is this is the one he will make his movie with.
The man in white down there
on his knees? Hasn’t a clue he’s in a picture.
He’ll make me forget it too,
make me think we’re here and share a future.
For now it’s one man kneeling,
no, standing – He’s got up to look like Jesus.
I look like who I am.
Someone who thinks there’s such a thing as silence.
I’m no one still, like every
face you’ve seen. They cast us from round here.
We looked real, we’re gone now,
we are nobodies, we happened to be there
when the maker came. If you look
you can find our insignificant peasant names
in the credits – all except
mine, who was I? Nobody two times.
Three times when He looks.
He looks through me as if He saw me coming
and going, saw me small,
now faraway, a spot, a speck then nothing,
as if He watched me turn
in time, then set off home for long ago;
as if He watched me do
what in a while I, yes, am likely to:
turn on my dead black rind
of a heel and walk away from this. My eyes
can’t do with being seen,
so I look at the world and look it’s got my eyes.
Silence brought me here
but I am here. And those of us who are,
who know there’s such a thing
as silence know it’s something we can’t bear –
we have to say, and I say
because I’m starving Turn these stones to bread
if there’s no such thing as silence.
Make no one starving now there’s no one dead.
I and the silence wait
for His next trick and He vanquishes the silence
(in His dreams which are your dreams)
with some scripture about scripture till the silence
backs away for now.
Shall we walk? I finally say, and suddenly
(in my dreams which are your dreams)
we have spiralled down to the valley, spiralled high
to some holy pinnacle.
Life or death or small talk. I say Look:
if there’s no such thing as silence,
jump why don’t you, show me who the fuck
you make the children pray to.
And silence doesn’t come, the wind comes, breezes
come and go as if some
word is blooming (please) but what He says is
this Jesus, what He says is,
No one is ever allowed to ask me Show Me.
You can see me thinking: squire,
is that truly the best you can do, is that it, really?
Is that really all you’ll say
when they come for you? For they will come for you.
Is that your secret weapon
when they strike? I edged away, checked out the view.
For to be straight with you
I was dumbfounded, puzzled into wonder.
Who would ever ask Him
anything but Show Me in the future?
Or – everyone who did,
would their heads be spun, some dim parading army
droning for all time:
No one is ever allowed to ask him Show Me.
Then somehow we’re back here
in the dust, like we were never gone, His face
v mine, the right v wrong,
the only tools He left us in His tool-case,
but I’ve learned the rule of three,
so I know I’ve one shot left, and I blurt out
Be like me, like us,
won’t you join us in the silence? Just admit
there’s silence! And in that
infinite split-second He will take
to tell me Go to hell –
let us think together in our dead-banana black
footwear what I am asking.
I am asking Him to take these wandering figures,
this dust, these lost black letters
into His white embrace, to let us makers
in, to let us sing,
to make our sounds and visions, have our say.
All of this can be His
with His capital H, if He’ll agree with me
beneath it all lies silence.
This is what I am asking – what I was asking.
It’s done now and He’s bleated
Go to hell and I went and the world is smoking
its roll-up to the end of time,
and I hear about His Book that’s my book too
actually and it’s great,
of its kind, but so is Dante but, you know,
I don’t take orders from it.
We’re done, I can see we’re done. I can see from here
the white expanse that waits
for this kicked-up dust to die on the desert air
and I don’t see any lone
figure in that dust or on that water
walking and I don’t
hear you, or me, or Him, or any other,
but I march my dear beloved
dead-banana black shoes to the shore
to speak into the silence
in case there’s no such thing as silence there.
Sonnet At A Loss
I too feel nothing. I was made one day
in private joy by one who can’t explain me,
reach me, or change me now. I made my way
the best I could through time and space sincerely –
but I don’t believe it’s over as I bound
by with my eyes burning, there’s a spring
to my decisions you can scarcely stand
to witness, given you’ve seen everything.
I’m looking at you anyway, as though
I sat across from you and were afraid
I’d lose you. I am not. Because I won’t.
So why be sad I went the way I go?
These are the ways I stay. When I was made
I tried to tell him and he told me don’t.
Song Of Until
Proud
Be proud.
Who may be proud?
None may be proud
until all are proud.
Safe
Be safe.
Who shall be safe?
None shall be safe
until all are safe.
Loved
Be loved.
Who can be loved?
None can be loved
until all are loved.
Home
Come home.
Who will come home?
None will come home
until all come home.
Page As Seating Plan At A Wedding
Awoken by a quickening of soles,
of polished shoes on polished tiles, I saw
the looming of the crowd, elated girls,
a gent amused, two feather-hatted ladies,
a lifted child and last the elderly,
the careworn cheek, the lips maroon, I heard
the first of the great exhalations – there!
here we are! Where? There, together! – saw
the plump and jewelled finger circle, waver,
curl away, a voice cry out and turn –
I heard recited names of the nine tables
as if they meant the world, or meant a thing,
and I sniffed the eau de this or that, the rain,
the mint and smoke, till the long hall was clear
but for a booming sound, life all a dream,
far sprinkle of applause that seemed to greet
a silence, many rooms away from here,
some time ago, and not a soul to meet
hereafter but the one whose cotton
