Penelope Shuttle Poems

An apple tree bent double with fruit
grew in the middle of the living room
shaking gently
as the average family pootled by with plates
or devices in their hands

The room was almost all tree
everyone edged round it
Curiously no one picked a single apple
nor did the ripe fruit ever fall

The full tree stood there
a daemon to behold

Who lives in that house now
I can't tell you
My childhood lives on there
and my parent shadows
and all my days and nights that will never bear fruit

The apple tree I speak of
roots itself partly in truth and partly in lies
Those roots are splinters of the true cross
They alone know why miracles are best avoided
...

Father Lear the king so shaped his bairns
with the wand's upper hand
the fire's swanny wing
smooth tippet of the spider

In the very kingdom of herbs and servants
he shaped them
from peace vessels of the animals
from toil of the flesh
from milk horses and the birds of sighed mercy
and the tongue undone

He shaped his bairns
in night's long harm and in day's bright psalter
in the seven courts of the north
and with the mild birch of the paternoster

From his ploughing fields and his sweat
his toothèd heart and his waxing wit
Father Lear the king shaped his bairns
for good or ill this he did
...

The North Esk is heading for Musselburgh,
The Fal for the blue respite of the Carrick Roads,
without haste the Thames is making for Tilbury,
and the Nile, from her headstream
as the Lovironzo branch of the Kagera
to her splendour in Egypt, is off
to that shopaholic, the Med;
but the Humber drags himself
towards the hard-faced cold North Sea;
the Severn descends from her perfect hills
into the loving arms of the Bristol Channel,
as does the ever-loving Avon,
while the Tamar slips unnoticed
into Plymouth Sound -
leaving the oldest city in Japan,
the Basho saddens into the Sea of Haiku,
and through ice, frost and snow
the Yenisei struggles towards the Kara Coast,
and the Alma can't get
the Crimean War out of his head;
the Seine grabs the Yone, the Marne and the Oise
by their neck-scruffs, to slum it
in the English Channel,
as that peasant rebel the Vendée
bolts for the Bay of Biscay;
the Ouse, the Yare
and the Waveney splash into the Wash
without a care in the world;
only the Danube is big enough
to make a difference to the Black Sea;
Poppa Rhine also proceeds to the North Sea,
majestic and wise,
shepherding before him the Neckar,
the Maine, the Moselle and Ruhr,
the Ijssel, the Lek and the Waal,
the Meuse and the Scheldt -
what a river!
Solitary and serene, the Po
follows his long tarnished shadow
to the Adriatic shore
and the green Mekong plays down
its cloudbursts, approaching the Yellow Sea...

Rivers, o rivers

Did I forget you, Ganges,
Whose opulent delta blesses the Bay of Bengal?

Did I forget you, Tigris and Euphrates,
who marry in the broken hills
above Basra
and upon whose banks stand Mosul
and Baghad,
rivers bearing time on their backs,
whose waters swell the blood-seas of history,
whose tides trounce the moon?

Did I forget you,
Euphrates, Tigris?
...

A jug of water
has its own lustrous turmoil

The ironing board thanks god
for its two good strong legs and sturdy back

The new fridge hums like a maniac
with helpfulness

I am trying to love the world
back to normal

The chair recites its stand-alone prayer
again and again

The table leaves no stone unturned
The clock votes for the separate burial of hearts

I am trying to love the world
and all its 8,000 identifiable languages

With the forgetfulness of a potter
I'm trying to get the seas back on the maps
where they belong

secured to their rivers

The kettle alone knows the good he does,
Here in the kitchen, loving the world,
Steadfastly loving

See how easy it is, he whistles
...

Very quickly the moon shuns
the massive domes and rounded arches
of Byzantium,
the centre-fold cities of America,
Russia's cross little citadels,
by-passes backmost lakes,
all waters, cornerstones of rivers,
moon rushing
over orchards of peach and plum,
shoving clouds before her
in a cosset of shadow,
dashing over linens
draped on tenement poles,
over all your old addresses,
skimming the brightness
from each port-of-call, carrying
tomorrow's news in her breast,
along with the latent weeping of all living things,
and glittering fast, very fast over the South Pole
where the key to understanding Art Nouveau resides,
over the great Alps
in their snowy hair-shirts
and over Europe, which she salutes in passing,
coming to rest above my garden,
bringing me, whether I like it or not,
the first rain of the summer-end
...

I was running out of time
or time was running out of me

I was no longer
decades of clear water

Time
was a cache of lions,
the end of all the birds

I was hurrying to catch up with Time,
while Time stayed home

doing the ironing,
folding his minutes,
smoothing his hours,

soon there'd be not a crumpled second
for me to hide in
...

Then one afternoon
in a little private office
the consultant Zoe and me
there's no more to be done for you,

they're going to remove
the feeding drip, up the drug dosage,
‘...and he'll just slip away'

Already high on a flying carpet
of kind morphine dreams,
you've nothing more to say to us,
though last week you could still moan,

‘get me out of here'

Almost as bad,
the junior doctor in the corridor
asking furtively,
‘if he has a coronary arrest,
do you want him resuscitated?'

Unanswerable question,
while a few feet away on your deathbed,
you were letting go
autumns of the future,

remembering the past maybe,
how I charmed your wart away,
pressing the raw steak to your cheek,
reciting,

‘O wen, o little wennikins,
Here shall you build not, here have no abode...'
Then buried the chunk of meat
In the north of our garden...
Or maybe you dreamed of our modest travels,

You, who like Rembrandt never visited Rome,
But like the Master of the small landscape,
loved the microcosm, sand-grains, water-droplets,
chips of granite, the exact quota of crystals

packed into a geode no bigger than an egg

On the day they take the drip out
there's so much we don't know,
how long it will be
before life can ever be normal again,

above all we don't know,
Zoe and I,
how beautiful and welcoming
the sunlit sands of Maenporth will be

(o come unto these yellow sands)

nor how the equinoctial blue sky
will watch over us,
like a witty person struck silent,
as I scatter your ashes into the bright waves,
and the sea, nature's perfectionist,

bears you away in triumph.
...

Like Rosamund the Fair
I speed over Folly Bridge

like Alice
I look both ways
before crossing Speedwell Street

I'm not
as you see
an official guided walking tour

Like Fair Rosamund
I quickstep down Rose Place

like swift Alice
I skip across St Aldate's

the brainbox city
huffing and puffing in my ear

I'm not hurrying off
to visit a dozen harpsichords

or the church
where William Morris was married

or to see the remains of a dodo
I plan to read

not one
of the six million books

in The Bodleian
or admire a single dreamy spire

or stand in sombre silence
on the spot

where Latimer
Mortimer and Ridley
were roasted alive on god's turnspit

because I'm heading straight
for the heart

of this leather-bound city
where's there's good reason for shadows

where I'll find
panaceas of lavender

penny-royal and nettle
rose-petal potions

medicinal oak-scented valerian
balms and syrups of hollyhock

daffodil and milk-thistle
the Many-Leaf Pharmacy where

like the porpoise not the snail
I'm walking a little faster

waltzing like Rosamund the Fair
and Little White Alice

through the wards and waiting rooms
of The Physic Garden

earthy source of tincture and tisane
the help-yourself of nature

who wears a green coat
not a white
don't you agree?
...

My Life, I can't fool you,

you know me too well,

I'm sad of myself,

days live me in vain,

you test me

but bin my answers,

you're so busy, so tired,

evenings in the glass,

drink them, My Life,

but you won't,

driving your bargains

of years gone by,

promising me

this and that till

the walls are spells,

the roof's a star,

and

I seal the hour

in a tear,

a mortal tear,

I know you so well,

My Life, not at all
...

White rose day

in a white garden

summer wilding in and out

of the pergolas of white jasmine

vestal hedges

and pom-pom dahlias

so lets sleep

have a little zizz

for a week or so shall we

in the white rose white rabbit garden

ah but he's not hurrying now

he's too sleepy

the lime-tree walk reveals

its keen green sense of humour

but then it yawns oh it yawns

sleepy questions flora and fauna never ask

are and are not answered

sleepy afternoon of Cloth-Hall dreams

boat-house snores

green scarab beetle winging-by

taking flight from Lady Macbeth's robe

in the white and wealden garden

why not have a lovely snoozy little sleep

at Zizzinghurzzzt

where the spiders reel in their sleepy suppers

and what was I sayingggggg
...