No dessert. We all left quite a lot on our plate

because we had started with quite a lot on our plate

and we were mostly Wordsworth scholars.

The freelance biographers tucked in.

All the while – though one really shouldn’t say –

the words of ‘Kubla Khan’ kept

going through my head. Oh dear,

I thought, oh dear, oh fucking dear.

In fact the damsel with the dulcimer

got stuck in there,

and of course she is with me to this day.

50

Lives of the Poets

There was once a fellow called Pickleton

who lived alone, and do you know why?

Because he was a poet!

Strange thing, though: he may have lived alone

yet he shaved every day. Yes, I agree,

it does seem rather pointless.

I myself prefer to imagine him

in some sort of parallel universe.

A sign on his door says Pickleton the Poet

and men and women, a long line,

are waiting to ask him a question. Pickleton sits

in a large chair, one with padded arms.

Yes, perhaps there are restraints.

From time to time a question is delivered,

Pickleton quivers … and then writes something

in a little notebook, smiles to himself

(a small smile of power and contentment),

and his beard reaches

all the way down to the floor.

51

Langholm

I went quietly down the stairs

into my uncle’s butcher’s shop.

Middle of the night. Tiptoe.

The long white counter gleamed in the dark,

weighing machine at one end,

big silver till at the other.

I thought: sleeping above all that meat

can’t be good for you. A poster on the wall

showed a cow carved into its cuts. All so strange

because there wasn’t even a sausage to be seen.

A famous poet once lived in this town.

Every idea is a bad idea.

He never said that, but he should have.

52

The Lazy Poet

He writes a new haiku.

Maybe that will do?

+

But ah the mystery of things!

the quiet attentiveness a poet brings …

+

He wonders about the word ‘thicket’…

then turns on the cricket.

+

Light at an upstairs window:

the poet working late.

A disappointing over rate.

He activates the waterfall.

He activates the paperweight.

+

He reads about the loss of insects

from all of earth & air.

There might be something there.53

+

And he himself is always lost,

and at what cost?

+

Must he scratch out

all that pain again?

+

He remembers how once upon a time he wept & roared

and wept & roared

like some bewildered sailor washed ashore …

+

But anyway

rain stops play.

54

The Deerculler’s Wife

The deerculler’s wife mentions whitebait again

but even so this poem isn’t working

the hart still loves the high wood

which is mostly gone or maybe elsewhere

and turning words off at the wall does nothing

and this other poem I have just started

well it is probably drowning too but as it goes

it makes a lot of noise it yells and lows