The Slow Starter (1958) - poem by Louis Macneice.


A watched clock never moves, they said;
Leave it alone and you'll grow up.
Nor will the sulking holiday train
Start sooner if you stamp your feet.
  He left the clock to go its way;
  The whistle blew, the train went gay.

Do not press me so, she said;
Leave me alone and I will write
But not just yet, I am sure you know
The problem. Do not count the days.
  He left the calender alone;
  The postman knocked, no letter came.

O never force the pace, they said;
Leave it alone, you have lots of time,
Your kind of work is none the worse
For slow maturing. Do not rush.
  He took their tip, he took his time,
  And found his time and talent gone.

Oh you have had your chance, it said;
Left it alone and it was one.
Who said a watched clock never moves?
Look at it now. Your chance was I.
  He turned and saw the accusing clock
  Race like a torrent round a rock.



Louis Macneice

Carrickfergus (1937) - poem by Louis Macneice.


I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries
To the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams;
Thence to Smoky Carrick in County Antrim
Where the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud which jams

The little boats beneath the Norman castle,
The pier shining with lumps of crystal salt;
The Scotch quarter was a line of residential houses
But the Irish quarter was a slum for the blind and halt.

The brook ran yellow from the factory stinking of chlorine,
The yarn mill called it's funeral cry at noon;
Our lights looked over the lough to the lights of Bangor
Under the peacock aura of a drowning moon.

The Norman walled this town against the country
To stop his ears to the yelping of his slave
And built a church in the form of a cross but denoting
The list of Christ on the cross in the angle of the nave.

I was the rectors son, born to the Anglican order,
Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor;
The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept
With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure.

The war came and a huge camp of soldiers
Grew from the ground in sight of our house with long
Dummies hanging from gibbets for bayonet practice
And the sentry's challenge echoing all day long;

A Yorkshire terrier ran in and out by the gate-lodge
Barred to civilians, yapping as if taking affront;
Marching at ease and singing 'Who Killed **** Robin?'
The troops went out by the lodge and off to the Front.

The steamer was camouflaged that took me to England-
Sweat and khaki in the Carlisle train;
I thought that the war would last for ever and sugar
be always rationed and that never again

Would the weekly papers not have photos of sandbags
And my governess not make bandages from moss
And people not have maps above the fireplace
With flags on pins moving across and across-

Across the hawthorn hedge the noise of bugles,
Flares across the night,
Somewhere on the lough was a prison ship for Germans,
A cage across their sight.

I went to school in Dorset, the world of parents
Contracted into a puppet world of sons
Far from the mill girls, the smell of porter, the salt-mines
And the soldiers with their guns.




Louis Macneice

Prayer Before Birth (1944) - Poem by Louis Macneice


I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they ****** by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
******* like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise **** me.



Louis Macneice

Snow (January 1935) - Poem by Louis Macneice

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.


Louis Macneice..

Autobiography (september 1940) - Poem by Louis MacNeice

In my childhood trees were green
And there was plenty to be seen.

Come back early or never come.

My father made the walls resound,
He wore his collar the wrong way round.

Come back early or never come.

My mother wore a yellow dress;
Gentle, gently, gentleness.

Come back early or never come.

When I was five the black dreams came;
Nothing after was quite the same.

Come back early or never come.

The dark was talking to the dead;
The lamp was dark beside my bed.

Come back early or never come.

When I woke they did not care;
Nobody, nobody was there.

Come back early or never come.

When my silent terror cried,
Nobody, nobody replied.

Come back early or never come.

I got up; the chilly sun
Saw me walk away alone.

Come back early or never come..


Louis Macneice.

September has come,
It is hers whose vitality leaps in the autumn,
Whose nature prefers
Trees without leaves and a fire in the fire-place;
So I give her this month and the next
Though the whole of my year should be hers who has rendered already
So many of its days intolerable or perplexed
But so many more so happy;
Who has left a scent on my life and left my walls
Dancing over and over with her shadow,
Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls
And all of London lilttered with remembered kisses.

- Louis MacNeice, "Autumn Journal"

the ancient greeks
would call
asia's mysticism
nothing more
than a tautology...

tao:

the tao that can be
named,
is not the eternal
tao...

i see one tao:
the best way
you can help
the world,
is to forget the world,
and let the world
to forget you...

like some Irish
poet once wrote;
who was it?

ah!
louis macneice
in ehyeh asher ehyeh...

in der beginn
und der ende
der nur dezent definition
ist tautologie:
mann ist mann,
   frau frau,
    und baum baum,
und welt... welt...

which is the basic
principle of asiatic
"mysticism"...
der ding dass ist, ist...
und der ding dass nicht ist:
         ist
nein-ist,
                  
aber nicht: nein!

watching Swedish drama
i took to understand
the difference between
nein and nicht:
and nichts...

circus of nouns...
Asiatic mysticism -
tautology...

            nein ist nicht ein absolut
    nein:

   the Asiatic folk
spiced it all up
with an addition of
adjectives... nichts mehr...

how can i have
an opinion about England,
not being an Englishman?
sidenote...

i'm no migrant exotica,
i am not luxury:
given that i am economic...
hence
my desire to hide
in German,
whenever i can,
while entertaining
the use of English...

i can't have an opinion
about England,
because i am not an Englishman
and the Englishman's
opinion is worth:
jack-****...

              out of curiosity,
i watch,
and... too apprehensive
about waiting
i forget to wait...

         wenn da eine nachleben:
ich hoffen zu spreschen
deutsche...

i was born in Poland...
so...
what do sie denken my
meinung of England är,
given that i'm not an Englishman
and i'd föredra to speak
Deutsche
after death,
than be plagued by
this acquired tongue?

i don't have an opinion
worthy of it being designated
as having accommodation
to encompass said land,

    i'm only here in passing:
i wish!

              but for not being
a pompous brat,
my servitude is that of the natives...
of which i am not...
hence my minor
ploys of escapism in
german...

somehow...
a few words in German
alleviates the burden
of seeing the natives
buckle before
             whoever reigns...

but being white,
i could almost pass off as
a Brit...
i can, and do...
and then on occassion:
i don't.

NISI...become. . . ABSOLUTE

early summer falls across
the lawn...the trees
the bars of a cage

sunlight and shadow
our jailers
our own good selves

and we
the prisoners
of this summer's day

"Shall I compare thee to.."
I laugh to myself
no...I guess not

we forever imprisoned
in sunlight and shadow
an image made real

memory holds us here
trapped in this conceit
sentenced to be who we could never be

and so we sat until
sunlight relinquished
its hold over the world

and so we sat until
darkness swallowed us whole
only our voices visible

only our vices invisible
as always
each the murderer of the other

now no longer
man & wife
I glimpse my face in a fish knife

the decree nisi
still tucked behind
the ormolu clock

the divorce
still eats at my soul
this piece of paper mocking me

and now
the decree absolute
we sit down to our last supper

the cat devours
( I don't tell you that )
the fresh trout

the fresh trout
all dressed up in its dish
like a sacrifice

I shoo the cat away
it snarls at me
"Ticktock!" laughs the clock ormoluly

the cat looks at me
with disdain...scorn
licks lovingly its *****

I cut the cat-chewed bit away
serve up with a too rich sauce
the unseen incident not noticeable

and so after all
I still serve you
before me

you smile your smile
say we should have
"...maybe stayed together after all..?"

too late now I think
to recall
the people we used to be

we different people now
"Time doesn't heal..!" I think
"...Time's a heel!" I secretly smile

I pass the port
a crumb of Stilton still stuck
charmingly upon her chin

"The sunlight on the garden
hardens and grows cold."
I quote MacNeice to the parrot

"We can not catch its minutes..."
the parrot continues and I finish
"...within its nets of gold."

memory still holds me
prisoner in that garden
I watch her taxi pull away

the taxi turns the corner
blinks a right turn
and is gone

back in the kitchen
I let the cat finish
my untouched trout

I flambé the decrees
both nisi and absolute
watch us go up in smoke