Brian Patten - Collected Love Poems

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Title Page Collected Love Poems BRIAN PATTEN

Not Only Not Only Not only the leaf shivering with delight No, Not only the grass shrugging off the weight of frost No, Not only the taste of your skin No, Not only steam rising from the morning river No, Not only the heart on fire No, Not only the sound of the sunflower roaring No, Not only love’s resurrection No, Not only the cathedral window deep in the raindrop No, Not only the sky as blue and smooth as an egg No, Not only the fairytale of forever No, Not only the wings of the crane fly consumed by fire No, Not only these things No, But without you none of these things

Into My Mirror Has Walked Into My Mirror Has Walked Into my mirror has walked A woman who will not talk Of love or of its subsidiaries, But who stands there, Pleased by her own silence. The weather has worn into her All seasons known to me. In one breast she holds Evidence of forests, In the other, of seas. I will ask her nothing yet Would ask so much If she gave a sign— Her shape is common enough, Enough shape to love. But what keeps me here Is what glows beyond her. I think at times A boy’s body Would be as easy To read light into, I think sometimes My own might do.

These Songs Were Begun One Winter These Songs Were Begun One Winter These songs were begun one winter When on a window thick with frost Her finger drew A map of all possible directions, When her body was one possibility among Arbitrary encounters And loneliness sufficient to warrant A meeting of opposites. How easily forgotten then What was first felt— An anchor lifted from the blood, Sensations intense as any lunatic’s, Ruined by unaccustomary events, Let drop because of weariness.

The Ambush The Ambush When the face you swore never to forget Can no longer be remembered, When a list of regrets is torn up and thrown away Then the hurt fades, And you think you’ve grown strong. You sit in bars and boast to yourself, ‘Never again will I be vulnerable. It was an aberration to be so open, A folly, never to be repeated.’ How absurd and fragile such promises. Hidden from you, crouched Among the longings you have suppressed And the desires you imagine tamed, A sweet pain waits in ambush. And there will come a day when in a field Heaven’s mouth gapes open, And on a web the shadow Of a marigold will smoulder. Then without warning, Without a shred of comfort, Emotions you thought had been put aside Will flare up within you and bleed you of reason. The routines which comforted you, And the habits in which you sought refuge Will bend like sunlight under water, And go astray. Once again your body will become a banquet, Falling heavenwards. You will loll in spring’s sweet avalanche Without the burden of memory, And once again Monstrous love will swallow you.

A Blade of Grass A Blade of Grass You ask for a poem. I offer you a blade of grass. You say it is not good enough. You ask for a poem. I say this blade of grass will do. It has dressed itself in frost, It is more immediate Than any image of my making. You say it is not a poem, It is a blade of grass and grass Is not quite good enough. I offer you a blade of grass. You are indignant. You say it is too easy to offer grass. It is absurd. Anyone can offer a blade of grass. You ask for a poem. And so I write you a tragedy about How a blade of grass Becomes more and more difficult to offer, And about how as you grow older A blade of grass Becomes more difficult to accept.

What I Need for the Present What I Need for the Present Thanks, but please take back the trinket box, the picture made from butterfly wings and the crystal glass. Please take back the books, the postcards, the beeswax candles, the potted plant, the Hockney print and the expensive pen. Ungracious of me to say it, but so many gifts that are given are given in lieu of what cannot be given. Ungracious to say it, but wherever I move in this room it’s not these gifts I see, but your absense that accumulates on them like dust. Forgive me. Your intentions were so very kind, but here’s your box of fetters back. It’s not what I need for the present.

Through All Your Abstract Reasoning Through All Your Abstract Reasoning Coming back one evening through deserted fields when the birds, drowsy with sleep, have all but forgotten you, you stop, and for one moment jerk alive. Something has passed through you that alters and enlightens: O realization of what has gone and was real. A bleak and uncoded message whispers down all the nerves: ‘You cared for her! For love you cared!’ Something has passed a finger through all your abstract reasoning. From love you sheltered outside of love but still the human bit leaked in, stunned and off-balanced you. Unprepared, struck so suddenly by another’s identity, how can you hold on to any revelation? You have moved too carefully through your life. Always the light within you is hooded by your own protecting fingers!

Song for Last Year’s Wife Song for Last Year’s Wife Alice, this is my first winter of waking without you, of knowing that you, dressed in familiar clothes, are elsewhere, perhaps not even conscious of our anniversary. Have you noticed? The earth’s still as hard, the same empty gardens exist? It is as if nothing special had changed. I wake with another mouth feeding from me, but still feel as if love had not the right to walk out of me. A year now. So what? you say. I send out my spies to find who you are living with, what you are doing. They return, smile and tell me your body’s as firm, you are as alive, as warm and inviting as when they knew you first. Perhaps it is the winter, its isolation from other seasons, that sends me your ghost to witness when I wake. Somebody came here today, asked how you were keeping, what you were doing. I imagine you, waking in another city, enclosed by this same hour. So ordinary a thing as loss comes now and touches me.

On Time for Once On Time for Once I was sitting thinking of our future and of how friendship had overcome so many nights bloated with pain; I was sitting in a room that looked on to a garden and a stillness filled me, bitterness drifted from me. I was as near paradise as I am likely to get again. I was sitting thinking of the chaos we had caused in one another and was amazed we had survived it. I was thinking of our future and of what we would do together, and where we would go and how, when night came burying me bit by bit, and you entered the room trembling and solemn-faced, on time for once.

A Small Dragon A Small Dragon I’ve found a small dragon in the woodshed. Think it must have come from deep inside a forest because it’s damp and green and leaves are still reflecting in its eyes. I fed it on many things, tried grass, the roots of stars, hazel-nut and dandelion, but it stared up at me as if to say, I need food you can’t provide. It made a nest among the coal, not unlike a bird’s but larger. It is out of place here and is quite silent. If you believed in it I would come hurrying to your house to let you share my wonder, but I want instead to see if you yourself will pass this way.

Doubt Shall Not Make an End of You Doubt Shall Not Make an End of You Doubt shall not make an end of you Nor closing eyes lose your shape When the retina’s light fades; What dawns inside me will light you. In our public lives we may confine ourselves to darkness, Our nowhere mouths explain away our dreams, But alone we are incorruptible creatures, Our light sunk too deep to be of any public use We wander free and perfect without moving, Or love on hard carpets Where couples revolving round the room End found at its centre— I reach into you to reach all mankind, And the deeper into you I reach The deeper glows elsewhere the world And sings of you. It says, To love is the one common miracle. Our love like a whale from its deepest ocean rises— I offer this and a multitude of images, From party rooms to oceans, The single star and all its reflections; Being completed we include all And nothing wishes to escape us. Feel nothing separate then— We have translated each other into love And into light go streaming.