Rg Gregory Poems

lemons don't let you admire yourself too much
they stick from their tree like awkward thoughts
demanding a truth be told even if the tongue
would prefer a far more sickly explanation

lemons are perfect though for the need to jump
straight out of bed on the eagerest of mornings
into the task that must have no nonsense about it
they have no truck with laziness or the idle hope

they can be easily misunderstood - their sourness
their association in sayings with the poorest of the lot
their way of squirting you in the eye when being cut
they don't have much emollience in their nature

you can't get that close to lemons - they stand firm
in their separate place asking to be respected - then
they will give what they've got like waxed nurses
offer you their own prim recipes for a healthy life
...

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

i)
ok the pair of you lie still
what's disturbing me need pass
no fretful hand over your peace
this world's vicissitudes are stale
fodder for you who feed the grass

some particles of your two dusts
by moon's wish accident or wind
may have leapt that late-life wound
refound in you the rhapsodists
first-married days had twinned

i've come today in heavy rain
a storm barging through the trees
to be a part of this fresh truce
to dream myself to that serene
death's eye-view no living sees

a roaring motorway derides
machine's exclusion from this place
cozens what the gale implies
while overhead a plane corrodes
all feel of sanctuary and solace

i cut the edges off the sound
and let the storm absorb my skin
my drift unravelling as a skein
through paths no brain's designed
i want the consciousness you're in

too much a strain - my mind can't click
to earthen voices (whispers signs)
my eyes alert to this life's scenes
my ears are ticked to autumn's clock
my shoes crunch upon chestnut spines


(ii)
not a bird singing or flying
i seize upon such absence (here
the death-sense dares to split its hair)
why with such a strong wind flowing
inside the noises do calms appear

today the weather is supreme
it does away with frontiers - sweeps
breath into piles as it swaps
ashes for thoughts conjuring prime
life-death from the bones it reaps

abruptly flocks of leaves-made-birds
quit shaken branches (glide in grace)
first soar then hover - sucked to grass
flatten about me as soft-soaked boards
matting me to this parent place

and then i'm easeful - a hand scoops
dissent away (leaves me as tree)
settles the self down to its true
abasement where nothing escapes
its wanting (earth flesh being free)

i'm taken by your touching
there's no skin between us now
as tree i am death's avenue
you are its fruits attaching
distilled ripeness to the bough

i possess the step i came for
my senses burst into still speech
your potent ashes give dispatch
to life's tensions - i travel far
rooted at this two-worlds' breach

october 6th 1990
(seventh anniversary of my mother's cremation)
...

the first thing about a man my son
is that he's not a woman â€" and don't
let any woman tell you what a man is
or any kind of man with his own agenda
of what a man is â€" quite simply
a man is what a man is (crimes and all)
knowing that my son then find
your own way of being what a man is
and be it in the best way that you can

the first thing about a woman my daughter
is that she's not a man â€" and don't
let any man tell you what a woman is
or any kind of woman with her own agenda
of what a woman is â€" quite simply
a woman is what a woman is (crimes and all)
knowing that my daughter then find
your own way of being what a woman is
and be it in the best way that you can
...

fancy shooting a man dead for an old label

but think
if there weren't any old labels
nobody would ever be shot dead

and all those poor people
whose livelihood depends on making guns
would have to be left to starve

make up your mind
who would you sooner see living
men with bullets in them
or thousands of ordinary people
going about their decent business

there's a lot to thank old labels for
...

fancy shooting a man dead for an old label

but think
if there weren't any old labels
nobody would ever be shot dead

and all those poor people
whose livelihood depends on making guns
would have to be left to starve

make up your mind
who would you sooner see living
men with bullets in them
or thousands of ordinary people
going about their decent business

there's a lot to thank old labels for
...

snow is a thousand flowers
the chinese probably said
hundreds and thousands this morning
drop their garlands on my head
last night the festoons started
long before we went to bed

snow is a white-furred rabbit
the chinese probably wrote
hedgerows and fields this morning
wear a similar fluffy coat
last night the winter danced back
with a white fur round its throat

snow is a treacherous fox-face
the chinese probably thought
it lurks in wait this morning
for the weak and overwrought
last night it laughed its head off
loving the fear it's brought
...

we say blame the teachers
don't we send our young to school
to be taught the simple rules
for decent public-spirited behaviour
do we pay such crushing rates
to have our children turned to louts
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame the teachers
or the preachers
they're all the same to us

we say blame the preachers
what right have they to shake
their moral fingers every week
at us and call us pharisees and sinners
let them wave their holy book
where these thugs can take a look
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame the preachers
or the police
they're all the same to us

we say blame the police
they're very quick to chase us
when we speed in the wrong places
or accidentally cross the lights at red
but don't they take their time
when there's really been a crime
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame the police
or politicians
they're all the same to us

we say blame the politicians
they promise and they promise
when election time is on us
sterner measures to prevent delinquency
yet when they win their phoney war
they do nothing as before
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame the politicians
or society
they're all the same to us

we say blame society
blame the bosses blame the workers
blame the bankers blame the forces
blame the doctors dentists papers - blame tv
blame the jews united nations
blame our neighbours friends relations
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame society
or the world
but don't blame us
...

all is still on this starless night
the mountain waits
quiescent as a cat
smoothing crag and chasm
to a white fur

then against the black sky
puffs of snow
flutter from a jutting cliff
into obscurity

a drumroll utters
from the mountain's throat
and stops
reprehended by a silence so intense
that even night
seems shallow in its presence

high up a front of snow
crumples and cascades down
plashing from rock to rock
spawning further falls
echoing itself to dotage
in the sharp hills

and again the wound of silence
bleeds about the mountain

again the grumbling drumroll
a giant peak
staggering with ice
suddenly sags
and booming like a cry
sprawls into a gully
tumbles blind with spray
lurches bounces
dizzily jazzing downwards
in the outraged night
now it roars and crashes
through the squawking snow
lunges smashes
into crest and crag
devours ridges
pitches over cliffs
bursts tremendously through gaps
now booms and rebooms
thunders and rethunders
as in its rapid shapes
it plunges wildly down
rifts instantly appear
and craters fill - crags snap off
like fingers - boulders fly
and down and down
within its own created
turmoil of demented spray
still accumulating speed
this daft fantastic mass
white-hot with bitter rage
thrashes seethes explodes
until
before some obdurate cliff face
or deep in a ravine
it hurls itself at last
indifferently to death

and then there is this silence
too hurt too solid a thing to bear
beside the foaming mountain
...

i'm going to give up loving you
i'm going to hate you instead
living's so difficult difficult baby
hating's like staying in bed

you expect too much when i'm loving you
i haven't got it in me to give
love keeps on keeps on at me baby
it makes a man frightened to live

hating's so simple so pure so clean
you hate and that's all there's to it
no one comes bawling at you bawling baby
love says you've got to do it

when you hate the world you don't owe nothing
you can pick and choose who you are
when love gets its claws its claws in you baby
you're stuck in your place like a star

so let me take hating every time
love can go jump in the sea
i'm giving up loving you loving you baby
and sticking to loving me
...

on the last day of winter i went to bed
harsh winds rainstorms beating my head
houses trees with a sucked-out look
new year flaked from the old one's hook

then overnight such a change of heart
spring come home with her confectionery cart
hundreds-and-thousands strewn in the breeze
houses sampling them as well as the trees

people savouring them in punts on the river
earth knee-deep in them praising the giver
so (blankets off) i'm out in the streets
glutton for spring and her burst bag of sweets
...