eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781847774583 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Carcanet Press, Limited |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 80 |
| File size: | 249 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
War Poet
By Jon Stallworthy
Carcanet Press Ltd
Copyright © 2014 Jon StallworthyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84777-460-6
CHAPTER 1
No Ordinary Sunday
No ordinary Sunday. First the light
falling dead through dormitory windows blind
with fog; and then, at breakfast, every plate
stained with the small, red cotton flower; and no
sixpence for pocket money. Greatcoats, lined
by the right, marched from their pegs, with slow
poppy fires smouldering in one lapel
to light us through the fallen cloud. Behind
that handkerchief sobbed the quick Sunday bell.
A granite cross, the school field underfoot,
inaudible prayers, hymn-sheets that stirred
too loudly in the hand. When hymns ran out,
silence, like silt, lay round so wide and deep
it seemed that winter held its breath. We heard
only the river talking in its sleep:
until the bugler flexed his lips, and sound
cutting the fog cleanly like a bird,
circled and sang out over the bandaged ground.
Then, low-voiced, the headmaster called the roll
of those who could not answer; every name
suffixed with honour – 'double first', 'kept goal
for Cambridge' – and a death – in Spitfires, tanks,
and ships torpedoed. At his call there came through
the mist blond heroes in broad ranks
with rainbows struggling on their chests. Ahead
of us, in strict step, as we idled home
marched the formations of the towering dead.
November again, and the bugles blown
in a tropical Holy Trinity,
the heroes today stand further off, grown
smaller but distinct. They flash no medals, keep
no ranks: through Last Post and Reveille
their chins loll on their chests, like birds asleep.
Only when the long, last note ascends
upon the wings of kites, some two or three
look up: and have the faces of my friends.
1962
Home Thoughts from Abroad 1955
'The finest blades in Rome',
he told my father that first morning, 'come
from this forge. Give me a lump of your
Etruscan, Roman, Syracusan ore
and in ten years I'll have a sword for you
fit for the Emperor's side.' Scuffing a new
sandal in father's shadow, I worried
that riddle round my head – and have carried
it since like a burr. He said: 'I needn't tell
you, sir, there's more than good metal
to a good sword.' I was to learn how much.
The firing, first:
'If a cohort can march
thirty miles in battle-order – full pack
and tools – you can walk to the baths and back
like men, not slaves.' 'Centurion, how many
miles did you march in Germany?'
If some doubted his rank, none could deny
his scars: the blue grave on his thigh
of splinters from a Parthian lance; his arms
notched with a tally of battles, night alarms,
ambushes – 'road, river, our line, their line'
sketched in the schoolyard sand. The Cisalpine
frontier burned at our backs, and its ash fell
on Rome that year and the next year as well;
ash freighting every wind, blighting one roof
in ten. The mothers of my friends wore grief
and Gaius, Marcus, and Marcellus missed
a week of school. Whenever the rest
played Romans and Barbarians, those three
would not draw lots for Spartacus and Pompey,
Caesar and Vercingetorix.
The years
brought back from their resonant frontiers
proconsular heroes, whose names were cut
across the blackened benches where we sat
to hear them speak of Rome ... of her galleys
and viaducts as the earth's arteries
flowing with grain and metal ... and of work
to be done in the eagles' endless wake.
From fire to anvil:
over an iron knee
we learnt the rule of law. Justice decreed
three hammer blows for bad hexameters,
four for disrespect to gods or ancestors,
five for disloyalty, six for deceit,
and one for flinching when the hammer beat.
From fire to anvil, anvil to water –
breaking its skin each morning in winter
to steel our own against the furious
skies of the frontiers awaiting us.
The frontiers of the body we pushed back,
wrestling, mapped them on the running track,
until we ruled ourselves; until, after
ten years, we were the men our fathers were.
But fired, forged, tempered, and tested, when we looked
for eagles to follow, all were plucked
naked by northern winds.
Today my state,
though not proconsular, is fortunate
enough. For National Servicemen with time
to kill, better the White Man's Grave than tame
parades beside the Rhine or 'bull' at home.
We do no good here and we do no harm,
as they did both, whose colours still at dawn
we hoist above the palms, at dusk haul down.
Come 'Independence', those will be laid up,
and the last legionaries played to their ship
by Hausa bugles, Ibo fifes. When quit
of us, they'll come to blows, but now all's quiet
on the Western Frontier.
Tomorrow,
I'm Duty Officer; tonight, must borrow
some Regular's sword for my Sam Browne.
You wonder what the sword's for? Pulling down
thunderbox lids that nobody cleans
in the Royal West African Frontier Force latrines.
1968
A Round
Lead ore lifted from a Cornish mine,
married in a furnace to Cornish tin,
their one flesh pewter, a barnacled plate
salvaged from the ribs of a ship of the line,
in Cape Town market sold for a florin,
bartered for biltong in the Free State,
a farmer's wedding present for his bride
to shine, until – with the waggon-team
taken, the farm in flames – she cried
as he melted it down, tilting its gleam
to the lips of his bullet-mould, one
of whose slugs would open a seam
in a Cornish miner's son.
1999
War Story
of one who grew up at Gallipoli
not over months and miles, but in the space
of feet and half a minute. Wading shoreward
with a plague of bullets pocking the sea
he tripped, as it seemed to him over his scabbard,
and stubbed his fingers on a dead man's face.
1963
The Anzac Sonata
for my uncle Ramsay Howie, violinist
in memory
of his brother Bill Howie, rifleman, 1892–1915
and his sister Peggy Howie, 1908–1980
Another time,
another place.
Glossy as a conker
in its cushioned case.
Lift and tighten
the horsehair bow,
shuttle rosin
to and fro.
Hold the note
there, that first note
jubilant from
the fiddle's throat.
I
She remembered the singing. No voice
that she knew and no words, but a cadence,
the speech of a heart with cause to rejoice.
But tell me, now sitting in silence,
with never more cause for grief,
never such darkness, such distance
between us, whether beyond belief
that speech is your speech and yours
that cause for rejoicing. And if,
beyond time, that cadence continues,
send me the jubilant echo
that came to you sixty-five years
ago. Your pen in my hand will know
the note. Its slender antenna inclines
and straightens, leans to the wall, the window.
Another time. I must learn the lines
of a window growing in a dark wall
and listen, as she, to the sibilant pines
and beyond, the approach, lapse, and withdrawal
of surf, off the Bluff, at the world's end.
Then nearer, clearer, the call
of a vibrant string. Turning as she listened,
one cheek on the pillow
brushed a cooler cheek
of fragrant calico.
Could no more – staring – speak
than that dumb angel now
descended here – but how –
from the toyshop window.
Hearing the string once more
sing out, carried my – Nell –
to Ramsay's room. The door
was open. Dawnlight fell
on bow, hand, and fiddle.
Where did they come from?
Bill.
Bill going to the War.
She remembered the drumming, a pulse in the ear
as of pounding blood, a fever shaking
schoolroom windows. She could not hear
the teacher, though her mouth was making
shapes. The drumming coming. The bell
breaking in, and as suddenly dumb.
Asphalt underfoot. She was holding Nell
in one hand; in the other, the cold
blade of a railing. The drumswell
swept past her leopardskin and gold,
pistons pumping thunder, and Bill
on his bay under a flag enscrolled
Otago Mounted Rifles. Then the bell
told the playground that the show
was over but, shoulder high, Nell
was still waving white calico.
Five railings down
watching the bay
glossy as a conker
saunter away,
groomed tail swaying
to and fro. Lift
and tighten
the horsehair bow.
Hold the note,
the band's grand tune.
Hands must cup head
all afternoon,
that not a dwindling
chord be spilled
until the fiddle
can be filled.
II
Good news from Gallipoli: bought
my ticket home with a piece of lead
no bigger than a shilling ... doctor thought
a bargain ... Put the best sheets on his bed.
Lift and tighten
the horsehair bow,
shuttle rosin
to and fro.
Hum and rehearse
each afternoon
the band's grand
jubilant tune.
Black news from Gibraltar: died
at sea, of fever ... towards 5 o'clock,
pulse slackening, he went out with the tide ...
We laid him to rest in the shade of the Rock.
A grave should be in the shade
of a tree. If we scissored
a plot in the orchard,
cut blossom, and made
a wreath, if you played
the march and I beat the drum,
would his spirit not come?
Another time,
a brother's face.
Glossy as a conker
its cushioned case.
Lift and tighten
the horsehair bow.
Fingers begin,
horse and hearse follow
under the bridge
and varnished arch,
moving in time
to the Dead March
Never such darkness, such distance
between them: the one heart stilled
in its case, the other struggling for utterance.
Never such nights and such days filled
with absence – his bed, his chair – the ache
pervasive as water, and not to be spilled
in words. But stumbling fingers take
comfort from strings that sing
of another time, another place,
of hurts beyond healing, and bring
all into harmony. Music knows
what happens. The hand, bowing,
instructs the heart, as the fiddle grows
with the arm. Fernlike, its coils extend.
Hips widen. The varnish glows
with handling. They speak to each other; friend
confiding in friend, humouring, healing
the hurts. With a horsehair brush in his hand
he paints the air with the colours of feeling.
Another time,
a sister's face,
candle shining
through Brussels lace.
Lift and tighten
the horsehair bow.
Let petals fly
and the bells blow
under the bridge
and varnished arch,
dancing to
the Wedding March.
She remembered the singing, the silence, the face
on the pillow. She heard the jubilant note
another time, another place.
But the angel opened its throat
and mewed for her breast. The sky she saw
reflected in its eyes seems less remote
but bluer, more miraculous than before.
The hands smell sweeter than calico,
and when the feet take to the floor
the first ant drags its shadow
into a garden where the first birds waken.
The beasts are named, and the trees also.
She saw the apple, in its season, taken
and knowing what would follow, drew
an arm through her daughter's when the road was shaken.
She knew the way. The darkness grew
transparent as they walked together.
And, when the dawn came up, she knew
her daughter older than her older brother.
III
'What did the doctor say?' She, on her bed,
could hear her heart drumming. 'He said,
"We've a bit of a battle ahead."'
Not the least cloud troubled the sky.
Heavily burdened, looking ahead,
they moved up the line to die.
Another time,
another place.
Pack the fiddle
in its cushioned case.
Lock the door,
take to the air.
Fiddle and fiddler
must be there –
picking out
the band's grand tune
fiery night
by fiery noon.
A cross-fire nailed them to the cliff
and each dug in, clawing a cave
shaped to the body that rose stiff
at first light, resurrected from its grave.
Trapped in their trenches, shelled and sniped,
with never more cause to grieve
and curse their luck, they grinned, and wiped
back bloody sweat. The steel bees
stung, but only their wounds wept.
Below them, oleanders bloomed in the gullies,
but all who dreamt of gardens woke
to harsher scents than these.
Between barbed wire and prickly oak
they held the line on the place of the skull.
Another morning broke.
In single file, they were moving downhill
and someone was singing. The sky lightened.
She – and an angel – were following Bill
to the beach – and the boat – at the world's end.
Another time,
another place.
Incline the bow
Above the face
now putting out
in a cushioned boat,
and paint a garland
that will float
on the silence
after her.
At the last stroke
of the coda,
hold the note
there, that first note,
jubilant from
the fiddle's throat.
1980
(Continues...)
Excerpted from War Poet by Jon Stallworthy. Copyright © 2014 Jon Stallworthy. Excerpted by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
No Ordinary Sunday 9
Home Thoughts from Abroad 1955 11
A Round 14
War Story 15
The Anzac Sonata 16
Apollinaire Trepanned 24
Edward Thomas's Fob Watch 25
War Poet 26
Goodbye to Wilfred Owen 33
War Song of the Embattled Finns 34
A Letter from Berlin 35
Wiedersehen 37
At St Gennys 39
The Nutcracker 41
A poem about Poems About Vietnam 50
A Portrait of Robert Capa 51
Kathmandu-Kodari 52
Skyhorse 53
Self-Portrait in Snow 73
Notes 74