Alice Oswald Poems

Good God!
What did I dream last night?
I dreamt I was the moon.
...

This is the day the flies fall awake mid-sentence
and lie stunned on the windowsill shaking with speeches
only it isn't speech it is trembling sections of puzzlement which
break off suddenly as if the questioner had been shot

this is one of those wordy days
when they drop from their winter quarters in the curtains and sizzle as they fall
feeling like old cigarette butts called back to life
blown from the surface of some charred world

and somehow their wings which are little more than flakes of dead skin
have carried them to this blackened disembodied question

what dirt shall we visit today?
what dirt shall we re-visit?

they lift their faces to the past and walk about a bit
trying out their broken thought-machines
coming back with their used-up words

there is such a horrible trapped buzzing wherever we fly
it's going to be impossible to think clearly now until next winter
what should we
what dirt should we
...

It is the story of the falling rain
to turn into a leaf and fall again

it is the secret of a summer shower
to steal the light and hide it in a flower

and every flower a tiny tributary
that from the ground flows green and momentary

is one of water's wishes and this tale
hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail

if only I a passerby could pass
as clear as water through a plume of grass

to find the sunlight hidden at the tip
turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip

then I might know like water how to balance
the weight of hope against the light of patience

water which is so raw so earthy-strong
and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along

drawn under gravity towards my tongue
to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song

which is the story of the falling rain
that rises to the light and falls again
...

Three people in the snow
getting rid of  themselves
breath by breath

and every six seconds a blackbird

three people in raincoats losing their tracks in the snow
walking as far as the edge and back again
with the trees exhausted
tapping at the sky

and every six seconds a blackbird

first three then two
passing one eye between them
and the eye is a white eraser rubbing them away

and on the edge a blackbird
trying over and over its broken line
trying over and over its broken line
...

Went out to a cafe last night a kind of hospital place with white cloths I was looking
for food all I found was the waiters were rude on their rounds the patients kept drumming
their fingers and opening their head-wounds what a burial place for dead leaves pale
endives and chives what a transplant place what a ward for transfusions those grinding engines
concealed behind napkins it's an underworld kept under clothes behind mouths I remember
the candle-lit clatter of teeth I was thinking Thank God for the background noise of the same CD
being played of a flute like a famished throat what a shame to be eaten

Then a man sat down he skewered a fact with his fork he was stroking his throat he
was bursting to talk but the woman on his left was lividly pin-pointing peas the woman
on his right was spitting a splatter of opinions mixed up with onions he said Ladies!
Admire me please! But the woman on his left was lifting a living fish to her lips the
woman on his right was dipping her fingertips in flesh she said I just ADORE the digestive system
how nocturnal it is to be eaten how airless and wet it's a quagland a wilderness when
you get down to that windowless work it's a murmurous gadget of blades which your eyes can't
enter look close! Look closer! There are ferns and flowers that bloom in the gullet it's
a dayshift nightshift shaft full of clobber whole rooms full of water and winding steps lead out to
the exit he said listen! This is hardly conversation! We should ask each other questions! Are you
fond of me both? But the meat was still writhing in his mouth he was kissing his plate
he said Waiter! These kisses are cold and you're late!

Oh the tables were dressed in white they were bridesmaids waiting to be laid there were
plates of bones being pushed to one side I said Why do you drink like that like a horse with your
lips pulled back I can see right down through the bottom of your glass to the black and sucking force of
your gut I don't like it he said Listen! It's dark living under the digestive system it's dog eat
dog down here it's a pig's dinner meaning big eat small there's no alternative at all
he said Listen! You might imagine a more nervous or lymphatic system but the mact of the
fatter is this this world is a gut and it's all we've got don't speak not yet but don't forget
the next world's going to be candle-lit a kind of hospital place with white cloths you'd better
look smart twelve silver angels will come at dark like cutlery they are cloned and
sharp
...

In Berkshire somewhere 1970
I hid in a laurel bush outside a house,
Planted in gravel I think.
I stopped running and just pushed open
Its oilskin flaps and settled down
In some kind of waiting room, whose scarred boughs
Had clearly been leaning and kneeling there
For a long time. They were bright black.

I remember this Museum of Twilight
Was low-ceilinged and hear-through
As through a bedroom window
One hears the zone of someone's afternoon
Being shouted and shouted in, but by now
I was too evergreen to answer, watching
The woodlice at work in hard hats
Taking their trolleys up and down.

Through longer and longer interims
A dead leaf fell, rigidly yellow and slow.
So by degrees I became invisible
In that spotted sick-room light
And nobody found me there.
The hour has not yet ended in which
Under a cloth of Laurel
I sat quite still.
...

Describe the Wind,
Wind!
Say something marked by discomfort
That wanders many cities and harbours,
Not knowing the language.
Be much travelled.
Start with nothing but the hair blown sideways
And say:
Gentle
South-easterly
Drift
With Rain.
Say: Downdraught.

Unglue the fog from the woods from the waist up
And speak disparagingly of leaves.
Be an old man blowing a shell.
Blow over the glumness of a girl
Looking up at the air in her red hood
And say:
Suddenly
Violent
Short-lived
Gust.
Then come down glittering
With a pair of ducks to rooftop.


Go on. Be North-easterly.
Be enough chill to ripple a pool.
Be a rumour of winter.
Whip the green cloth off the hills
And keep on quietly
Lifting the skirts of women not wanting to be startled
And pushing the clouds like towers of clean linen
Till you get to the
Thin
Cry
That
Suffers
On seas.





Ignore it.

Say Snow.

Say Ditto.






Wait for five days
In which everything fades except aging.

Then try to describe being followed by heavy rain.
Describe voices and silverings,
Say:
Strong
Wet
Southwester
From December to March.

Describe everything leaning.
Bring a tray of cool air to the back door.
Speak increasingly rustlingly.
Say something winged
On the branch of the heart.
Say:
Song.
Because you know these things.
You are both Breath
And Breath
And your mouth mentions me
Just at the point where I end.
...

It is the story of the falling rain
To turn into a leaf and fall again

It is the secret of a summer shower
To steal the light and hide it in a flower

And every flower a tiny tributary
That from the ground flows green and momentary

Is one of water's wishes and this tale
Hangs in a seed head smaller than my thumbnail

If only I a passerby could pass
As clear as water through a plume of grass

To find the sunlight hidden at the tip
Turning to seed a kind of lifting raindrip

Then I might know like water how to balance
The weight of hope against the light of patience

Water which is so raw so earthy-strong
And lurks in cast iron tanks and leaks along

Drawn under gravity towards my tongue
To cool and fill the pipe-work of this song

Which is the story of the falling rain
That rises to the light and falls again
...

Born on Monday and a tiny
world-containing grain of light
passed through each eye like heaven through a needle.
...