the blood—relationship
is a terrific indictment of the flesh
under cover
of clothing and furnishing
“somebody” has sinned
and their sin
—a living witness of the flesh
swarms with inquisitive eyes
resenting
the lasting
presence of a vile origin
There is no liberation
from this inversion
of instinct
making subliminal depredations
on Ova’s brain
She is overshadowed
by the mother’s aura
of sub—carnal anger
restringent to the pores
of her skin—
which opening
like leaves for rain
crave for caressings
soft as wings
Lacking dictionaries
of inner consciousness — —
unmentionable stigmata
is stamped
by the parent’s solar—plexus
in disequilibrium
on the offspring’s
intuition
Christ’s Regrettable Reticence
Ova is at the mercy
of the enigmatical behaviour
around her
only One behaves
unlike all others
the gentle Jesus
whose unseen behaviour
like a mouse or a fairy
in lurking discretion
is the wary
perfection
of a shy saviour
“Oh why wouldn’t the Gentle
come out
—into the open
and just show them?”
Yet she loves the Gentle
“Perhaps if he knew there
was a dear little girl here
who wouldn’t hurt him
— — —if he came out?”
For a pale
pitiful housemaid
who bowed
healingly
between
her and the loud
maternity—
Has told her
of—Gentle Jesus
our excuse— — —
He dipped his hand in the sauce—tureen
and allowed his disciples to do the same
And that for every infantile
indiscretion
there is absolution
in Christ’s name
And she
is credulous
as all hungry
imaginations in Man
swallow the parsimonious
presentations put before them
Enter Colossus
About this time
in an Alpine
summer resort The male fruit
of a Celtic couple
is baptized
Colossus
And the first time
that ever he sits up
devouring his pap
It is as if a pillar of iron
erects him
in place of a spine
And the first time
he opens his eyes
wittingly—
’Tis like an eagle
soaring on the sun
and the first time
he communes within himself
he decides
All words are lies
His gracious little lady—bird
of a mamma
dresses him in velvet suits
of gentian blue
determined she will do
her best to keep him
a little gentleman
like his ancestors
even
if he does not live in
London
Her idea of rearing a son
is showing him to everyone
in the drawing—room
for them to praise him
which idea is rather distorted
by the little one
throwing the tea—pot
at Mme Follilot
because her top-knot
displeases him so
And who
would care to call at
any house on finding the young master in the hall
pissing into our reverend pastor’s hat?
He like so many of us
has his own sense of fun
and when his governess offers him a bun
“Bring me a bifsteek de femme
— — and under done!”
These women run
in all directions
when he appears
This palpable
evidence of his mother’s
unfortunately
having given birth to a criminal
— — — —
Postures of a monster
coincident
with the Christian
introspection
of Ova
Ova. Among. The. Neighbours.
(The drama of)
a human consciousness
(played to the inattentive audience
of the Infinite)
gyrates
on the ego—axis
intoxicates
with the cosmic
proposition of being it — —
Till the inconsiderate
competitional brunt
of its similars
informs it
of several millions
“pulling the same stunt”
this consciousness within her
uncurled itself upon the rollers of objective experience
printing impressions
vaguely and variedly
upon Ova
In place of the more formulate education
coming naturally
to the units of a national instigation
— — — — —
New Life
when it inserts itself into continuity
is disciplined
by the family
reflection
of national construction
to a proportionate posture
in the civilized scheme
deriving
definite contours
from tradition
personality
being mostly
a microcosmic
replica
of institutions
Indigenous neighbours
before their hearths
pile up their Gods
—sightless and mindless—
but still the Gods
of an indigenous clay
Something dumb
but doubtless
is being accomplished
by the quotidian inspiration
towards frustration
of all
other clays
of Earth’s conception
And to each
inhabitant of the crudest streets
is allotted the pride
of controlling the tide
of seas that he has never set eyes upon
but hears
are his
Suburban children
of middle—class Britain
ejected from the home
are still connected
with the inseverable
navel—cord of the mother—land
and
need never feel alone
And if this tepid flesh
of uni—conscious islanders
feels no particular passion
towards its propagations
it knows
that each is integral
to that removed yet irremovable
rose
and rejoices in them only symbolically
for if one should not defer
his opinions to his flower
of utter chivalry
he is cut off utterly
“Except ye become as a little child”
the lord was heard when upon earth
to say — — —it is inferred—
that he preferred—
an Idiot child from birth
There is no other clime
where nurseries bloom
so luxuriantly so “over time”
as in England
where ardently—
adults
—anxiously
concoct a lunacy
of flippant fallacy
for innocence
And the meticulous
punctualities
of fresh air and milk
mix
with the coloured imbecilities
exalted—
illustrated—
for children’s libraries
O may the hot—house purity—
essence
of English childhood—
prolong itself
into autumnal adolescence —
O may the fuddled blue
of the imperial eye
forget—me—not—itself
in distinct conceptions
of functional existence
O may it muddle through
bright with its bland taboo
from the nursery to the cemetery
Amen
Ova Has Governesses
Ova knows none of these
pretty artifices
of happy nurseries
for foisting illusive sops
on the untamable brute
called Life
For her
the irredeemable anaemia
of hour upon hour
devoid
of invitation to vitality
drifts through her arteries
Changed to her Mother’s vagaries
her Nurses and governesses
pinch—faced conservatives
respect Life
they let it alone
lest it discomfort them
before the awful comfort of the grave
save them
They have none of the
elite audacity
to tease its slumberous ferocity
with a felicitous humour
that sets
it at defiance
They never accompany
its growls with clarinettes
She is laid
in London’s under—lap
of unutterable lapidary
—persistance
of pavements into distance
The grey air
stricken with trees
whose vernal hair
is spoiled with soot
The flux of Life she
flows on
of gruesome
inner and outer architecture
and dingy damask
A twilit turbulence
of routine in coma
shot
with stranded rockets
of curative colour
The ghoulish clouds
hide God
who should
have made the world
a musical—box
of coloured glass
growing like gilly—flowers
and Phlox — — —
with butterfly—winged
cherubim
warbling in
low—branched fruit trees
Jews and Ragamuffins of Kilburn
But she goes
shopping in —kill—burn— —
she knows
it—named for its pavement lid of hell— —
here dwell
haberdashers
they scare her
with adventures
of dashing rabbit—hares
Gingerly Nurse
lifts her nose
because
in Kilburn are so many Jews
She fears to find them crawling up her socks
but hears
the Jews killed Jesus
and are bound for Hades
with r—o—u—n—d noses
Here where the common children swarm
—who choose
chillblains and chaps
and fluted shoes
and shout “Gaa—aar—rn”
One
wearing
a straggling lambs’—wool tippet
tied in front
with a tag of pink tape
and at the back
her plait
humps itself over it
kneels
in a queer
position
of sideway struggle
Her leg has slipped
between the spear
headed palings growing
a trap
on the crude depth
of an empty area
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ova fears
— —That she can never
release it
iron is so hard
that even the strongest man in the world
could
never bend it
Ova bears—
horror for this child
caught in a novel hell
of immovable metal
which is eternal
“Hold up your chin”
nurse says “you begin
to walk like a horrid ragamuffin”
The common children
have the best of her
—though dressed in
rags—They feed on muffin
The Surprise
The things the armoured towers
tell
are not quite real
The things they do
never “happen”
only their actions
convince on those occasions
when they blow up
and scatter her reason
Sometimes
a level shaft of sweetness
cleaves
the irate thunder
Miss Bunn
whose face of a china doll
has taken on a
significance
of foolish intelligence
that children love so well
who performs
the duties of a clown
and whose door—bell
is so low down
often invited to come
cajoles
chaos to laughter
seldom heard in this home
and only
in company
as a disguise for thunder
“If you be good girl or boy
as I suppose you be
you will neither laugh nor smile
at the tickling of your knee”
She brings
a surprise basket
full
of Japanese fishes of cotton wool
“We will not tell Miss Bunn”
says father “what we have done
peeping in
