F l a s h e s
i n t h e P a n
1 9 7 7 - 1 9 7 9
by Kenneth Belton
the last contrast
Black
as the shadow of her coffin's
lid
white
as the skin where blood once
flowed
satori
I coursed the wind
tonight
and raced against the past
No one
saw no one knew
how much
I lived and what I was
For I
alone was I
And I
alone experienced it
Tonight
I am the wind
on being one's own man
None knew
the roots of my joyfulness
when joy possessed me
None knew
my tears' or my smiles'
history
I despaired and
none knew
the first of the year
January
looks both ways and is
yellow
crocus and jonquil
mimosa and forsythia
and far from wintry winter
jasmine
a Buddhist month
a month
for not looking either way
perhaps
saffron days with no dead leaves
or buds
just hard black bending branches
that are
that focus the frost slough off
the snow
and gratefully unstiffen
in the odd hour's sun
instant joy
Every poem's
the last time
and each new time's
the first
preservation order
Loose of bowel
and eyes adrool
a sag in the scrotum
and a patina of weariness crusted
on to the body-stocking that was
my skin
Is that
what I had to come to
what all
the fighting for breath to stay alive's
about
and the final comparison
Black was
black as the shadow of her coffin's lid
white was
white as the skin where blood once flowed
But now there is
no black and white
no love and hate
no living no dying
Only being
there is
winter's end
nippled buds
yearning from old wood
birdsno longer feathering spasmodically
against the cold
a do-do
Do
do what you must
do
but
try to must do
only such as
when it's done
you can
have done with it
for good
wholliness
Be wholly
in every action you find yourself
involved in
sitting standing reading or writing
a poem
loving
suffering because of loving
and even loving suffering
Which doesn't mean
there aren't actions you can't be
wholly in
There are but your life
evolves
if it is really being lived
wholly
in such a way that you are not drawn
to be involved
in such actions as in which you cannot be
wholly
***
Just as dogsdon't waste their energy climbing
trees
trying to be cats
So be ready to do anything and everything
with wholliness
wholliness 2
Not concentration
but
absorption
Absorption
but not exclusion
any port
Yesany skin
to touch and be felt by's
better than none
Any other's eyes
to merge pools with's
far rather than the mirror's
frozen gaze
And any smell
to have cling to me of sweat
but the known too well
my own
hair-splitting
My hair lives
in the past
and much more so than does
the rest of me
Today
for instance it's all bushy
and full of life
whereas I'm not
exactly as it was three days ago
after being washed
when I was too
Perhaps it's the dirt
that does it
fixing the past and keeping
up present appearances
Which could be why
washing a lot and often
is not such a bad idea
after all
figure in a landscape
Life is a landscape
My life is my landscape
Yours is yours
And I walk through my landscape
and am always in it
I inch round boulders
and step over furrows
Feeling the breezes
and sensing the scents
I jump the ditches
and sink into bogs
Everything I see is what I see
All my sensations are my sensations
The seasons pass
the weather changes
and I walk on
but I'm always in my landscape
and there's nowhere
I can go to or should want to
where my landscape isn't
elixir
I baked an old apple
tonight
a wrinkled old apple
that smelled
like a once cider-butt
But once
baked that sere old apple
racy
was with juice and youthness
plumped up and succulent
Would that
I too
could core myself and have
myself
baked thus
orbiting
We live among eyes
at least I do
eyes fleetingly exchanged between buses
eyes casually touched at dusk
eyes plunged into
eyes wallowed in
certain eyes that signal helplessly
others that won't be caught
and then
exceptionally but no less painful
for that
sometimes
there's a sea of eyes
to wade against
or receding waves
of eyes that ebb
uniquity 1
I'm not unique
when I'm being the only one
in a certain moment
to be doing a certain thing
but I am
unique
whenever I'm alone
in doing things that are
momentarily unique
uniquity 2
No I'm not unique
because I'm alone in doing
what other people aren't
doing
but I am
uniquely alone
inasmuch as I
do what other people don't
do
uniquity 3
Am I unique in being
the only one to be
in a crowded Roman bus or
in the world
who's holding a frozen fish pressed
against his thigh
and thinking it his fish is coming
back to life
No I'm not unique
in being alone in doing
what other people aren't
but I am
uniquely alone
inasmuch as I
know what other people don't think
of knowing
and think
what other people can never
know
embarras de choix
A moment of cool joy
today
when it came to me
in a flash
that to get to where
I had to get
there were two
buses I could take
which took different
routes to get there
So as long as that's
the case what joy
and when once it's not
the case
and of buses to take
to get
to where I want to get there's
only one
there'll still be the cool delight
of knowing I can always
take it or
leave it
the mourning after
It looks as if I've got my dying
one lifetime's
dying
over and done with once and
for all
Yes there'll be no more need now
for funerals of nearest and/or
dearest
The only one
I have to be concerned with now's
my own
and I'm the last person in the world that that
concerns
weather lore
Black clouds at night
may really be white
White clouds by day m-ay mean rain just the same
an antidote
against petty pacing
Today
is the nearest thing to tomorrowthat you'll ever get
to know
the roaring forties
One can afford to be much younger
in one's forties than
in one's thirties
because one is that much farther removed
from having
to be young
And as for
the fifties and the sixties et cetera
well
anything goes
good deeds for the day
Helping
sprouting sunflower seeds
to doff
their striped Phrygian caps
Shielding
a shivering cornucopia of wisteria
from the March wind
for a second or two
Encouraging
my ailing hair to let itself down
and dance a round of joy
with the same mad wind
Killing
after a day of indecision
the suckling black fly
pursed in my ivy's baby-fisted shoots
***
Being
aware of or at least imagining
the heaving heart of the ant
the snail's despair
Loving
the same cold morning's horn of plenty
and letting it feel my love as
unstintingly it let itself
be drained
by a moon-slivered sky
down to the last pale purple drop
Not inflicting
myself my thoughts my misanthropic presence
on my fellow-men
one possible consequence
of no-distinction-making
If sage be
no higher
than clod
to love one's dog
is no less
than to love God
su e giù
Forgive me
for not missing you
when I'm giù
but only
when I'm su
Sad plus sad
is bad
you see
while glad plus glad
is ecstasy
to my cyclamen sowbread
Surely unique
as the flavour said to be given
by a diet of cyclamen corms
to the famed pork products
of Perigord
Nay as unique as
cyclamen sowbread itself
you are
you never know when it may happen
Like the young and any madman
I change faces
every day and sometimes
every second of the hour
So being though no longer
young more than somewhat
mad
I must suppose that it's because I change
faces oftener
than my underpants
that I've yet to have the usual accident
while crossing the road of later life
but when the time does come
for me to be struck down
by old age
I only hope it'll be the kind of day
when I happen to be wearing clean pants
and one of my better
faces
the only pretty ring time
Last springtime may
and one
that is of course I
can only hope that it is so
have been my last
the last to be greeted
by me that is
and some other sweet lover
together
Nevertheless the one
the spring that is of course just
started ungreeted
has a sweetness all its own
And those
to come equally ungreeted but no less
sung I do not see why
and this I say not with wryness
gone wrong
I do not see why after all
my years of sweet loving
they shouldn't still recognize and relish
the lone lover and lonely welcomer
they'll find in me
an egg for all curates
I'm only bad in parts
remember that O Lord
For the place that my heart's
in is the rightest place to be
I will my son but do
in turn remember this
It's that you're only you
in parts that really worries me
primavera
It's not a day to die
today
Or else to do so not
knowing
that today is not a day
to die
spring 77
Golden gazanias
ganymeding fringed cups of nectar
to the sun
should one tell an adopted plant
You see my dear
the difference is I went to the nursery
and picked you there
personally
You
were wanted and I brought you here
because you
were you
Not like the others
cloned and seeded and carelessly sown
by Mother Nature
and abandoned to their fate
world without end
It's all either wave-
crests or troughs wherein there's no more snouting
after life
life is a go on the dodgems
It's strange
if you stop to think about it
not to say miraculous
that more people don't bump
into more people
in the streets and on the roads
which
of course may less strangely be
why those who do
do
because they tend to stop
to think
about it
Gridasti: Soffoco...
My mistress closed the dead
eyes of a once poet's wife
Then my
turn came and hers but I
was not to do as she years
before
had for the her of him
For my dear once mistress chose
to close
alone and for ever
the far-seeing eyes of this
dead poet's wife herself
stool-passing
How wonderful to want to write
to think in terms of being
a writer
As though writing were any more
controllable or special
than passing
stools
rigmaroles
With a flip and a flop
and a holey-ho
Royal Flaps and Fissures
Hanzbeals
and Humpsa-hazy
lacrymosa dies illa
Live
and the world lives
with you
Die and you die
alone
Dying is like having the breath
knocked out of you
It's a once and for all
experience
And one that should qualify as the one
time when déjà vu can be ruled out
But if
when your moment comes you do
happen to get that I've been here before
feeling
then better luck next time
round
***
Basically
dying is what other people
do
And not to put too fine a point
on it
it's the one sure way to steal the next man's
thunder
Compared with dying after all
everything else seems somehow
less important
If you think about it
nothing makes you feel more
left out of things
than dying
whether it's you who do
the dying
or the next man whose thunder
you'd been trying
to steal
***
For some people nevertheless
dying
is the only chance they have to do anything
with their lives
Despite which
the idea of dying obviously makes most of us glad
to be alive
with the one exception of course that dying slowly
tends to induce
a resurgence of the death-wish
In other words
when everything seems worn
and faded
dying may represent a colourful
alternative
***
Remember though
that dying is not a prerogative
but an interrogative
and while there's no getting round
its penchant
for taking the gilt off the gingerbread
of living
the fact of the matter is
as follows
Die
and the world dies with you
Live
and you live
alone
apes and quintessence
Men stay men longer
than women do
but women are more women
than men are ever
summing up
In this second
I would speak to all
I've known
wherever and when
in all my years
and look
into their eyes
whether dead or not
for they not only are with
me in this second
but are
me
more nunsense
Do virgins
have pale hands and pulseless
veins
because they are
or are they
because they have
the moment
A curtain
for my window
the blankness
of what once was
7/7/77
(I had a thought
the night of the seventh
of the seventh month 1977
that it would have been nice
and might even have been auspicious
to have written a poem
on such an auspicious day
Then I remembered
that in scribbling this
the above
on the sheet of paper I'd used
to cover up the cellophane window of the envelope
enveloping my letter to you
not wanting to send you a blank page with it
I had)
Overreaching
Coveting the serenity
of not coveting
any more
desiring
to be freed from having
to desire
striving
not to see life
as strife
unready still
for being
for being's sake
trying
too hard
reaching
for
if I were you
Why not try
putting yourself in your own
shoes for a change
Enough of being me
or as good as the next man
For
if you were always you
and if only I were only I
what a good and simpler world 'twould be
going out in glory
I'm what you might sort of call
not to be too flippant though
a-spring-cleaning for the fall
My contract's over and so
I'm here
cleaning out my bottom drawer
ditching debris with élan
Yes I'm
heading for the last round-up
packing for my farewell tour
Truth to tell I'm almost glad
it's time for the curtain-call
Leaving a great show hurts bad
but cheers and raves aren't all
Yes I'm
cleaning out my bottom drawer
ditching debris with élan
For I'm
heading for the last round-up
packing for my farewell tour
many mansions
Dead moths and scuttling spiders
are at home
in the Lord's sanctuary
but so too
the fragrantest of lilies
and my soul
21 in '53
46 in Trafalgar Square
In the shadow of a banner
with the fountains
that are still
had to come my latest moment
of reckoning
Jubilee
Jubilation
colder than the dawn that never
dawns
upon the dying man
who accepts the proffered weakest
hour for dying
or strongest
as I celebrate my silvered
over adult
twenty-five
and be ye lift up
Souls not mouths
are for singing
praise unto the Lord
Mouths
are good for asking
for his blessing
but even
that
souls can do better
snail trails
Snail trails
silver threads among the green
of roadside grass
have led me on today but not
deceivingly
to Beanford Farm not far
from Sedlescombe
to which I bring
more probably prevented though
as in
God prevents us with his Grace
the place seems so
prepared
the peace I found at Benskins
in the sanctuary
that lovingly's been refounded
there
sanctuary
Sanctuary's
for going to
for knowing that it's always
there
not for wanting desperately
to be inside
it
or for dreaming of being
there for ever
For if the Lord is
your sanctuary
you'll never
need again
to seek a place to find
Him
rose festa
Rose-thorns and splinters and sea-urchin's spines
go under
the skin and
though festering mysteriously unseen
left alone
they use up
their venom and emerge miniaturised
stiff black snakes
from the flesh
pruning roses
Cutting back
dead growth
removing
twigginess
pruning
a lifetime
for the second
flowering
on
having the scales
removed
To know what it is to have been blind
is not always to see
To know what it is to see
is right seeingTo know what is to die
is to be reborn
To know what it is to be
is unbeingTo know what is to have powers
is not to need to use them
To know what it is to have the power
is to be used by itTo know what it is to be blind
is seeing
To know what dying is
is to be
To know the power
is the power of knowing it
and to know unknowing
is all-seeing
surprise surprise
There's never a last
time for it's always
the first
Will
passengers with children
go through the gates
first please
I wanted to make you
my child
not to board the plane first
of course
but perhaps because still
wanting
to share my ancestry
with you
and the transparency
that is
now my flesh without end
my mass
without flesh and blood or
world-span
despite appearances
To say that anything
is accidental
even the most trivial
occurrence
encounter or phenomenon
is like saying that the nucleus
of an atom
is there by chance
or that we burp
out of the blue
surface-depth
The great unstriving
the effortlessness of reflecting
light
like pools of water
to the sun
Flux perpetua
Where the stream flows
to
is outside the smoothness
of the pebbles that are
flowed over
and quite without shadow for the ripples
of sunlight
Only those
fish the most who spawn
heed
the cycle of shoals and seasons
while the scales
of the few
who dart here and there amid the dappled
refractions
attracted by the constant whenceness
of the light
need
no compulsion to
refect it
ergo sum
Learning to use
the body
learning not to be used
by the mind
is all there is
to learn
and to learning
The rest is seeing
bare bones
Nothing has added
meaning
Everything is as meaningful as need
and can
be
Bone
covered by warm flesh does not cease to be
what bone's
made and meant to be
after Blake
Suddenly
looking no longer with
the eye
but by the grace of God
seeing
through
Chinese boxes
Some people have old people
inside them
waiting
Some have young
even when they become not so young people
And some people have no other
people inside
because they always are
what their bodies are
old man's thrush
The last stretch
exactly one month long starts with a soreness
in the mouth
and ends with an easing
of the soul
The first stretch too's
an unwombed month of thrush but with a wild scream
and quite without easing
for the soul
here and now
We only
live to learn
to die
turn a blind ear
Some that are deaf
shout
some whisper
ones that make you know
what it is to be treated
like one
ones that make you feel
like one
seen from a train
Long sky-streaks of green and gold
sliced into epaulettes
by rank upon rank of slim canals
seen from a train
vacant possession
Being possessed
is watching yourself not doing
the things you know would give others
pleasure
and hearing yourself saying
the things you know will wound
Possession is being dispossessed
of yourself
but above all
knowing it
and not being able to do anything
about it
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