Rg Gregory

when the dog began to sing
the people ran amok
a man shinned up a flagpole
...

the children played games
getting from here
to where the truth was
...

i want to hold the horse's string
cried the girl (three) stamping her foot
told by adults she was much too young
...

do you think an old heart can't sing
do you think an old heart can't dance
with a love that belongs to spring -
...

we say blame the teachers
don't we send our young to school
to be taught the simple rules
...

(from a painting by hugo simberg)

those who bear the wounded angel
are they honoured or destroyed
far beyond their comprehension
...

yesterday the man was pleased
the sun sat in the tree and all
upon the land held to the harmony
...

snow is a thousand flowers
the chinese probably said
hundreds and thousands this morning
...

schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
had a song
wound up inside her

she'd had it taped
on a silken spool
this was the song
she sang as a rule

o little fly
come be my friend
i have fly's gold
for you to spend

i'll wrap you in silks
to make you pretty
if you refuse
then more's the pity

the silk-voice warbled
through the wood
the best bird-song
didn't seem so good

but no flies came
they were too fly
looking through the song
to the web's black eye

o schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who had a song
wound up inside her

passed through hunger
to the edge of death
the wood stopped growing
and held its breath

one day the silken
web was still
and curious flies
came to find how ill

the spider was â€" but
becoming too daring
many got stuck
in the silken snaring

but schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who had a song
wound up inside her

presented thus
with a feast of flies
cried weakly in anger
i despise i despise

such dull victims
that have no ear
for the silken song
i keep in here

but when in silence
this web is wrapped
stupid and nosey
they all get trapped

and the web grew slack
in the dying wood
the poor flies wriggled
but it did no good

and schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who had a song
wrapped up inside her

spun into herself
to disappear
he was lost to the world
for many a year

but whether she meant it
or it was a fearful tangle
she came out one night
in the african jungle

she was in a tree
quite close to the sun
in the topmost branch
her web was spun

its silken strands
in the sun's gold rays
dazzled her neighbours
into fulsome praise

and soon the jungle
was wrapt in a sound
(as the bouncing spider's
song unwound)

whose piercing beauty
brought dew to the eyes
of every creature
but the jungle flies

no one could tell
what the song might mean
the song and the web
made so rare a screen

and schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who had a song
wound up inside her

wove her sad magic
both day and night
the moon and the sun
never shone so bright

and after the rains
had moistened the jungle
it wore the spider
like a jewelled bangle

the jungle flies though
soon went mad
unable to hear
a song so sad

they buzzed and bashed
uncontrollably
every tree bore signs
of their mortality

it couldn't be guessed
on what the spider fed
no victim was lured
into the sparkling web

yet schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who had a song
wound up inside her

never stopped singing
and the jungle grows
to this very day
in the song's sad throes

but don't go looking
for the bouncing spider
who has a song
wound up inside her

what you can't see
you can always dream
what's song to one
is another's scream

and each one is born
with a touch of fly
that can't tell beauty
from a spit in the eye

and schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who has a song
wound up inside her

with intolerable sheen
puts the price too high
love me or fear me
be enchanted or die
...

i'm going to give up loving you
i'm going to hate you instead
living's so difficult difficult baby
...

when the old man said
i know everything
the young girl replied
...

(to where the ashes of both
my parents are strewn)
...

i
i shall die yearning

a hand
reaching out to
a face that isn't there

a face
seeking a hand

a stone
leaving its mountain-
wall in a wind
anxious to be a bird

a bird
crying to be a wall

ii
north wales

the goat pisses
the hawk hangs
the mountain leans forward out of the mist

iii
on this hill

between the stone wind
and the wall of stones
i am a hollow
scooped out by the sun
my substance dropped
over the wall - another
loosened boulder
a plaything for grass

the present sits in
my mouth for shelter
till the sun leans on his spade
the grass throttles the clock
around me

the stone cottage flies away
the wall leaps downhill
the wind is a mountain
the sun becomes gold ore
timelessness deflates me

look mother
i have found a fossil
here are the marks
of its hands and feet
it must be millions of years old

my eyes are caves down to the sea
...

each sunset is unique
so others tell us

fools - with flowers
of envy pushing

through their teeth
i think differently

a feeble skill that
can't repeat itself

i'll have the sun in
for a spell to make

a proper artist of him
by time i finish with

this yellow fickle lout
his sunset will be perfect
...

one morning the bone was there
set in the centre of waste ground
against the early morning sun
the frost along its concave rim
sparkled - raised a hundredfold
the price a passing dog
would place on it
but the dogs
who came (barking amongst themselves
about the food shining at them
across the rubbled soil) somehow
couldn't find it in their legs
to fetch the bone - its glowing
had a phosphorescent feel
a beauty that repelled
the simple possibilities of eating

so it went on all day
the bone stayed cold - the frost
around it sparkled and the dogs
came and went returning then
with other dogs
the concourse
disturbed the neighbourhood
with excitement and unease

when the night came
there was no moon
no light to catch the frost

dogs began to venture
through the rubble
advancing then retreating
turning round again

one dog - a mongrel (say)
suddenly barked (the
first dog-talk for hours
thinking this is a
stupid game - it's a bone
and dogs eat bones
and before all the other dogs
could swallow half their fear
it rushed the bone

a rubber tasteless bone
rotten and ancient

any ordinary backyard bone
would have given
a greater satisfaction

for doing what it did
the mongrel (say)
was driven from the district
...

i met a frog in my garden today
lurking under a stone - it said
there used to be a pond here
i know i said i had to dig it up

pity said the frog and looked at me
as if i was the thickest mortal
a garden without water it croaked
is worse than a tongue without spit

there's a pond next door i said
you could get there in two short hops
the frog eyed me with green contempt
next door it said is not where we are

that night there was a full moon
it came and sat on my hedge
there used to be a frog here it said
what have you done to upset it

i hate frogs that talk i complained
moon eyed me with silver contempt
you can't treat frogs like that - repent
i beg you or you'll end up cursed

it tipped backwards off the hedge
and plopped into next door's pond
such a cackle of frog's song then
moon shone brightly in the water

no frog came back to the stone
moon stayed away from my garden
so (guiltily) i built a pond -
something keeps draining the water
...

i take my property with me says the snail
slow-moving (yes) but packed with sublime thought
the house upon its back some kind of grail
vulnerable to brute boot - and wisdom bought

by barely making it through life's dull crawl
the pace of it denies technology's demand
that speed be safety (that getting there is all)
the snail enjoys being aeon's ampersand

the snail goes round and round and comes out where
it is the king of spirals as life whirls by
the turning earth and snail leave nothing spare
as step by step the future gives the lie

to rushing dreams and blood's inflated wants
it's the crawling turn of life that plays the trumps
the snail's the joke - the spiral wraps the taunts
(the linear hurls) back round itself â€" and dumps

vainglory pride ambition overweened
into the snail's path as fodder to be gnashed
(transmutable to slime) and once more greened
(in time's course) for hope to be re-stashed

as cosmos and the throbbing crumb of dirt
share each other's suits and blindly will
a raw transfiguration to assert
what wasn't is - then this the only skill

as plodding snail and spiralling through space
unite in common pattern (daily blent)
to tie truth down to gastropodic pace
and who goes faster loses what is meant
...

the day was as grey as the abbey
the light that filtered through the glass
had no disturbing shine about it
no one inside was grasping to collect it

the organ had its notes tucked in a corner
its sound blending the greyness into calm
i was a stranger there but felt collated
a dovecote for the peace the cool notes bred

old tiles replaced by victorian replicas
lined the norman stonework near the choir
their age and halfworn coats-of-arms
touched a nerve i was not prepared for

a longing gaped in me (my eyes sensed tears)
a rush of inner silence urged me to give
my body to a void (my life's denial)
i was stunned beyond self into alertness

a hand not my own (but seemed at home)
sent signals out and had no need of answers
it could have been i came to be a tree
that with its tucked up roots went slowly out
...

however foul the times or difficult the ways are
through those personal morasses this change of age
won't let a single being (rich or poor) be free from
come spring the trees get on with their blossoming
you'd think they didn't read the newspapers

you'd think the media hadn't yet found a way
of getting to them conveying the miserable truths
this creaking into a new century has been unleashing
come this spring (like any other) the ignorant trees
still feel compelled to get on with their blossoming

see all the journalists commentators politicians
shaking their fists from within closed windows
and choking on the fug of their smoke-filled rooms
with all this bitterness about â€" what are trees doing
getting on with their blossoming â€" bringing beauty out

that's a dead word â€" beauty â€" no time or place for it
(except on page threes where people go to leer
to forget the miserable world sitting on their doorstep)
come spring how shocking to find trees don't agree
a bad habit that â€" to get on with their blossoming

of course it won't last â€" three weeks or so it'll be gone
then we can all go back indoors and forget trees
and how they get on with their blossoming spring in
and bad spring out â€" there's no such thing nowadays
as the natural law â€" blossom on trees â€" a thing of the past

luckily for each one there's a small corner in the dark
where a light is stored and a gasp of delight survives
and a song is on the point of again bursting into hearing
at the mere thought of a one-time blossoming tree
come spring â€" at that precise moment when the tree

decides the winter's been enough and its light side
should now be burgeoned to the world â€" then in the quick
of each denying being (wilfully or reluctantly or what)
a blossoming takes place also â€" is noted and then
put aside â€" its hope is not forsaken â€" spring survives
...

what's that
i'm awake
a bang like a door or a foot
knocking a chair
who's there

tense i lie in my bed my face
stretching out on the black air
my ears strain......a creak this time
like a cat on the stair - but we have no cat
if the door-handle turned and a....
shape came in.....darkness
clutches at my startled hair
spiders walk my skin
would i dare
to go for it with my fists - my fists
clench doped with sweat
would i scream
faint or lie there staring
my eyes pushing out in jets of fear
waiting for what - what would it do

a short nipped sound from the earwig night
drops in my ear
i sit up
pinching my breath - was it by the door
or the window - i can't be sure
i wait for the next sound for the
blade of the knife
i become aware
of the ticking clock...and my father's
heavy breathing in the next room
the curtain moves and a faint light
like a living thing creeps on the bed
something - a twig - scratches on the pane
a car changes gear on a nearby hill
there is a creak in the house again
a door rattles in a hidden wind - an owl's cry
dogs barking - even a distant train - all
friendly and easy to explain
i relax
and yawn get out and stand by the window
looking out on the soft outlines of houses
silent lawns making my own peace with night

when i return to bed at last (all
tension gone) birds are standing
on the treetops bringing in the dawn
...