Clare Pollard Poems

No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild
Alexander Supertramp
Baby screams twist through the block of flats,
then shattering sounds, domestic rows,
TVs saying: lines are open now.
The grey roads swill with rain,
and advertising hoardings turn,
then turn again,
as pizza heats through in my oven.

Something wild calls in me, but no thing calls back.
Can't stop these stupid, manic fantasies
of deep and pathless forests —
dells awash with bluebells, needles,
rabbit-flesh and pear-flesh;
bats cover the face of the moon
like carnival masks…

But I am spoiled.
What would I have me do?
Trill to birds like some Disney Snow White?
Forage like some broadsheet tourist?
Imagine the cold — no fridges, no taps.
I'd bore myself, kill myself; can't even strike a match.
I'd end in constellations of maggots.

But still, where is our succour?
The park I must avoid after dark is not enough,
the basil pot in its wrapper is not enough,
the organic cheese is not enough,
the raggedy fox is not enough,
the limping pigeon is not enough,
the sunflowers in Sainsburys are not enough.
...

That first autumn our home was ugly with dust;
infuriating with boxes, planks,
buckets we used to flush the loo.
We had no curtains.

Bed-level, you couldn't see the building site.
We'd wake to a square of tree against sky —
leaves yellow as Pasteis de Nata;
dawn-lit paper lanterns.

On one branch a caught plastic-bag breathed;
on another pigeons, still trying to nap,
kept themselves tucked in —
plump grey jugs.
A great-tit would jiggle, head tilted
as though in understanding.

And below, of course, roots were gagging the drains,
graffiti-ing lightning on walls,
teasing cracks for rats,

and we knew, come New Year, the trees had to be felled —
just as we had to plaster, scrub, paint,
rewire, maintain, move on…

But still, each day you'd wake up
to those glowing tatters and smile.
Say: the tree looks lovelier every day.
And I'd nod, and push thoughts of winter away,
as all lovers must refuse the thought of winter.
...

Roses this October
burnt red like plague posies —
rash for the world's fever,
a curse on our houses.

But then you were born in
the season's strange mildness.
My heart rose as you rose
in my arms, small witness.

With your nails as tiny
as droplets of spittle,
and your fragile mouth that
is like a dropped petal.

In far away lands there
are poor babies crying,
with milk-coloured eyes
that the black flies are circling,

and tree-tops are falling,
the birds falling with them.
The season is bleak but
new life can still blossom.

The October roses
burn, burn in the darkness.
Beautiful despite, no,
because of their lateness.
...

Frayed now, tongue-worn, the legend tells
that my parents — young and expecting me —
walked beneath drizzle, nests, blood-sprays of berries,
breath-clouds mushrooming as they plotted their future,
when the woods convulsed with a pitiless roar
and thicket shook with the rage of a dark engine,
of dragons, of demons; of hunger made meat.
They ran all the way back to their bungalow.
A week later she heard the growl on radio:
If you hear this sound, beware.
It is a panther about to attack…

As a small girl, I poured over theories:
big cats as escapees from menageries,
Victorian travelling circuses, prehistory, death…
I found a picture: Melanistic Leopard,
the eye like a chalk-pit or toad spawn,
teeth the sour colour of lambswool in the jaw.
And at dusk I sensed them out there; other —
the Beasts of Bolton, Bodmin, the Fen Tiger —
nuzzling a deer's bowels, careful as burglars.

In this city, now, I had forgotten them
in the scuffle of commonplace violence:
the friend beaten for a bike, his eye
popped out like a tiny moon; the needle-tracked
crackwhores smearing dung on our stair-well;
the lean dark men in hoods who may have guns.
But tonight, as I swallowed some small rejection,
I found myself willing it true:
longing caught in my throat for a panther's leap into view,
like the opposite of disappointment.
...

As I walked down a street alone,
I heard two ravens make a plan,
one bird unto the other said:
"Which shall we dine on of the dead?"

"Out there upon a dirty track
way down a down, way down
a woman's spread upon her back,
in the mud,
her throat cut and her body raped,
for bags of books, a glimpse of face."
O down, derry derry, if she's bad they're good.

The bird said: "No one cares she lies
in dust near dogs in smears of flies,
the army's led by fear and oil,
the husband's had his honour spoiled,

"her son's stood in a hood of black
way down a down, way down
a donkey, ridden, told to crack,
in the blood.
And other women fear to speak,
which means she'll waste if not for beaks."
O down, derry derry, if they're bad she's good.

So low as planes they did swoop down,
to chew on unveiled eyes of brown,
they pecked out clumps of her dark hair
to line their nests when they grew bare.

And many commentators moaned,
way down a down, way down
but armoured cars drove past the bones.
And I stood
I watched the ravens feed on war,
and knew I'd watch for evermore.
O down, derry derry, if she's bad we're good.
...

1 Sometimes I feel like Jonah
fleeing Nineveh.
Who wants to hear what is evil?
Every day we make this earth less
alive, various or legal.
What is this diminishment
but sin against god
which is a program
to generate complexity?
I should go to Nineveh
and cry against wickedness
which halts love
which wants
the other's different self
to stay itself.

2 They say if you're fair
or moneyed
or live on a mountain
you won the lottery,
everyone else, apologies — 
storms aren't going away
so play the game nicely.
Lots are cast, blame allotted,
men tossed to the ocean's
torsion, seaweed's cage,
foreclosing
depths and then the blue whale's
curdled belly
digesting
everything we've done.

3 I visited a branch of Sea Life
in an ex-county hall.
Mops in corridors, half-empty
vending machines.
They took photos of us
pretending to look scared
in front of green screens.
Rays took titbits
from stinking cups.
The sharks were
gilled glide,
ravenous for outside.
We were vomited onto dry land
by the Coca-Cola
London Eye.

4 I must warn Nineveh.
But who wants to hear me say
what is evil?
It is dominion.
It is the law
that makes goodness impossible,
fasting in sackcloth
the only option.
But god will not say must
only relent or sorrow
as the whale does
when her calf is taken — 
a harrowed sound
that does not bear
description.
...

We were alive that evening, on the north Yorkshire moors,

in a valley of scuffed hills and smouldering gorse.

Pheasants strutted, their feathers as richly patterned

as Moroccan rugs, past the old Roma caravan -

candles, a rose-cushioned bed, etched glass -

that I'd hired to imagine us gipsies

as our bacon and bean stew bubbled,

as you built a fire, moustached, shirt-sleeves rolled.

It kindled and started to lick, and you laughed

in your muddy boots, there in the wild -

or as close as we can now get to the wild -

skinning up a joint with dirty hands, sloshing wine

into beakers, the sky turning heather with night,

the moon a huge cauldron of light,

the chill wind blasting away our mortgage,

emails, bills, TV, our broken washing machine.

Smoke and stars meant my thoughts loosened,

and took off like the owls that circled overhead,

and I knew your hands would later catch in my hair,

hoped the wedding ring on them never seemed a snare -

for if you were a traveller I would not make you settle,

but would have you follow your own weather,

and if you were a hawk I would not have you hooded,

but would watch, dry-mouthed, as you hung above the fields,

and if you were a rabbit I would not want you tame,

but would watch you gambolling through the bracken,

though there is dark meat packed around your ribs,

and the hawk hangs in the skies.
...