THE DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS

I'm just listening to the Diary of Samuel Pepys, (an official in London in the 17th century, in the Restoration period after the fall of Cromwell's Commonwealth, who left his diary which became posthumously famous). In the 3rd part Pepys has fallen in love with his servant Debs, upsets his wife when she comes in to find hims fondling Debs, has 'his man in her cunny'. (O shit!!!) (when Pepys talks about sex he always falls into a polyglot of French and Spanish, which he must have thought was some kind of secret language. But all his secrets are utterly ransparent to those around him) The way that Pepys conveys this scene is hilarious, he hilariously reveals much about himself. Of course he treats his wife and Debs (Willett) abysmally for he's an important official in London. Everyone lives in fear of sudden execution, so their world resembles that of a Totalitarian State, yet there always seems to be lots of opportunites for pleasure (for Pepys and men of his class). At one point the Dutch navy is up the Medway, bombarding English ships, parts of London are still smouldering after the Great Fire of 1666. Pepys is constantly at the office, at his work of organising and fixing things for the likes of Christopher Wren and Prince Rupert (for, as Pepys, says: 'Rupert has recently been trepanned, may God give good issue to it' meaning that absolutely no one, even the doctors, might know what would happen, trepanning being a kind of ultimately primitive brain surgery). His long-suffering wife eventually persuades him to send Debs a letter telling her that he hates her, calling her a whore. Its hard not to empathise with the wife at this point, everyone suffers, yet Pepys glides through all social situations.

GEOFFREY GODBERT

A LITTLE LATE FLOWERING

In these moments I would like
to captivate you with my heart,
enter the night of movement,
shadow-listen as palpably
as a breath and complete the frantic
aimlessness of steadying my mind
from despair of the next day coming,
wanting it to remain dark
so having no need to waken;
or criss-crossing city streets
so the next day can never catch up:
the next day being black as silence;
the next day being sleepless as a stare

where the sounds that I wish to make
are no longer made by words
but by rain on an umbrella,
by the harpsichord of the sea,
by the flooding colour of sleep.
You can't write down sounds like those
in a panic of words:
they make a song of first farewells;
they make the wail of last songs.

II

Two places side by side, one
of them never being here
which neither I nor my poems know;
nor is it possible to find
any relief from not knowing
now the words have reappeared again
on the other side of my heart,
emerging like distant children,
their hands waving in fragile flowers,
their anxiety collecting.

Better try and get some sleep then
and dream there of possibilities
when lips move silently round
as if caught on the shape of a name,
thinking it best to ask a question;
thinking the answer is the same
as these words:
so please use them
they belong not only to me;
cut out your love from the sound
of the beautiful gestures;
take care not to injure yourself;
and then will you put them down for me,
the words you can bear to touch?
I'd give you speechlessness in exchange.

III

It is now 16.26
and the words have not slowed down
all day and beyond.
Today, I cannot catch the time;
it snares me with words in my hand
that are piling up like lost moments;
so I shall have to speak quickly,
loaning seconds from another day
till the whole of me becomes
cold shadows settling and spreading
submarine darkness on the walls,
breezes moving the ragged sky
in moments of nervous blue;

and it is no good rushing
from man to man shaking shoulders,
asking if they know any better,
because the dream turns out to be
simply this: pageant without a flower,
unconfirmed joy, powerless danger,
the pick of all that is day and night,
from which the future of good,
no matter what increases
particular good, is led
into a room, from there a hole,
its mouth is tightly bound,
its voice is never fed

and fears life melting like ice-cream,
fears naming, fears being nameless,
fears being unable to name,
and especially fears mist rising
exactly two feet off the ground:

how vulnerable we are, I am,
to making discoveries,
to being discovered.

IV

I was writing to tell you
of perfection, the earth rising
in ripples of commencement
pulsing the heart of the day
till the air itself panics upwards
towards the burning blue in the sky
and the flash of the sun explodes
with hardly enough time to seek
revenge let alone achieve freedom.
Shall I wave? I never thought to before;
but I'd like to feel the safety
of vast numbers holding hands,
with people's hope as small as that;
which is not, of course, the end,
so, of course, never over,
this lucky arrangement
of we getting on with life
while going on about death,
frail as a leaf holding on
to the very end of a branch,
its veins screaming with nerve-ends,
its heart pounding as when a tree
is tossed to one side by a storm.

V

We met so abundantly,
remember; we had to beg
other people's forgiveness;
next day, the ache of bruises
appeared on our skins, marking
the helpless places we had touched.
I was amazed by your dreams
carrying over to me;
if I dreamed back, would you hear
in the snow-cunning of eden
the crocuses appearing
like coloured fingers of a glove,
moving with the sigh of butterflies
falling from the sky in skeins
of memory answering my call
on a dawn of names singing
out of the sleep of the night,
poems crossing poems
while the moon falls out of the day,
the sun shines from the dark
in a blinding smile of sound
on the fast legs of dancers
dancing on air we cannot see,
becoming the music of words
too quickly for the naked eye.

VI

I was writing to tell you
of perfection, completed
like a crossword, each of the clues
falling into place, three across,
two down, an anagram of kissing
flowers of life

and who could finish them
fast enough or in time
to stop the circling and circling
of the world from going on
in terrible silences
softly climbing, softly falling

when no one can hear life after death,
when no one can read the final shout
left behind by a sleeping face;
when the dawn never rises.



Geoffrey Godbert

MINKS

just watched the Bill Grundy interview with the Sex Pistols in the 1970s. Looks like Grundy wanted to go down in flames - and glory. Obviously he must've realised the interview would make him very famous, but would also have the effect of curtailing his career. Good on him that he had the pluck to go on air and make a fool of himself. Its only entertainment after all. I'm sure the Sex Pistols didn't care, probably too busy banging each other to give a monkeys about Grundy. The last look on Grundy's face is priceless as he utters 'O shit'.

did I also say that you can find the original poem MINK in Paul Muldoon's book QUOOF. (a mink escapes from a mink farm in South Armagh and is led to the grave of Robert Niarac (an SAS officer murdered by the IRA in 1977 in South Armagh. He had a reputation similar to that of Lawrence of Arabia or Orde Wingate.) by the mink on his anorak. Basically the point of this pointless exercise is that niarac rhymes with anorak (but also plasticmac - maybe..) My poem is about how old corpses rise again from their graves to trouble the living.

JULIUS CAESAR's a good play:

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much; such men are dangerous