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All week, since ‘Skipper’ crossed the Bar,
We’ve had silence coming out of our ears:
Silence for Strings by Samuel Barber,
Edwardian silence by Edward Elgar;
Big Ben has held her silver tongue
Till the whole State seems dumb with it.
Even today, the play’s postponed
While two fifteens of blue and red,
With armbands, muster on half-way,
Each bowed head wantonly intent
On its secret stuff, the own trash
(Forty-six) that fills the void
When nothing’s happening. (Helen’s waist.
Fifty-four. The piece of white
Chalk on which their toes are set.)
Acts of remembrance (Now up the six
Broad steps of the Cenotaph.)
Render the dead their quiet due;
But must the Empire hold her breath
For Skipper, slain by his appetites?
And dragging through this second minute,
Too—until you fear the ref
Has in his turn suffered a stroke,
And failed to tell; or when his whistle
Blew to inflict his interdict
The pea had flown from the whistletop—…
Imagine fifty thousand boredoms,
Ours, seats in the back of our knees
Till kingdom or the cold night come;
And then—O Jesus, make it stop!
From Oxford Poetry Vol 13 No 2 (Winter 2009)
Vivienne Westwood, a cento
The garment should say: ‘I am this’
A story of itself
It’s just so creative to put a sentence together
Greet me by ‘how lovely you are’ rather than ‘I like your hat’
I haven’t thought properly about dying
But if I were to write anything on my tombstone
It would be ‘The only revolution is culture’
Every time I speak to someone, I assume they understand
How easy it would have been not to lead this life
I could have been a schoolteacher
What you are given for free should not be owned
Love affairs go a long way to helping life pass you by
Behave according to the clothes
Forget yourself and you will become who you are
I am the centre of my look, like Chanel was
Punk was kids having a great time, but for what? I don’t know
If I go into a room and see Pamela Anderson looking incredible
I’m going to be delighted
The sun makes my skin itch when I’m on a bicycle
A nude is never really naked
I know exactly what I would like my legacy to be
Form is always becoming something else
I design for a world that doesn’t exist, you know, one like this but better
I wake up in the morning
And think
People are alive
Making things, children
And apps, they
Are running to one
Another and then my arm
Falls asleep.
Most of the men
Who did not exactly know
They were my father
Are dead
And so
My father keeps
dissolving.
Tonight
Both my sons are sleeping
At their mom’s apartment.
I can’t always feel
My legs
But I don’t want to tell
Anyone. I’m so afraid
Of everything.
When I called Mary
To ask her how Ralph died
I ended up calling Mary
To tell her that Ralph died.
I think I can pretend
To be a person for
Maybe only a few more years.
And after that,
The moon is just going to
Have to defend itself,
The shadows
In the tall grass are just
Going to have to learn
How to self-soothe.
My sons will just have
To learn something
About fathers
Who leave without knowing
They are leaving.
Whether I’m here,
Not being able to feel
My face,
Or not here and my face
Is just the light above the grass.
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