for Oliver Bernard
1
“The Siren’s song” he says “has poisoned my blood:
I took the wax from my ears as we sailed past
that island. All day I was like a God, stood
listening: me and the man tied to the mast.. . .
Can one drown their singing in one’s own song,
hold the darlings under till the bubbles stop,
and the lovely faces relax, who so long
has sailed secretly to where the notes drop
as nymphs and naiads on the sand before me,
when my hand moves without thought to my thighs,
so that I can’t think beyond what I can see
inside my skull where the imagined honey is?
I’ll never be cured. Though sometimes a reprieve
fools me into thinking I am whole again,
then I hear music. I have learned not to believe:
redemption’s for stupider or stronger men.
We are both marked: he will leave Penelope,
and I will never do all that I might do,
which is hubris once more, I know: but look me
in the eye and tell me that it isn’t so.
Another drink.” he says. “I have lost everything
men hold valuable. When they call I go
and so would you if you had heard the Sirens sing:
it’s here, in your palm: take it from me. I know.”
2
“There’s never surf in that enchanted water,
neither storm nor other men will ever reach
where the soft foot-fall of the lotus-porter
only briefly disturbs the still, dreaming beach
where vacancy pools thickly around the dreamer
and dreaming slowly unspools infinity
weightless as the smoke from the unseen steamer
that stains the unfathomable night sky.
But all this is noise. My voice offends my ears:
I’ve nothing useful to say; and these eyes see
nothing that oughtn’t reduce a man to tears
when he might sleep comforted beside that sea.
Another drink. Enough brings forgetfulness -
I would trade misery for that, sweet and clean,
if I knew how. And how forget the caress
of the beauty I have tasted, heard and seen?
That is what keeps me here when I could have slept
eternity away, but there is a truth,
a bargain I see you think easily kept:
wait till you have only memories of youth.”
3
“Last night? In a gutter in my own puke -
what’s it to you? Do you imagine a drink
buys you rights? God, you look like you’ve seen a spook.
Go away. Can’t a man have some room to think?
And don’t imagine I looked up at the stars:
I was blind drunk, like the other pigs I keep
company with. And in winter behind bars
usually: if it gets too cold I can’t sleep.
Here’s my girl: cheap red wine. She shares my sty,
her and Poppy, a slut like her mother.
They stop me caring how far I’ve gone awry
and God I’m thankful for that. Get me another.
They’ll kill me, and they can, any time they want,
for all I care. Look here, would you want to live:
bleary eyes, foul breath and soiled underpants?
I’m waiting for the oblivion they’ll give
today, tomorrow, next day: what’s it matter?
Won’t be long till I give all this the heave-ho
and you’ll sit here looking smug and getting fatter,
and I won’t give a shit because I won’t know.”
4
“Mood swings? Me? Sod off! No, I apologise:
come back and have a drink. You’re probably right.
It’s the wine and a head full of seagull cries;
I’m three sheets to the wind and not thinking straight.
“Steer middle course, right?” the smart bastard tells me,
“That’s the trick.” But he can’t tell me how to smell
which wind it is blows that way, nor what the sea
might have in store for us over the next swell.
Scylla and Charybdis. And seagulls mewing
while ankle deep in blood and shipmates’ entrails
those of us still able to, stand up hewing
clawed or scaled or feathered hands from the taffrails
and braver men than me screaming for mothers
as they disappear down into great foetid
maws and the hungry seagulls’ blood red feathers,
and the things we had to do, and things I did.
But long hours between the naiads’ salty thighs,
slippery with loving: I promise you, lad,
that’s not something you forget; and God! their cries -
hearing them is enough to make a man mad.
5
“Buy me a bottle to say goodbye.” he says.
“A last good bottle before I up and go:
I greet each new place with such fine promises
and my promises last no longer than snow.
Familiarity breeds what they say:
I can only take so much – and I see you
can hardly wait for me to be on my way.
So. I’m going to find somewhere that’s clean and new -
except there’s no such place. Somewhere that I’ll find
a woman. And I could get work: I can graft
hard as the next derelict If I set my mind….
Don’t look at me like I’ve gone fucking daft.
I need a woman – if any will have me -
long as when we’ve both finished, then I can sleep
and through her body feel the green heaving sea,
and hear the promises the sirens keep.”
He stared at me for a long moment blankly,
Then blinked and got unsteadily to his feet,
And picking up the wine bottle walked away
Without a backward look out into the street.