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derekpoetrydumpwater table
when they came, on their naked tough-soled feet
they loved the places where the land and water meet
and on formby shore their toes still greet the greying air
filling with the tide at every turn: our ancient relatives
walking towards us
water sank below porous rock
lime and chalk-filtered river
knows only the winter of the world
an inverse persephone
it rises from the dorset fields
as harvest's daughter turns her back
the landscape cracks
and the running river ripples cold and clear returning to its track
borne there by the winter.
yusuf dreams of drowning even when he wakes
was coming to this clouded chalkscape a terrible mistake?
yusuf dreams of drowning now and not the sound guns make
and the raindrops still don't silence the lives distance takes
but at least now it's his lungs that cry and not his heart that breaks.
everywhere, everywhere
there's not a drop to drink
everywhere. the bridge is gone.
the walls are falling down
the house is full of thick grey mud--
but the summer will bring drought, no doubt
while christmas spews this flood
throught the vestigial remnants of a town:
we can't go on, can't go on
the house begins to stink
and not one southern accent cares.
silty thames once ran higher in the hills of england's bones
thrust into the sweating south by the mega glacier's freezing hand
and now norfolk's shores recede like hair to bring the coast's kiss
wetly home
and the river valley is on fire.
how long ago did the fens rise; how long ago did the Wash cycle end
how many millennia since the broads
were cut
how many shivering sodden ancestors huddled in one soggy hut?
(did it always rain like this?)
forty days and forty nights drowned the wretched earth
and god stretched out his hand and
nothing but Foulness, rising from the sand
and two of every last remaining survivor
denied passage on the boat
as the hole of sinking england fails to float.
slapton sands sank a thousand americans but first
it claimed a village, throwing the ocean on the land
slapton village: slipping by degrees
into the hungry maw of the southern sea
made ravenous by dredging sand.
everywhere, everywhere
we are going down
the deflated rubber lifeboat
washes up upon the shingle shore
twenty-five sodden unknown sailors
sail and breathe no more--
the lands that spat them out stripped
by death from their tired faces
all traces of identity
brothers of a hundred thousand drowné english seamen
who hail from different places.
once the waters demanded blood.
heads. shields. now, instead
we give them flowers.
flowers to apologise. flowers
to cover for the guilt.
flowers to hide the froth, the stench
the isotypes unstable decaying in
the placid upland streams.
the dead sheep, like a remnant of that former pious slaughter,
resting half in, half out of of cold leat water.
golf balls, like roc's eggs.
the butchered bodies of trafficked girls,
young men who begged--pleaded--sank--
then floated, to the consternation of an unlucky angler,
and stank.
and shit. so much shit.
until the fleet is thick with it
until the humber is sunk under
until the fog on the tyne is solid
until the holy waters of the wells of glastonbury grow squalid
we shit
where we drink
and still we sink.
umar left his land--birmingham--
to lie for several years under a wet towel.
his lungs are filling now
they're always filling now
there are so many things no one has said
while he's gasping for air
so many questions
but not one apology.
the national water board.
the nation's watery body.
the water on the table
under the table
is rising still;
it's plain where the floods will come
and they will.
through the deep steep valley carved by cracking ice
more moons ago than minds can count
runs the dark brown lock of hair of tamar
goddess of the bronze moors
bronze lover of the the atlantic
near-connector of the irish waters
to the french;
in bridged bondage still churning,
fat as a bear with leaping salmon,
carrying the storms' blessing down from the hills
yearning
for the times when she was fed with reverence
instead of undiluted untreated human piss.
holy, holy are the waters of the chalice
of the white lady
of the baths
holy are the waters that spring up from the rocks;
we have forgotten this
and we are lost.
water, water, everywhere
cascading through the roof.
cleaning out the gutters;
pouring through the sea wall
the barriers and the drains:
england's rivers will rise again.
yusuf dreamt, again, that he would drown:
he woke to grey foreign england and grey foreign faces
and the rain came down.
when they came, on their naked tough-soled feet
they loved the places where the land and water meet
and on formby shore their toes still greet the greying air
filling with the tide at every turn: our ancient relatives
walking towards us
water sank below porous rock
lime and chalk-filtered river
knows only the winter of the world
an inverse persephone
it rises from the dorset fields
as harvest's daughter turns her back
the landscape cracks
and the running river ripples cold and clear returning to its track
borne there by the winter.
yusuf dreams of drowning even when he wakes
was coming to this clouded chalkscape a terrible mistake?
yusuf dreams of drowning now and not the sound guns make
and the raindrops still don't silence the lives distance takes
but at least now it's his lungs that cry and not his heart that breaks.
everywhere, everywhere
there's not a drop to drink
everywhere. the bridge is gone.
the walls are falling down
the house is full of thick grey mud--
but the summer will bring drought, no doubt
while christmas spews this flood
throught the vestigial remnants of a town:
we can't go on, can't go on
the house begins to stink
and not one southern accent cares.
silty thames once ran higher in the hills of england's bones
thrust into the sweating south by the mega glacier's freezing hand
and now norfolk's shores recede like hair to bring the coast's kiss
wetly home
and the river valley is on fire.
how long ago did the fens rise; how long ago did the Wash cycle end
how many millennia since the broads
were cut
how many shivering sodden ancestors huddled in one soggy hut?
(did it always rain like this?)
forty days and forty nights drowned the wretched earth
and god stretched out his hand and
nothing but Foulness, rising from the sand
and two of every last remaining survivor
denied passage on the boat
as the hole of sinking england fails to float.
slapton sands sank a thousand americans but first
it claimed a village, throwing the ocean on the land
slapton village: slipping by degrees
into the hungry maw of the southern sea
made ravenous by dredging sand.
everywhere, everywhere
we are going down
the deflated rubber lifeboat
washes up upon the shingle shore
twenty-five sodden unknown sailors
sail and breathe no more--
the lands that spat them out stripped
by death from their tired faces
all traces of identity
brothers of a hundred thousand drowné english seamen
who hail from different places.
once the waters demanded blood.
heads. shields. now, instead
we give them flowers.
flowers to apologise. flowers
to cover for the guilt.
flowers to hide the froth, the stench
the isotypes unstable decaying in
the placid upland streams.
the dead sheep, like a remnant of that former pious slaughter,
resting half in, half out of of cold leat water.
golf balls, like roc's eggs.
the butchered bodies of trafficked girls,
young men who begged--pleaded--sank--
then floated, to the consternation of an unlucky angler,
and stank.
and shit. so much shit.
until the fleet is thick with it
until the humber is sunk under
until the fog on the tyne is solid
until the holy waters of the wells of glastonbury grow squalid
we shit
where we drink
and still we sink.
umar left his land--birmingham--
to lie for several years under a wet towel.
his lungs are filling now
they're always filling now
there are so many things no one has said
while he's gasping for air
so many questions
but not one apology.
the national water board.
the nation's watery body.
the water on the table
under the table
is rising still;
it's plain where the floods will come
and they will.
through the deep steep valley carved by cracking ice
more moons ago than minds can count
runs the dark brown lock of hair of tamar
goddess of the bronze moors
bronze lover of the the atlantic
near-connector of the irish waters
to the french;
in bridged bondage still churning,
fat as a bear with leaping salmon,
carrying the storms' blessing down from the hills
yearning
for the times when she was fed with reverence
instead of undiluted untreated human piss.
holy, holy are the waters of the chalice
of the white lady
of the baths
holy are the waters that spring up from the rocks;
we have forgotten this
and we are lost.
water, water, everywhere
cascading through the roof.
cleaning out the gutters;
pouring through the sea wall
the barriers and the drains:
england's rivers will rise again.
yusuf dreamt, again, that he would drown:
he woke to grey foreign england and grey foreign faces
and the rain came down.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-16 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-16 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-08 01:59 pm (UTC)denied passage on the boat
as the hole of sinking england fails to float.
Absolute slap to the face. The whole poem, but those lines in particular. Amazing.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-09 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-09 09:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-10 04:11 am (UTC)