for one so young,
a forehead forever creased by frowns.
After we have rolled the pastry,
sprinkled baked apples with clove,
speak stories of adventure, of love,
read books I give you under Mediterranean sun,
we will retire to a cottage, cherry cloaked,
sit out time and mend what’s broke.
Ah, such a long way you’ve come,
from the bottom looking up with fury in your eyes,
I tell you now that Angels cannot rise,
but, of course, we always knew that,
because we are wise,
and realized once you had set out
that this is but a fool’s enterprise.
The truth is, nobody listens
or hears that which they do not want to hear,
call out far, call out near,
set every thought down from every lexicon,
rhyme the words, write the songs,
they will turn backs and move along,
however you might sugar coat the pill,
you must convince them first they are ill,
and those who see can make a choice,
to ride them bare backed, hunt trophies, wear fur,
or shoot words from pistols with silencers.
Now kiss me. You can never leave,
and whilst you have permission to grieve,
It lies not in your power to forgive,
but to pass the baton on to those who live.
So it goes.
And you, my Angel, should know
that she stays me here at her threshold,
a guardian after the fact,
maybe she gives what we did lack,
I let you go and won’t look back.
Picture how you were bedded in summer clover,
looking up from under my shoulders
at heavens high, as we did deep within us sing.
Neither of us had wings back then,
but strong spells,
vows and swollen promises,
neither would be the first to break.
And yet, in expediency,
I watched you shrug and take
another lover, and here we fall,
our own last best hope,
because love’s rope
that passed between us both was not enough;
it strained, it broke.
From earthly skies together drop,
both of us can never stop,
from heels to heads,
from heads to heels,
the universe about us reels,
until all that remains are spinning splinters,
a decade of summers that bloomed as winters,
yet perhaps in some way,
two still can bring two hands together, pray,
and are just waiting for that day.
Well.
It could not last forever and did not so,
so people in indolence like slugs grew
enthralled by image, bewitched by flesh,
disposed to anoint themselves pronouns fresh,
cancel each other, pronounce their own death
by smokescreen, screaming until their last breath:
‘the horror, the horror’ - but knew not why.
Even if they had dispensed wings to fly,
they were so low and as far from the sky
as is possible to be. Immune to shock,
grazing on pastures black, this circling flock
consumed thistles growing on granite rocks,
wild, irradiated food, they knew not what.
Good shepherds took aim, fired warning shots,
but Christmas soon comes to fatten the lot.
While blonde bombshell sent itself on its way,
texting more franticly but with less to say,
about fleeting crises now held at bay
by band aids, lad babies, and those who stay
original thought; that which surprises,
and many doubting that Angel will rise.
