Poetry from The Literary Review
A Final Plea for Clemency
John Latta
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Weather adequate, weather so bloomingly adequate: no hijinks In the form of Nijinsky- Browed clouds, no tricks up the dark sleeve Of the bounding yellow sun, nary One furtive smudge of cloud In sky disinfect’d, or annular, or lean . . . So the story begins, copies cc’d to the millions Of inhabitants of that rugged little bungalow At the nether end of the twentieth century Where everybody’s busy pulling shut the door, the door Of the century I mean, tumbling all over one Another trying to get a grip On the door that’s taking colossal big expenditures of whatever we ain’t got To finally close. We’d like a fatuous grand parcel Of time, something Awe-inspiring we could position up over the mantelpiece above the roaring Red fire, something of fervent use We could hoist down Like a musket To examine cold lonely nights, or pocket Against the intricate Cruelties of a future of pure winter . . . Just for now, we’re in possession of a copy of something Addressed to our younger selves, An insincere bit of cheerfulness We’re no longer fond of. And looking back over our recent tantrum- Punctuated childhoods, we see we need’t’ve been such sticklers For order: numerous shaggy men in animal skins are to be seen Clubbing the yellow dandelions of A happy childhood To buttery smithereens Out in our patchy yards . . . We put it all away, the whole kit and caboodle. We put away the century and all of its toys- Pencil, paper, our mechanical hand That keeps writing it and writing it again and again and again.
You do not do it too much but when you do do it it’s Like a harvest of tacks spilt off a lorry all over a cloud- Bound duel carriageway just north of London, it’s Like a leaking sack of “inverted commas” hung dripping Over an open folio edition, a natural history of ants And other social insects—termites, bees, etc. —and sounds Like an infestation of speech, things of the physical World all gabbing and sartorial and your swell Physical head prolix as a supernumerary and getting big as a cheese. It’s all rather flamboyant and (you worry) English . . . Like a perceived need to torch an estuary’s rampant foul marshes, Or a dare to set fire to a model boat- Load of havoc or a millionaire’s bewildering collection of the clay Feet of the million worthies he’s knocked off Capital twin pedestals of desire and unknown fiduciary earnings In a drive to corner the market on the exchange of loss for loss. You are not to be dissuaded in your penchant for leaning out Of windows dumping box after box of aphorisms Into the mouths of toads, they who gather solemn in homely Homage, like silent brown clouds, to a wart like you. You see the problem. You inhabit a world of your own Making and miss the sunlight pouring its smooth honey Through the forsythia bud, or the hickory’s stolid finesse Growing in a forest no thinking monkey’s disturbance disturbs With worrisome inventions and then you’re not worrying anymore . . . |
