Steal Away Boy: Selected Poems of David Mitchell
256
Steal Away Boy: Selected Poems of David Mitchell
256eBook
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Overview
Structured in seven sections with poems written in the period between 1962 and 2009, this collection showcases the work of iconic New Zealand poet, political activist, and impresario David Mitchell. Literate and amusing, this compilation, which assembles widely scattered poems in one work for the first time, reintroduces Mitchell to a new generation. Drawn from magazines, journals, and private papers, Mitchell's work presents afresh the lyrical, intense rhythm of this antipodean hipster. Poems featured include “at pakiri beach,” “mad dog errol,” “night through the orange window,” and “poem to my unborn son.”
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781775581604 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Auckland University Press |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Steal Away Boy
Selected Poems of David Mitchell
By Martin Edmond, Nigel Roberts
Auckland University Press
Copyright © 2013 Auckland University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77558-160-4
CHAPTER 1
Day & Tide
A Letter
I am here my love
beneath an apricot sky.
Summer is a young girl,
her voice is thick
in these green islands.
The valley gorse was burning
last week. Quietly in the night.
Tonight it is warm. Just a song bird
and the hills.
It is not lonely, but very slow.
I am here my love.
This is all
My beauty.
day & tide
1.
today
in the small heat
of a morning courtyard
behind the sky stilled leaves
seven men sit
on seven small stools
hand chin
to elbow knee'd
while above them
in that clean blue arch
the steady sun turns to its timeless tune
before them
in the garden
lies the cool lady
spoiling in the stillness
of their regular gaze
i weep and walk down
the white chalk hill
to dine alone
at a bright wooden table
immaculate
on the beach.
2.
the tide has not quite come
and there are crescents in the sand
wind crescents
at the dry summit
round the baked rim
these thirsting elements swoon
in that blue reverence
enamoured am i of walking
the busies don't understand
the ironing board pleasure
of walking
the meet heat
of the slow solemn feet
and ......... the sand!
3.
the tide has not yet come
and there are wet sea laps
where the lappings are
daisies! daisies ?
yes. daisies in the sea.
daisies
in the dog eared shadow
of the daymoon
the sea, the sea, the
lunar, lunar sea
4.
i can afford to smile though
can't i?
with my gullet an ecstasy
of jingling gums
i can afford to stand on the beach
at the limit
to toe the never settled line
with low embarrassed shoes
and a donnegal tweed coat
silent
with my hand a bone at my bony brow
and stagnant hair
my eyes darting this way or that
i can afford to can't i ?
that's the insurmountable joy of it !
POEM FOR MY UNBORN SON
My name is Yorick
and the worm
is in me
Jesting was my fancy
clowning my business
but I am sick now
the play is done
You will grow
saddest
most infinite minstrel of all
reading
playing quietly alone
hiding in the library
by sunless statues
or in the hall
Being slight and grave
your fine hands will lie
obedient at table
your great eyes black
over straight lips
washed with no smiling
Better
than chanting a mime
through your carousel years
flushed and stiff
like a red marionette
or your father at court
steal away boy
'old, rock clad man, sea girt ...'
(for David Eric Mitchell
d. Wellington, 1953)
old, rock clad man, sea girt
beneath yr cobar hat &
in yr frayed & worn
studded
but , collarless, shirt
/ smiling, wanly
at this werlde's
unbelievable iniquities ...
i just want t'say
' on yer ! on yer, digger!'
if, from this, you
will take no hurt.
strange birth
he
was early exposed
congealed
while still
in pod
suddenly
the woman
white moss'd
death naked
lay
opened
on the river bank
like
a rut ...
the earth healed
he moved
peasants washed him
in fear
felt his hornéd skin
harden to shell
beneath
that coarse bathing
watched him roll up
roll away
coughing dew
filled the bright sky
with wailing
wailing against
too great
a greenness!
The Singing Bread
maltese jack
(soho, 1962)
greek st / 5 p.m. & shoes
like soft chimes
in the steady evening
where thin men step briskly at dusk
& eyes that watch me watching
appear
from dark windows; strangely inscribed
& newsboys perform senile shuffles
behind their sexy headlines ...
rockel sits impassive in a café
'le macabre'
stealthily rubbing shins with some fat
mother's help; hot
out of sinister hamburg
chuckling with lust in his hearty throat
looking
cock eyed
& great with the elements
like a spider shaken
line drawing
of a FAMOUS FRENCH PHILOSOPHER!
up the crooked street the windmill girls
cross their slim legs at cast iron tables
eating saltbeef sandwiches
& drilling formica with candy nails
while watching maltese jack through the window
selling hotdogs
up high tonight / 180°
ultra polite
looking blue
eyed & great with the elements
like PAGANINI IN HIS PROGRESS!
later
the last tube trains gone & silent
quietly descending a HARRISON MARKS
staircase
I do hear violin music!
glimpse through the slats of a venetian blind
an ageing stripper / dancing slowly
as if alone
one hand raised to her throat
like POLA NEGRI long ago
& the old phonograph turning.
walking up fleet street to an early pub
rubbing shins with the dead tribes
in the melting snow
eyes that watch me watching appear
in shop windows / beneath strange inscriptions
in cursive script
& the thick apricot fog comes rolling in from the river ...
velvet
yeah. like a way of life.
The Singing Bread
(paris, 1962)
french bread / 'the best in the christian world'
holds within its cells
the mysteries. yeah. the mysteries ...
drinking / drinking great rum & pernod afternoon
with canadian music student / harmonious lush
cinzano & anis too ! yeah. the best this pagan counter
point ! nul. 'je suis au cul de l'univers!' bad
language ... ½ gone under the lowlands zinc. mal
de siècle ... appears again as a choir of angels
in the yeast
nickel or copper ? no matter / great
or small / coins
lie static on the zinc.
comforting braille.
the best lush this tall bar can provide. speaking of berlioz
& john coltrane. miles too!
playing cricket with a rolled newspaper & tennis ball
along beautiful / flat wicket / stone corridors
outside some grim building that looked like the louvre ...
later found out that it was the louvre.
amerkin students too! millions of them / all stinking rich
volkswagens & the best guitars!
fathers in metal or 'shares' who may have mine.
& then some wild young spade chicky / pure cockney voice
from the deep sounds of barbados. yeah. its true !
but born in mile end / stratford / or was it bow ?
perpetually astonished in the breasts
great exclamation marks for nipples
beneath the ' light grey ' marks & spencer sweater
& nothing else / nothing / save the mysteries / yeah
like yeast!
myself. alone. afraid. waiting on the feast of love
wandering soulful & alone / through boulevards of the mind
drunk on nothing & everything / creating great lines for
a religious novel called
'the singing bread' O
yes ... & pondering!
millions of lost eyes! real gallic too! like sartre's
whose pupils never did & never will match or flare up
against the retina's wall
or low barricades like in some
spanish painting. is paris
burning? is fontainebleau?
is chartres?
swingers & hoods / my generation! / I ran among them
& didn't groove / but chanced on again in summer london
good / wild / skinny / hard men & tough birds
glamorous & tinselled against the métro railings
tight about the mouth / dressed in leather / & burlap
tinselled too with harmonicas & blue guitars
along fretting cinema queues / & champs élysées / jewel bright!
buskers all! wide eyed & shaggy / like hairy beasts
from the earth's core / from out some SF movie long ago.
holding out / holding out within the skin / & with the pale hands
for centimes & clever 'french' abuse / yeah the drab
currency of love. no bread man. called in this city 'pain'
beasts & angels / starving / suffering the ministrations
of the brave gendarmes / for love & wisdom / under no
hard helmets of 'freedom' / like japanese bachelors of politics
in the 'now'
parades ...
under no hats / save the haloes of fear / under no hopes
save the basic & naïve / like those of children
under no stars of harmonious systems / drinking & smoking &
starving / really starving / in the streets of apollinaire
but human / all too human / as I came to know. later
in summer london / when all charing cross & hampstead heath
visions come back / come back like smoke & dream / now
as I write / yeah. human.
like lonely boots p. / 'all women are masochists'
but feeling in the deep heart / the reverse was true.
fruity cambridge accent & donnegal tweed / but boots
'of spanish leather'
tall / shadowy figure in the inevitable fog
& taut face / but beautiful soul / & where
where is he now?
& others, too —
'hard men' a cult which was sad / but some
immediate answer then! / like 'go into the
bathroom & wait for me'. many, many, beautiful women.
& it worked! yeah. & I spent some time SOME TIME!
rolling joints for nervous husbands / or lovers
not afraid (you'll understand) just not sure
WHAT TO DO!
Yeah. rich / wild / yankee chicks / high in europe's
summer. coasting on sweet rails of mid west blues
but it was 'folk' then. folk. blonde chubby thighs
creased over levi strauss denim / & songs of sunshine
'keep on the sunny side always on the sunny side
keep on the sunny side of life' ... almost always
accompanied on the AUTOharp / & the thighs too
in their creasing! AUTO erotica! america in earl's court
THE TROUBADOUR! / yeah & in paris too.
now I have to say it / though editors wont believe
a poet, zimmerman / quietest of all. who sat on my bed
during a party / broadhurst gardens NW6 / 1963
singing his great poems / politely heard mine / drank
wine. was it burgundy? / yes the greatest under worse
hangs than starvation / pain & bread. & where
where is he now?
swingers & hoods I didn't know then / under the gas
lamps of montparnasse / but chanced on again / later
in summer london ...
conning the youngest / the richest / amerkin gels
from the sorbonne / new guitars / by the month !
volkswagen trips / & all delights / real or invented
all delights! like oral sex in crowded tube trains
& amplified harmonicas / electric but still sad ...
where boots makes it at last with back to audience, man
like miles! ONSTAGE at the marquee / oxford street
swinging with all his heart & soul / with / with /
was it chris barber's 'cats'? ah! jesus!
for the harmony! for the harmony !
chez maurice. place de la contrescarpe. bar 'le nuage'
with anna. café dome with chantal
maj. / who refused to speak to me for eleven months
in england / then woke me with a kiss
ten seconds before she left for paris
with some unnameable disease ... wearing in that moment
the wisps of pain / leaning over my broken eyes
in grim anticipation, already, of the final breaking
of the bread of life. yeah. the cellulose mask. the final disguise.
maj. weeping in her cold coffee / in puzzled injustice
at sheer pain / the weight / of it! this time in paris frost.
drained like some, old, seaman / lingering out of time
along sepia piers / in turn of the century / stockholm ...
drained by the bright / flesh anchor she held
in her skinny thighs / disease as slow / as serpentine
as time itself. alive only with grief / absolutely stoned!
in the jardin du luxembourg / recognising the trees as
her brothers / gone out many years / these tall seven /
calling each one by name! & then / the sudden / the
illuminated smile! & where
where is she now?
whose mascara betrayed the nordic bone so perfectly
that she received a proposal from algerians & persians
& greeks & even from the french!
twice in every minute we sat there! & from one jewboy too. yeah.
where is she now / whose face haunts me still
& whose great sullen shoes crossed over the bridges of paris
in such agony.
pigalle.
or was it clichy?
much later / one christmas morning / as the barges lay
trapped in the frozen / the erect canals /
'like antique weeds; never to bloom'
I saw her face / scrawled on a wall / frigid in red chalk !
like some mediaeval, woven thing!
& under the inevitable
bridge / a large united nations poster
saying simply /
'pain'
yeah. bread. now, all french bread sings / & this too / my song.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Steal Away Boy by Martin Edmond, Nigel Roberts. Copyright © 2013 Auckland University Press. Excerpted by permission of Auckland University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction,One: Day & Tide,
Two: The Singing Bread,
Three: The Orange Grove,
Four: Pipe Dreams in Ponsonby,
Five: Myths of Woolloomooloo,
Six : Dark Fire,
Seven: Poetry Live!,
Coda,
poets to come,
Note on the text,
Acknowledgements,
Index of titles and first lines,