Fri - September 17, 2004

W. S. Graham, from New Collected Poems, Faber, 2004.



I, NO MORE REAL THAN EVIL IN MY ROOF

I, no more real than evil in my roof
Speak at the bliss I pass I can endure
Crowding the glen my lintel marks,
Speak in this room this traffic builds
About my chair and table for my nature.
I feel the glass collide with light and day.

Outside this lull is happening the young
Who cough their stories in the curving siding.
I, no more real than my enclosure
Devise my eye to irrigate my love
For where the slates slew down my roof
The sky tilts back its shingle with no sign.

From inward through my window's needle eye
Children cartwheel from prison in procession
And stage their fear on mulls of rock
And build boundaries with ochre bricks.
Thunder falls round the fieldmice and the house.
Through all the suburbs children trundle cries.

I, no more real than when my hill of head
Finds evil in my dredged up heart,
Press down my padding question on the floor.
What things the young will take for song or grief.
The flagstone under sky is canopy
For other air where other thunder falls.

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