Complete Poems: Muriel Spark Read online

  As nine o’clock shivered the dark balcony

  I heard horses beating by;

  And saw, below, white-coated riders, white-sided

  Beasts blanketed against the cold and skyless

  And groundless general benightment.

  It was a white presentment

  With one red light before, one red behind it.

  ‘They pass every night.’ Because

  Of this I came to stay, small as it was.

  Smaller still by daylight; much crockery

  Had to go; many books were abandoned; so too,

  A hoard of smooth planks, they had to go.

  It is not altogether a mockery.

  Horses alone I could not greatly care for,

  But this by night is a company so corporate,

  I call it a Horse, of regimental state.

  Let no prodigal neighbour spend me therefore:

  I am aware of this obvious school of riding,

  And do not count it remarkable that late

  And locally flies the Horse. What’s to be wondered at

  Is myself, that nightly to be dundered at

  From a street without moment the whole length of it,

  I mark the nine o’clock Horse, residing

  Here, hemmed-in, on the strength of it.

  Intermittence

  The old ridiculous partner is back again

  who speaks my mind before me, singing me now

  fonder than ever, my embarrassing vancourier.

  I am her fool, the noisy one to follow

  years at a time, and know her for my other

  who sounds my superstition like a bagpipe.

  I am her acrobat and altogether

  lacking an answer loud enough I

  somersault to her tune, how sick soever.

  I left her once

  for seven years long:

  then she piped

  and I did not dance.

  Little it recks that

  seven long years

  I wept not

  although she mourned,

  since she is back again and the mood is on.

  So must I bear my old she-wolf, who once

  suckled the rising moon,

  to blow her pipes, and I will dance again.

  Letters

  I’m sorry I can’t come to-day;

  I have dozens of letters

  to write.

  Oh, letters. You and your

  dozens of letters.

  Yes, I’ve let them pile up

  by the gross

  And to-day’s the day of

  reckoning.

  Oh, leave your letters, just let

  them lie.

  •

  I’m sorry I can’t come to-day;

  I have received a letter.

  A letter!

  Yes, a letter. I have to

  attend to it to-day.

  Of course, of course, let’s

  make it another day.

  Holidays

  The month of the holidays,

  where is the . . . who can find

  him . . . the electrician, there

  is a water problem, the oil tank

  leaks, do you know what

  that means? It is the holidays, there are

  no electricians, no shops, no tanks,

  no cisterns. Nails

  are breaking, blood does not gush.

  Ring, ring, ring, dial 023

  dial 576 and 999. Nothing

  doing, my friend. All the machines

  are dead. Money doesn’t speak.

  Nobody. The desert.

  And now come the floods.

  Escape, escape quickly. Leave

  everything. No point in locking

  up.

  Go away, far far away. The

  month of the holidays.

  Facts

  Father was a debt-collector

  Mother casalinga (Italian for housewife)

  Siamese cat

  favourite son

  and an outcast son.

  Go off on a holiday.

  Leave the outcast at home.

  What holiday? Drugs? Marocco? Where?

  Never seen again.

  Cleaned up the camper like new & sold it.

  He had a place in London

  Took 9 mil. lire (about three thousand pounds)

  out of the bank.

  DNA blood; tiny bit.

  Yes, shot them all—pointed out graves,

  can’t find bodies.

  What happened to the cat?

  Complaint in a Wash-out Season

  My mind’s in pickle. Think of my talents all soused

  in rainwater, April you All Fools’ Month, you’ve doused

  the light of your joke. Call off this protracted

  intransigent deluge, it’s hackneyed;

  nothing to grizzle about now—winter’s gone knock-kneed,

  so turn off the tap,

  you monstrous infant wetting Infinity’s lap.

  You turned the garden hose on;

  you spat a million missiles aslant through a hundred dozen

  long-range peashooters. You should be past

  practical jokes in bad taste;

  and what an old has-been you look when you flash

  in the face of the sun in a shot-silk taffeta sash

  and lift the petticoat clouds and dance a fandango.

  You’ve rinsed the guaranteed colours out of the rainbow.

  At least, when you wash your dye-streaked hair,

  be so kind as to shake it out elsewhere,

  and request the adenoidal firmament

  not to sneeze all over my temperament.

  Litany of Time Past

  What’s today?

  Hoops today.

  What’s yesterday?

  Tops yesterday.

  What’s tomorrow?

  Diabolo.

  Moons and planets come out to play,

  The Bear bowled, the Sun spun.

  See the Devil-on-sticks run

  Today, tomorrow, and yesterday.

  What’s Hope?

  Skipping rope.

  What’s Charity?

  Salty peppery.

  What’s Faith?

  Edinburgh, Leith,

  Portobello, Musselburgh,

  and Dalkeith.

  Out you are.

  In you are.

  Mustard.

  Vinegar.

  The Fall

  The European Bison fell from grace.

  So did the white-tailed Gnu.

  Likewise the Blesbok, as also the Mountain Zebra.

  The Giant Tortoise must have sinned too.

  Everyone knows about the Dodo;

  The same goes for the Great Auk.

  The inoffensive Okapi’s crime

  Was trying to be other beasts at the same time.

  And there is the case of the Blue-Buck.

  They all came to a halt and are dissolved in mystery.

  Who remembers, now, Steller’s cullionly Sea-Cow?

  It, too, through its innocent fault

  Failed the finals in history.

  Faith and Works

  My friend is always doing Good

  But doubts the Meaning of his labour,

  While I by Faith am much imbued

  And can’t be bothered with my Neighbour.

  These mortal heresies in us

  Friendship makes orthodox and thus

  We are the truest Saints alive

  As near as two and two make five.

  Conundrum

  As I was going to Handover Fists

  I met a man with seven wrists.

  The seven wrists had seven hands;

  The seven hands bore seven bonds;

  The seven bonds hid seven wounds:

  How many were going to Handover Fists?

  And as I was going to Kingdom Come

  I met a dog of twenty ton.

  The twenty ton had twe
nty parts;

  The twenty parts bore twenty hearts;

  The twenty hearts gave twenty barks:

  How many were going to Kingdom Come?

  The Messengers

  Arriving late sometimes and never

  Quite expected, still they come,

  Bringing a folded meaning home

  Between the lines, inside the letter.

  As a scarecrow in the harvest

  Turns an innocent field to grief

  These tattered hints are dumb and deaf,

  But bring the matter to a crisis.

  They are the messengers who run

  Onstage to us who try to doubt them,

  Fetching our fate to hand; without them

  What would Sophocles have done?

  Fruitless Fable

  Mr Chiddicott, being a bachelor,

  Purchased from a reputable department store

  (Barkers’) a morning-tea machine

  At the price of fifteen pounds fifteen.

  Easy to work, all plugged and wired.

  Each night, he set the time required,

  And every morning when he heard

  The bell, he found his tea prepared.

  But being by profession something mechanic

  Mr Chiddicott began to perfect it,

  So that before long when it woke him up

  It actually handed him the cup.

  Years pass. Mr Chiddicott grows

  Successful as a cabbage rose,

  Mellow, unmated and serene,

  Served by the morning-tea machine.

  Alas, the transience of bliss—

  There came a sudden end to his.

  One morning as it rang the bell,

  The tea-machine said, ‘What the hell,

  I’ve stood this treatment long and dumb;

  Mr Chiddicott, the time has come

  For you to make the tea instead.

  Nip out and let me into bed.’

  And when our friend demurred, alack,

  The tea-machine gave him a dreadful crack.

  Mr Chiddicott murmured as he curled

  Up, ‘It is the end of the world.’

  But it wasn’t, for Mr Chiddicott came

  To, and finally admitted blame,

  And every morning now he can be seen

  (From the windows across the street, I mean)

  Serving tea to his perfected tea-machine.

  Note by the Wayside

  To you, fretful exemplar, who claim to place

  Love before all success and kindness above

  Any career, I answer yes, well said, my dear,

  If you have the particular choice:

  If you’re gifted, I mean, in love

  And also special in life’s performances.

  But are you so very clever and so very nice?

  Mungo Bays the Moon

  My dog Mungo under my window

  Barks in the dark. Is that an owl?

  What fowl? What foe? His note ends

  in a howl

  So now I know. He bays the

  Full-bellied moon, my Mungo dog.

  Here in Tuscany they say

  Never move the wine when the moon

  is full,

  Never prune the trees while she waxes.

  Your hair your nails your beard are

  growing long

  With the swelling moon, the moon, and

  Mungo’s song

  Declares the same. Magnetic moon

  He howls, my Mungo dog. Pregnant

  ball in the sky,

  Most pregnant, listen-to-me, my serenade,

  my howl.

  He comes out of his kennel to sing

  in the night,

  My Mungo, my brown dog.

  Panickings

  Scream scream I am

  being victimized wickedized

  You are he said to me

  a destroyer

  an enemy

  and I will dish he said

  the dirt scream scream

  You can’t do this to me I wish

  you dead my job my life

  hand over your purse

  he said immediately or I

  scream scream and worse I

  am a scholar I spook I rake

  I lose my voice

  every dollar counts I’ll do worse

  scream scream I am.

  The Hospital

  I want to fall asleep in the chair

  by the bed.

  Someone calls from the corridor:

  Tom! I must keep her records up

  deck o’cards

  neck of duck

  (That’s up to them) I myself

  want to fall asleep on fine sheets,

  don’t you think?

  Who will keep my eyes shut?

  The Empty Space

  A square space on the wall

  marks the memory of that picture

  painted at night, stolen at night,

  worked on at night, in Rome, from the

  artist’s window.

  How I remember Castel St. Angelo

  in her night picture, gleaming with

  history-in-darkness, guardian of old Rome,

  and the artist’s home was full of midnight

  and the light of all Europe shone in her hands.

  She painted till dawn, having thought

  to herself one night, I will paint

  that scene, and started

  and patiently full-heartedly pursued it

  and did it completely—large, dark and light.

  My honest close companion on the wall:

  It is all over now. The thieves came by night.

  Hats

  I was writing a poem called

  Hats.

  I had seen a shop window

  in Venice, full of

  Hats.

  There were hats for morning,

  for evening, men’s hats, girls’

  Hats.

  There were hats for fishing

  And hats dating back to

  Death in Venice

  His hat so Panama, hers such a

  Madame de Staël

  Hat.

  I was writing a poem about

  Hats

  Hats for a garden party, hats

  For a wet day, hats for a

  wedding party, a

  memorial service.

  There were hats for golf and

  Hats for tennis. Bowler hats,

  Top hats for the races, floral

  headgears equally.

  And as I wrote this poem

  Sitting in a square with my coffee,

  I was called over to see a friend.

  Only for an instant. I shoved

  The poem in my handbag and

  I slung the bag over the chair.

  Only an instant.

  And gone, gone forever, handbag

  poem, my hats, my hats.

  Also my passport.

  What was in the bag? said

  the policeman.

  Some money, a passport

  and a poem.

  How did it go, that poem?

  I wish I could remember.

  Anger in the Works

  Anger filled her body and mind, it

  permeated her insides, her throat

  and heart throbbed with anger. (‘Beware

  the ire of the calm.’) There was

  anger in her teeth, nails and hair.

  It drummed in her ears.

  ‘How lovely to see you,’ she said,

  ‘Do sit down.’

  Dimmed-Up

  The advantage of getting dim-sighted

  Is that there are only outlines and no dinkety details.

  Everyone’s skin is smooth.

  Everyone’s eyebrows are arches.

  Everyone’s eyes are black points.

  Everyone’s clothes are clean.

  Telegraph poles look like poplars

  And a dark room looks like
it’s supposed to be.

  The pictures on the walls of the hotel

  Look like art

  And I can never find my glasses.

  While Flicking Over the Pages

  Noticed by chance an entry in

  Who’s Who

  (b. 1912) the man so truly promising:

  good school, Oxford, career in

  Foreign Office,

  Egypt, Greece, exotic places (but then

  Paraguay—something of a comedown).

  First novel well celebrated—remember,

  they called him an artist to his

  fingertips.

  Now why, bewildered, does he

  trot around,

  an office-boy of literature, snatching

  the opportunity to write a paragraph

  of wasp-like criticism, here and there,

  and tittle-tattle over the garden-fence?

  Oh what went wrong and how

  under the aspect of eternity

  did his trivial genes develop, his fine ones

  wither?

  Standing in the Field

  That scarecrow standing in the field

  is dress-designed as if to move

  all passers-by to tears

  of sorrow for his turnip face,

  his battered hat, his open arms

  flapping in someone else’s shirt,

  his rigid, orthopedic sticks

  astride in someone else’s jeans,

  one leg of which is short, one long.

  He stands alone, he stands alone.

  To the Gods of My Right Hand

  Whoever the gods may be that come to occupy

  the lodging of this limb, of them I make supplication

  for the health of my right hand, waxing now

  to her proper appointment; let them never forsake

  her wrist’s contrivances that strike at last

  the waters of the Word where Babylon

  enjoys no more her songs. Whoever the gods,

  let them enter my right hand, never

  to forget her cunning in the first and the last encounter.

  That Lonely Shoe Lying on the Road

  One sad shoe that someone has probably flung

  out of a car or truck. Why only one?

  This happens on an average one year

  in four. But always throughout my

  life, my travels, I see it like