A SOUTH AMERICAN JOURNAL

SEPTEMBER – NOVEMBER 2004


Take it as it comes.

THROUGH THE SQUARE WINDOW

Two vertical slices of white marmolean
Concrete, interrupted by a stray sprig of green,
A weed re-asserting the rights of nature.

To the right, a dozen flat identical balconies
Press against pristine white like a perpetual 2-D
Porn still. Cut by the tenderness of a curve,

Revealing sky; a subtler, brighter shade of white,
Which clings to the top right hand section of the square,
Fighting its corner in the jungle of the cities.


Sao Paulo 15.09.04

THE WEDDING OF MATTHEW AND MACARENA,

A clutch of monkeys, tails held high, amble
Across the lawn. Capybara loll. They
Move a muscle no more than once an hour.
Barbed-winged birds swoop in aggressive defence.

On our way to the chapel, trees danced a crazy
Samba. Lightning flashed and bamboo poles split. The
Priest turned up with minutes to spare. Violins sawed
Out of tune, flashbulbs popped, both bride and groom smiled tears.

In a thatched cabin a dozen nationalities and
More gathered to festejar. I found myself, pre-speech nerves,
Chatting to an ex-marine, more scared of argentine
Drivers than the near-miss of a Baghdad roadside bomb.

The samba sprawled long into the night. Caped
Crusaders, feet flying in flip flops, fuelled by Cai
Pirinha, music, love. The storm passed, the stars
Dined out, toasts all done and tears turned to laughter.

sao paulo 20.09.04

SAYONARA SAO PAULO

(8th Wedding Anniversary)

(Lunch had been sushi on Liberdade, a tip
From Ciara. She and Steve still dancing with Serb chess
Champs, African Republics, sharp-eyed Berettas.)

Our bus left at nine pm. It’s stopped twice,
At one, then four, nighthawks boarding in name-
Less towns; Campo Grande scheduled for dawn.

Gotham left behind, city that sparkles
By night like diamonds on the heel of your
Fist, deadpans by day with its dull veneer.

A Gotham where helicopters buzz like
Giant bugs; the real bugs breed like rabbits;
Butterflies colonize concrete corners;

People smile through pollution’s teeth, fruitsellers tout
Pineapple, guava, music. The Brazilian boom-
Boom, rhythm of the ant-hill, poised to explode.


on the bus 21/22.09.04

THE BR262 THROUGH THE PANTANAL

Two lane blacktop cuts through a wilderness the size
Of France. Nature preens. Jacaré, ibis, storks, marsh
Deer, birds of prey, potent trees in yellow, purple, pink
Spring bloom. It hems us in. To cap it all day is
Turned a lurid orange night, the rain assaults, her
Top dog status screams across the streaming windows.

Corumba awaits at the road’s end. Next stop
Bolivia. There’s a festival. We are whisked
Into a local dance; watch short films in the open
Air; enlist assistance from the motorcycle cops
To track down the lost bar. Then eat beneath the stars,
Tucked into our corner of good natured concrete.


corumba 23.09.04

THE SHOE MISSION

My wife tried on her twelfth pair of boots. The salesman,
White-haired, chubby, spoke a spotted English. His wares
Were cheap and plentiful. On the back wall, posters
Promoting the Palestinian intifada.
His mother lives in Ramallah, calls him twice a
Month. He left thirty years ago. Helena passed
On the purchase. He shrugged, too Brazilian to care.


corumba 23.09.04

CAMPING IN THE PANTANAL

Whilst Seong Whan, a Buddhist monk on leave from his Korean
Temple, tended the fire, Bosco, our guide, switched on his torch,
Pointing it at the far bank. A dozen pairs of red
Eyes, maybe more, glinted back. Caiman, poised in the
Shade of the moon for their nightly fish feast.

Earlier, piranhas had outwitted humans, scooping
Red meat off our fishing lines at will. When the bones of the
Few that had been hooked (Flesh flaky, thin, pallid)
Were thrown back in the river, the water seethed
In a cannibalistic supper snack.

Piranha versus caiman, who wins? Bosco told us that
When the piranha get snappy, the caiman flip over,
Swimming upside down. Get your teeth into that
Scaly back. All through the night there’s the sound of
Reptiles splashing around. Good wholesome fun.

I confess to not sleeping well in the fragile tent. Dreams
Of Mick Jagger being solicitous; an attack dog,
Tethered, caught in its leash, circling in a bid to
Escape. I got up before dawn, watched light return,
Savoured the chorus of a haunting monkey wail.


the pantanal (somewhere within) 24.09.04

PESTS

Assiduous mosquitoes have targeted Helena’s legs.
They’re speckled like a child with chicken pox. Her sleep ruptured,
She cries out in frustration, fighting the urge to itch.

the pantanal (somewhere within) 26.09.04

ESA POEMA E DEDICADO A BOSCO

Bosco flapped a T-shirt in its face. The anteater stood
Up on its hind legs, hissing like a surly little white-
Bellied man, before scuffling away into the bush.

The second night of camping was easier than the first.
The caiman kept their distance. Our sleep was fuelled by
Caipirinha, heady fumes warding off evil spirits.

With Fred and Emilie, Marseillais, we used four tongues to
Dissect a continent. Bosco said that what matters in
Tales of his country is not what’s told, but what’s omitted.

Bosco, the Pantaneiro, who took us across the threshold of his
Home, a home the size of France. Who made urban fears seem foolish,
Teaching us how to swim beside piranhas; they will not bite.


the pantanal (somewhere within) 26.09.04

WORDS OF A PANTANEIRO

Some of them come here and they say, the Pantanal
Is disappointing, because they come here thinking
You can switch on nature like you can a TV set.
They don’t know you cannot make demands on nature,
It will give what it can, you must take what it offers.
So you don’t see pumas or anacondas or toucans.
But perhaps you will be lucky and see the red or blue
Macaw or monkeys or coati or the anteater.
You cannot fail to see caiman. And even if you saw
None of that, you should know that to lie in a hammock on
An afternoon too hot for dogs is part of the Pantanal,
A part of the life we lead, the world that you have visited.



the pantanal (somewhere within) 26.09.04

BOLIVIA: FIRST TAKE

Mud caked roads. A woman shouting at the border
Guard, saying she wouldn’t pay a 2 Real bribe.
Money changers under your nose. A taxi driver
With an English car, steering wheel ripped out and stuck
On the left hand side, speedometer staring at
The passenger, reading zero. He talks non-stop.
About the gringo he worked for years ago who taught
Him how to work and seduced the local women.

The station manned by twin teenage paramilitaries,
White helmets, white truncheons, guns. The waiting room a
Minimal, spartan model: plastic chairs, bare walls,
Strip lighting, flickering TV, fire extinguisher.


puerto suarez 29.09.04

EL TREN DE LA MUERTE

Despite threatening to go off the rails, the worst the
Death Train had to offer was a dubbed Julia Roberts
Flick. The red-haired woman sitting next to me had her first
Child at fifteen and a Liverpudlian grandfather.
The train was held for four hours at San José de
Chiquitos. She saw nothing British in the length
Of this delay. Menacingly, the only key to the
Baggage Hold was lost; they stabbed it open with a steak knife.

Santa Cruz is low slung, colonial. Indian
Faces with pacific features barely give me
A second glance. The sore thumb Mennonites are the
True exotics, in wide brimmed hats, Edward Hopper
Dungarees, thick-set spectacles. I am still in
The hot heart of the continent, so far from the
Rest of the world it seems little wonder every
Other shop should want to be an internet café.


santa cruz 30.09.04

GRINGO LANDIA

A Bolivian plays Bolivian music. Too loud?
No-one listens. A hassled English couple - too close? -
Bicker. Then flee. Three American girls cry an
Endless litany of their next stop details. One
Says she took an overnight train in China, and
Next day slept in til three. Two Aussies and a Brit
Pick Potosi to pieces. The Bolivian
Switches to Simon and Garfunkel. A Spanish
Couple eat discretely, saying little. I am
Drinking chicha for the first time in my life.


a restaurant, la paz 1.10.04

LA PAZ

The air is thin. It runs up the sides of the hills.
Life hovers above, perched… By night the city
Turns constellation, twinkling down on its centre.

The women appear to do all the work. They cart
Kilos strapped into bright blankets. With layers of skirt
Sweeping ankles, bowlers lodged at dandy angles.

Could be anything in one of those blankets, as
Everything is up for sale. Later, the women
Make niches on their stall where, curled-up cats, they snooze.

The spirit of the marketplace spills out all over.
Minibuses hire souls to scream out the window
As they hurtle past, advertising empty seats.

You can buy a phone call or a ratchet or an
Amulet or a stuffed leopard or coca leaves
Or a pachamama or dried herbs or flowers.

On the slopes of Sagarnaga, breathless gringos
Pick out aggressive bargains: blankets, hats, ponchos.
Authentic Boliviana to show the folks.

I join the hunt. The women are firmly grounded
On the supply side. They bid you to check out their
Wares. Feigning dependence on us, their consumers.


la paz 2.10.04

THE PROCESSION OF LA IGLESIA DE LA ROSARIO

No way of doing justice to what the eyes could see.
Men in silver, pipe-smoking masks, dressed as wedding
Cakes. Formation dancing women wearing lime green
Skirts and brown bowlers; men in suits and tie, tubas
Balanced in the palms of their hands. Long-coated
Dudes in shades with snare drums. Crazy Inca kids, bells
On their legs and puma furs, flying like condors,
Landing belly up on the dirt, immune to pain.
Inscrutable features coated in feathers and smiles,
Dancing in their streets, tripping the light fantastic.

When the procession ends, the stalls of Illampu
Remove their wares. Benches and lightbulbs are rigged up
So a hundred makeshift bars can be born. Music
Competes with music til dawn, when the drunken
Devotees still stagger through the streets, mopping up
The dregs of chicha, cerveza, whisky and wine.


on lake titicaca 3.10.04

COPACABANA

High on the rocks above Lake Titicaca at
The Huerco de los Indios are two standing
Stones, bridged by a plinth. They may have been a
Sacrificial altar or a sundial, no one’s
Too sure. Below, the girl who collects Diez
Bolivianos, when you’ve gasped your way
Half way to the summit, plays the pipes.
The music floats like a hummingbird.


copacabana 3.10.04

THE BIRTH PLACE OF THE WORLD

The Incas believed it all started here, on the Isla de Sol,
Called ‘Inti’ in Aymarac. In the ruins of their temple
High above the world, you can still trace a circuit of
Existence. Peruvian hills to the West fade
In the late afternoon. Chasing their tail to become
Bolivian hills, which turn into far Eastern snow-
Capped peaks, a studded chain that points the way for the
Sun to rise again. The temple is no more than
A few stones now, artfully arranged like a totem
Of what these stones must once have meant. As though
The world they emerged from, were shaped within, had all
But disappeared. Yet in a nook, in a half-cut
Coca Quina bottle, someone has left a spray of white
Flowers. A tribute to gods still at large, their gifts still craved.
The sun falls away. Above the white-blue-purple clouds,
The mountains are made gold. At the death, Inti is hidden
Yet the mountains still gleam. An alchemy to which I too
Belong, revealed to me at my journey’s furthest edge.

isla de sol 04.10.04

CONTRAST

A week ago I was fending off mosquitoes,
Scrapping in sandals, drinking a beer. Today I’m
Sweatered up, blistered by boots, gazing past chilly
Waters at mountains dressed in white. Drinking a beer.


isla de sol 05.10.04

SOME OF THE THINGS EUSEBIO TOLD US

We drank throaty red wine in Eusebios’s bar. Yvette, one
Of three Catalans, asked him to tell the legend of the
Lake. She wanted it to be romantic. Stood beside the
Fire, he told how, before the sun was born, people lived in
Obscurity. They guessed that by mating the masculine
Promontory of Isla del Sol with the feminine
Promontory of Copacabana, things might change. So
The sun appeared. I missed a lot of details. We all
Spoke in second language Spanish. Eusebio’s father
Only spoke Aymarac. He came from eight generations
Of islanders who lived to a hundred. CNN had been
To his bar. Bringing scientists to root out the tunnels,
One of the island’s million secrets. Across to Puno.
Or the Isla de la Luna. Where the virgins were kept.
And one sacrificed, every hundred years. Now they kill a
Sheep. There are three computers on the island, but no-one
Knows how to use them. He told us that the Incas were still
Incas. Nothing had changed. What matters is the way you think.

isla de sol 5.10.04

LA PAZ: IN THE JEWISH RESTAURANT

I lost a notebook with details of the Inca
Champion pulled to pieces by a horse at each limb,
Nicely captured by a museum waxwork model.

A city given this name must be asking for trouble.
Earlier a dog was caught in a microbus’ wheels, turned
360 degrees twice, then thrown, limp, onto the verge.

Back on the Isla del Sol, Eusebio observed that life
Had always been kinder beyond the city, always would be,
Even if you had to cart your water uphill, twice a week.

His young son, in full Batman gear, flew around the bar,
Captured a Brummie banker’s heart. He’d lose his bearings
Here, mapping the hill-climbing stars, world turned upside down.

The beer is full of fizz. Altitude stimulates bubbles.
It’s nosebleed country. A woman sits at the next table
Chatting away, clutching a cloth, trying to stem the flow.

People gossip in Yiddish. Order in Aymarac, English,
Quecha, Catalan. Every tongue bar Spanish seems to thrive.
Resistance to conquest persists. It has become linguistic.

la paz 6.10.04

POTOSI

Was once the biggest town in the Americas.
Also the richest. It made the pieces of eight
Pirates dreamt of plundering. Imported its food
From the coast. Produced more silver than anywhere
Else, ever.

The silver was taken from the mountain which hangs over
The city, Cerro Rico. Held sacred by the Incas,
A Pachamama, untouchable. But when the Spanish
Learnt what lay beneath, they sent the slaves to work, milked them
To death.

Some say the silver bankrolled Europe’s growth, financed the
Conquest of the globe. It’s not done much for Bolivian
Development. Helped build some fancy churches; Unesco
Patronage. But in the streets the locals, raw-toed in sandals,
March.

They march round the square, demanding justice, demanding it
Now. Dogs copulate on street corners. Children beg for sweets.
Cold and dust and the piss-stench of poverty: Potosi
Has none of the grandeur of some faded European
Beauty.

It is poor and life is hard. All the fine-looking churches
And all the silver which passed through its mint, all the
Wealth it’s produced, spent now, by strangers, have left the
Marchers nothing. They must be tempted to rip it up, and
Start again.



8.10.04

IN THE CERRO RICO

Clang. Twist. Clang. Twist - Clang. Twist. Hour after hour.
After hour after hour. Clang. Twist. Twist. Clang.
Clang Twist

The miner strikes the iron rod with a hammer upper-
Cut, then twists it, then strikes again. There’s a coca chunk in
His cheek, big as a golfball. There’s arsenic on the mountain
Wall and sulphuric acid underfoot, but he can’t afford
So much as a mask, forget about gloves. He’s been working
Twenty four hours straight, alone, guided by a pale light.

The invaders sent his forefathers to work on
Three month shifts. Daylight forgot them. They emerged half-
Blind. The strongest survived two shifts. None survived three.

Clang. Twist. Twist Clang. Clang. Twist. Hour after hour.
Hour after hour after Clang. Clang Twist Clang.
Clang Twist

The miner’s making a hole for his dynamite.
The dynamite shop sells only to miners and
Tourists. We bought four sticks and some loose TNT,
Like little polystyrene balls. He’ll blow a hole
In the seam and sieve for zinc or lead. The silver’s
Almost gone, but the mountain still bestows a kind
Of living on eight thousand. Who make their offerings
Of coca, fags and hooch to the fickle sprit of
Cerro Rico, El Tio, hoping he’ll show them
The richest seam they’ve ever seen, make them lucky,
Make them rich. But most die young and poor, victims of
Silicosis and the ninety six per cent raw
Booze they down on a Friday night, as they try to
Forget. Forget about their troubles and their strife.
Forget the sound of the hammer uppercut, Clang
Twist Clang, echoing in their heads, hour after hour.


potosi 10.10.04

UYUNI & EL CEMENTERIO DE TRENES

Not so far from where Butch and Sundance met their fate,
Is a wild west kinda town, perched on a dusty plain,
Ringed by distant hills. In a chinese restaurant,
Rafa and I are quizzed by the slowest talking man
In the world. We chew the fat. The psychology
Of Shakespeare, amongst other topics which the length
Of his sentences leave no space to explore. The
Next day lawless students hold up the high street. Their
Demands are blunt: a roof for their uncovered sports
Hall. Cross the barricade and they’ll shoot in cold blood.

Just out of town is the train cemetery. Rusting
Locomotives by the dozen, Thomas the Tank
Engines endowed with a strange pathos, waiting for
The desert to consume them. Last traces of a
Breed on the verge of extinction. The railway still
Carries freight from Potosi to Uyuni to
Antofagasta on the Chilean coast, a
Coast which was once Bolivia’s and which they still
Claim. Painted on the side of one train are the words:
G W Busch, Como Este Train Terminaras.

11.10.04 san juan

ON THE ISLA DE PESCADO, SALAR DE UYUNI

One of the oddest, whitest vistas you could ever see.
A copse of cacti on a mound of stones, swimming in a
Sea of salt. White upon white, framed by black mountains,
A lake which rippled once, now but blinding stillness.

11.10.04

LAGO COLORADA

In a six-bed room four thousand metres high, stony cold,
There are three Norwegians, one Austrian, a Catalan
And myself. From my bed I can see a lake whose water
Is red. Not blood red or brick red or mud red. Just purest
Red. And on it’s surface, somewhere out of sight, dally pink
Flamingos, impervious to Antarctic winds strafing
Their surreal home. This has been my final Bolivian
Day. That I should have spent it driving through the most barren
Of deserts, accompanied by a UN division,
To arrive at a red-watered lake, comes as no surprise.

12.10.04

FIRST SIGHT OF THE PACIFIC

From the border through the Atacama desert
For mile upon underwhelming mile. Finally,
After passing through what looks like a valley of slag heaps,
Antafogasta appears, behind it, the Pacific.

From the bus, the city seems like a genial place
Sandwiched between hills and ocean. The architecture’s
Gentle, dinky two-storey houses made of wood, brick or
Corrugated iron. Tankers sleep in the stolen sea.

All this after a five AM start, seething geysers
In the searing cold, dipping toes in thermal waters;
Teeth chattering at trembling limbs about an azure,
Foam-specked lake. (Rounding off the vulcan colour-set.)

Crossing into Chile like jumping ship: the roads
Tarmaced, climate temperate, streets a haven of
Reserved tranquillity. In the supermarket,
We buy ham, cheese, bread; marvel at its ordered rows.

antofagasta 13.10.04

SANTIAGO

From the top of Santa Lucia, a hill trapped within a
City, you can see yourself reflected in skyscraper glass.

In every park are couples canoodling, lying entwined on
Spring grass, oblivious, public space turned private by a kiss.

The lawns are manicured, pristine green. There’s an urbane
Sense of purpose. Mountains keeping things in perspective.

The museum of Pre-Columbian art has a statue of
A man wearing the flayed skin of another man, double-limbed.

Another clue from before is the sculpted head of a boy,
So simple, lines so true, it looks like he’s walked in off the street.

Despite my fear of the cable car, despite being fleeced
For my raw fish supper, I feel like I could live here.

And yet the city’s left me with the tourist blues,
Wondering why I’m wandering, what I hope to find.


15.04.04

REGLES DU JEU

Some towns are like a puzzle. They don’t give themselves away
Without the exertion of a little mental energy.
This is such a place. Initially I headed for the
Seafront, but was sent back to jail, blockaded by road and
Rail. In the sun I chased my tail through wide avenues which
Yielded nothing but car dealerships and blank warehouses.
Conceding first round defeat, I retired to the hostel
(Mock Tudor; decor yellow-purple) to regain my strength.
To be rewarded in the second leg by an Escher
City with vistas sublime, taut Pacific horizons,
Pastel mazes of corrugated brick. Take to the hills
And every step is part of the game, ascension then
Decension, rise to the top and the view is born again,
Turn a corner and it folds into a granite warren
Of neo-Victorian style. A game of snakes and ladders,
Played on a grand scale. Once you’ve cracked it, yo-yo’d the lifts,
Valparaiso concedes like a benign chess master out
To prove it’s not the winning that counts, but the taking part.



valparaiso 17.10.04

THE COLLECTOR

On a wall in Neruda’s house, which hovers like a hawk
Above the town, is an embalmed, bright pink Venezuelan
Coro-coro. A black and white poem tells of the sky
Lit up by the scarlet feathers of the Caribbean.

In the trees beyond his window, where he wrote in green ink,
Sparrows play against a backdrop of multi-coloured roofs
And honeyed ocean blues. In his bar is a stuffed penguin;
A collection of beer mats. Another poem declares:

Amo las cosas locas
Locamente.

valparaiso 18.10.04

MENDOZA

On top of the hill in the Parque San Martin
Is a sculpture dedicated to the general,
So vast it obscures the view of snowy Andes
Peaks. Latin Americans value their generals.
Those who made it in the wars of liberation,
Earned an immortality to rival mountains.
San Martin, O’Higgins, Sucre, Bolivar and
Artigas, names whose fame is by and large held
Captive in the lands of their deeds. To a stranger,
This street-name glory seems excessive. But how can
A stranger connect with the constancy these names
Supply, ideals of nationhood through times of turmoil?

Eight years ago I came to this same place with H.
My hazy memories were of pleasant squares, clean
Air, a sense of well-being. Since that visit, their
Economy collapsed. Where a dollar once bought
One peso, it now buys three. I expected signs
Of poverty and decay. But Mendozans still
Jog, bike, row as vigorously as before. Steaks
And ice-cream are still avidly consumed. The
Bustling evening promenade suggests a way of
Life which those fickle market forces cannot crack.


parque san martin 19.10.04

TEN YEARS ON: THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT BUT THE SAME

How many bends are there in the Rambla, the road which rolls round the
Coast, circling the city like a diamond necklace? Maybe as many
As the beaches, sand strips, no more, hugging the shore for a beat,
Before giving way to rocks, a high rise, the old gas station,
Or some new bar, serving sweet chunks of beef the size of a shoe, river-
Side views of ever-changing water: silver, grey, blue, incandescent.
Or maybe there are as many bends as fingers in an old pair
Of close-fitting gloves, snug to the touch, the friend which alters texture;
Lends every thing a feeling familiar yet strange, the known unknown,
The security of a world made different in its own image. Like
A new-flavoured ice cream or an emperor’s clothes, neither new nor old,
Visible nor invisible, but cut from a different type of cloth
Altogether. You can’t help but covet them: if you could you’d tear
The shirt off his back, dance in his boxers, think in his broad-rimmed hat.

How has it changed, this place upon which time would appear to have left
No mark? You’ve heard that where once it was, relatively speaking, wealthy,
Now it is, relatively speaking, poor. That a friend who had notes in
Her pocket now has but the jangle of coins; a milanesa
En dos panes costs less than would have done a milanesa en
Ocho panes, if such a thing should exist. You see bars on corners
Where there were none and children on sofas where once cried babies.
Lines in faces resolutely young, a tower which has grown
Like a vine. All these minor signs and yet the change you guessed you
Might have found - the decay or the glory or the transformation -
Remains hidden, beyond the naked eye, and all is as it was and
Always must be, as you are too, the same inevitable self,
Strolling through a city of relaxed charm, round bends in a
River which is also a sea, and it seems that nothing,
Not history nor politics, nor love nor hate nor terror
Could ever alter what it is, and evermore shall be so.


montevideo 25.10.04

BEFORE THE ELECTION

An open truck rolls down the empty avenue, banners draped
Over the rail, young men shouting at the painting posse in
Ardent support. On a cemetery wall, slogans are daubed:
‘VASQUEZ – MUJICA’; EL 609’; ‘ON THE 31ST,
HELP THEM TO LEAVE.’ At midnight prompt, playing by the rules, the
Painting stops, factions retire. For two days a phoney peace
Will reign as the country awaits: the breaking of the mould,
A fresh piece of folklore, a day of which songs will be sung?

Dylan says that when you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to
Lose. Right now this city feels like a Dylan lyric. In
The dime stores and bus stations, people draw conclusions on
The walls. Only… they’ve found something. Small and surprising,
Such an intangible possession, a gift for the ones
Who felt they’d lost it all. This something is a vote, which in
The barter scheme of things buys optimism, confidence, a
Sense of hope. Watching the news, they pinch themselves in dis-
Belief. At this thing which is theirs, which surely shall be theirs,
This sense of a future. The wind blows their way, at last.


montevideo 30.10.01

EN FRENTE …

De mi mirada there’s a child. Perched on some kind of
Construccion. Just out of touching distance. Diciendo que:
El ya lo es! Que es confirmado! Y su madre, abajo,
Esta diciendo: Are you sure? And the kid is sure and its
Far too early, but the kid will be proved correcto. And…
… all around are pulses of happiness, Ching-ching-ching,
Golpeandote, striking you though you can’t see them.
Knocked sideways I’m almost lost for air. It’s a headrush,
As the astute writer will fuggily observe. Es el
Sabor de un felicidad, un cambio, de algo
Espectacular, realmente, sur-realmente;
Something known before but never known before, a sense of
Being and not-being, too good to be true, through which you
Stagger, in which you breathe, breathless; beatific
Asthmatic, momentary, ya esta passando. Head back
To Rio Negro, the result now incontestable,
Because it has been felt by all who are present;
A sensation that shall never be negated.


montevideo 01.11.04

LEAVING MONTEVIDEO

The horizon is seven eights sky. Which is three quarters
White-grey cloud, with patches of clear blue. Beyond the runway,
Rich grass and a low line of trees, interrupted by a
Pillar of smoke from a distant, inexplicable fire.

The airport has been renovated since I was last here.
The ad-hoc kiosks and free calls to the city have gone.
It’s run by an Argentine company. Duty-free beige trimmed by
Lurid info tabs; maximising floor-space as profit centre.

Which is a kind of progress in most people’s eyes. The seats
Are more comfortable. Should the prosperity voted for,
Longed for, emerge, there will be more of this modernity
Peppering the city, ubiquitous new century signs.

It’s the Western travellers paradox to pursue the indigenous
In aspic, set within a culture whose ills are not so stringent
They shroud the view with first world guilt. So, against my sentimental
Judgement, I say bring on the standard beige, the duty-free, the norm,

If in so doing you bring on a world where friends live free from the
Economies of fear. But should wealth be annexed by the few, so often
True, then let sentiment prevail and paint the beige another shade.
No harm will come to the horizon, or the fire that burns, inexplicably.


carrasco airport 2.11.04 (day of the dead/ us elections)

ON THE BEACH

The waves roll in hard and fast. I’m ankle deep in
Water. Just behind me are two young surfers, one
Without a forearm, the other worse. Shark victims.
The attacks came fifteen metres from where I stand.
A wave breaks over my knee. They sit in deck chairs,
Being interviewed. Talking dispassionately
About the day that changed their lives. Further down, a
Few kids swim in shallow water. Stalls cook fish, sell
Beer. Some stop and stare at the amputees, but most
Stroll on by in a beautiful world of their own.



boa viagem, recife 9.11.04

BALLAD OF A SAD CAFÉ

In fact a bar. On a terrace in a Recife back street.
Stalking cabbies wait outside. In the well-lit shadows lurk
Ugly men and tropical girls, who sit next to the men
And wait. For the cultural exchange to be proposed.

The men are in groups and none are Brazilian. The girls all
Seem to know one another. They don’t drink. Baltic types, big
Moustaches, knock back shorts. When a deal’s done, the girl
Leads the way, taking an ugly man by the hand.

Nothing appears to be amiss. From the street it looks like
Just a bar. The staff wear logoed T-shirts. The air’s warm.
Everyone a winner and a loser in a place where
Dollars buy youth, and youth buys dollars. No strings attached -


recife 10.11.04

OLINDA: TWO SIDES OF THE TRACKS

The tourist sees what the tourist wants to see. From
Olinda’s hill, you gaze out over tiled roofs,
Churches baroque, palms and banana plants, to the
Atlantic beaches of Recife. Locals play
Dominoes, guitarists strum, streetcleaners chill, red
Tunics flared by florescent stripes. A gentle breeze
Whispers you’ve landed in a piece of paradise.
‘How pretty!’ was the sailor’s cry that named this town.
The tourist’s eyes today are similarly blessed,
This setting, this world, seem too perfect to be true.

At the bottom of the hill, across the main road
Is a beach. It’s a sheltered cove. Two horses are
Being bathed whilst some skinny swimmers splash around.
Trying to follow the line of the coast, I cut
Through a backstreet of shacks. People stare. Kids mutter
Hello Gringo. There’s an oblong, fetid lake of
Plastic cups. Rubbish scattered. Behind a half-closed
Door, someone whistles. A man in a hat shakes a
Finger, like a schoolteacher telling off a kid.
I get the message. Turn and retreat. Avoiding
Eye contact. Nothing happens. Back on the other
Side of the road, the sun-shot world’s unchanged.



olinda/ recife 11.11.04

THE PRESIDENT’S FORMER HOME

The house where the President was born isn’t there
Anymore. Just a patch of land with half a dozen
Coconut trees and two tethered cows. Nearby a
Man works with his child, cutting back grass to feed the
Cows. He and the child kneel close to the floor, using
A hand scythe. The child’s more or less the same age as
Was the President when he left for the city
To look for work. The first steps on the long trek that
Lead him from this backwoods place to the seat of power.

For his piece to camera, Steve rejects the ruined
Shack where that boy caught the bus. Instead, a backdrop of
Labourers is chosen, clearing back scrub in a field.
When they drift out of shot, Moises, the cameraman,
Calls them back. He shouts action when he’s ready and
The men act busy. The President’s compared to
Clinton. The thirty second shot is filmed in no
Time at all. A worker asks which program he’ll be
On. The answer’s cable channel fifty nine. He
Nods and heads back to work as we pack up the gear.



garanhuns 13.11.04

POSTSCRIPT

There’s a low watery sun trying to sneak in through
The kitchen window. The leaves on the trees have gone.
Last night I lay in bed and skipped through a shuffled
Pack of memories. A Glaswegian Thatcherite who
Berated Pinochet in an Irish pub. The
General’s lookalike, staring as a girl called Paula
Talked shyly to camera. The dynamite orphan,
Blowing up a storm. A bottle of Bolivian
Rum fuelling analysis of the noble sport
Of cheese-rolling. An old man with no teeth
Sitting on the floor of the bus. All poems that
Will go unwritten, not to mention the others
Which took place on the other side of the road, slipped
By incognito, were never even noticed.

My memory settled on Seong When, whose name
I could never pronounce. Who took Pantanal eggs
Home to become Korean chickens. Who drank cans
Of beer until realising that ‘beer no good’
To beat the heat. When I asked why a monk should be
So alone in Brazil, beyond the Temple and
His daily eight hours of meditation, he told
Me straight: ‘Travel is a good educator’.

PUGLIA

Dec 03 – Jan 04

In sequential order. Most of photos from a subsequent trip.

Trani

Gradations of yellow and pink on a wall
Offset by green shutters. Snouts of
Elephants jutting from a Romanesque
Façade. Over dressed old men
Gossiping on street corners, animate
Eyes working like bees behind black lenses.

My wife, head on lap, has four white hairs,
Known as canas in the land she comes from.
They’re juxtaposed with a galaxy of black.
We sit in the shadow of the cathedral;
A turquoise Adriatic lollops behind us.
Neither slept last night. She’s reeling from
The ricessa, live fish on the plate.


291203

Haircut

There are two great pleasures to be had
From getting your hair cut in a foreign tongue.
It obviates the need for barber’s small talk,
The shavings of conversation trimmed yet another
Way; and it leaves the barber with no choice
But to treat the scalp you offer as blank canvas.
Thereby eradicating the responsibility you feel
When asked what you’d like to live with
On the surface of your dome until the next time
You’re forced to confront

The savagery of the shears.

291203

In the Gargano peninsula our passage was obstructed by:
Long-eared goats, eating the road, a black host working as
A ponderous but effective team; several large but athletic
Cows; vicious wild dogs who saw us as their sport;
Snowdrifts, migrated from another Northern Clime;
A bass band in Rodi serenading beneath the old fir tree;
The small towns themselves, designed by a technophobe
To challenge the capacity of the automobile.

Of them all the snow was the meanest
Opponent. Miles upon blinding miles of
Concentration, programming the journey
As a route of no return; the flood’s revenge.


291203

Driving

Constantly in a hurry. Viciously squeezing
Kilometres from alleys designed for slim
Pedestrians. Cutting corners on hairpin
Bends. Tail-gating. Using the language of
The Horn like some brand of macho
Whale-speak. Ever alert to the
Possibilities of death or a short cut.


311203

Bari: New Year’s Eve Supper

The first course: antipasti. The honey trap.
Oysters, whitebait, wild boar salami
Baresi salami, fennel, chicory and more.
Eat too much and you’ll never last the course.

The second course: turnip tops on bread
Drizzled in olive oil from the old man’s village.
Olives from a place where they’re no longer farmed.
Whole trees of fruit left to rot, not worth the harvest.

The third: linguine with seafood. Cooked by
Pino, the silent brother who will cry at midnight,
Survivor of an unknown disease which
Renders him mute in the family madhouse.

The forth course is lentils, for money luck.
A plain plateful, served in a green plastic dish.
The Italians eat seconds, storing up wealth.
The old man’s moustache curls up at the edges.

The fifth is fish: baked sea bass stuffed with parsley.
The only course the old man doesn’t like. He leaves half.
He comes from the country. His pictures show the birds
He used to love and his hands made out of cow’s heads.

The sixth course is fruit and seventh is dolci.
A traditional cake made of chocolate and figs.
Zia Angela, his sister, also past seventy, sings
Along to the music and licks her plate clean.

Next is the muscado. Two bottles of sweet pink wine.
One is delicate and new, the other sixteen years old
Thick with sediment. Pino drinks down to the dregs.
His father wears a Christmas hat with flashing ruby lights.

Midnight comes and bombs burst from the balcony.
Rafa’s attacked by the women. He responds with violent
Blows of the balloon. Zia Angela dances a two step.
Another year’s welcomed with kisses and cries of Auguri.

Afterwards, over more wine and the chocolates we brought,
The entertainment. A game called seven and a half, played with
Neapolitan cards. I’m cleaned out of three euros. The old man
Is the bank. He’d keep going til he’d won the lot, if he could.


020104

The Old Man

His moustache suspended above his lip
Like an engineered work of art,
The old man’s barrel-bellied appetite
Concealed his watchfulness.
My friend, his future son-in-law, told me
He studied people like they were animals.
The same way he’d painted the birds on his wall,
Creatures he’d loved so much he’d caught them,
To keep close beyond death,
Company for his own old age.

He talked about how his village had shrunk and moved
To the city, just like him. How the country ways were lost.
The ancient arts of olive oil, wine, cheese,
Butchering a lamb, choosing the prime tomatoes –

But he showed no regret. The city paid you to live well
Where the country no longer could. He’d lived through the
Change, which was history, and cannot be begrudged.


030104

A streak of burnt orange on the horizon
Looks like the dying embers of a nuclear bomb
Or the death of a star, through the plane window.

When it’s all over the Romans’ descendents
Will still be seeking out the freshest seafood
From the fisherman down by the port.

Or observing the blondest of blondes wearing her
Latest gaudy fashion. Or spinning their hands in
Gestures which do more than words can be bothered to tell.

Raisons d’etre for a land history passed through
Long ago, leaving behind all the things required
For the good life, always out there somewhere.


030104

SINGLE LIFE


The following poems (which appear in descending rather than ascending order) were written over a three week period in 2003. They were all written at night, around one in the morning, at a time when insomnia was a regular guest in the cabeza. The photos are, oncemore, random.

'The Geometry of Innocent Flesh on the Bone.’

281003

1am

Indulgent

If I could unpick the day at the seams
Tear that fabric to pieces, stitch it up
As I feel stitched up, I should.

If the enemy came into the room
Used their knife to slash, with but
A shredded boy left behind, they’d be welcome.

Though it could be they or she or he already visited
One night my sleeping guard was down, substituting
Vital organs with another’s, leaving but a shell.

Uncalled for sleep shrouds my mind.
I long for a muse, the real muse, to kiss me.
But she’s nowhere to be found. She’s lying somewhere else

With someone else. Who looks like me
But is not me. Who treasures her in a way
I could once, but can no longer.

291003

1am

Urban culture diet. Have seen two films
And a play of an afternoon. Buenos Aires,
New York and California, beneath a London sky.

The Mormon LaBute sat us in his mercy seat
To convey ironies of history/ power.
In urbane Islington an audience chuckled
Knowing a good bone when given one to chew.

The piece ruffled feathers, then smoothed them over.
The call was made, life went on, leading to meze
In an Upper Street Turkish with friends and thoughts of
The uncertainties only work can keep at bay.

My re-birth registered not in tottering
Moral towers, but five Thameside minutes
Caught for a thousandth time, yet the first all over again.

301003

1am

The Fall of IDS

Exercised, ate, wrote
Wrote, exercised, ate.

Oxford Street five pm
Survived, just about.

Party leader, seven pm
Demised, but only just.

Rain smacks on window
Pane. Whilst next door

A noise recurred all
Day, a clanging like

The knell of comic
Doom, a frying pan

Bashing
The Wall.

311003

1.15am


The rain returns with belated vengeance
Whilst the pancake clang’s still out there.
Had planned to break the habit tonight
But have been thwarted by a question.

Is insomnia a friend or an enemy?
Why should the mind crave extra time to think;
What should it hope to find in that surplus
For which waking hours will not suffice?

“Je marche dans le nuit, je prefere rien voir”
Except, alone in the dark, the eye walks inward
Scouting a landscape of fret, trivia, sex,
People, solutions to great problems, all forgotten
To be solved again some other night, when
The rain beats on the window or the mullahs
Call to prayer or a phone rings at random
Unanswerable hours of the night sky falling
In on you.

Maybe they’ve put questions in my head
Who live on other stars, which they are asking,
Not I, appropriating brain space wasted by day.
I’m thinking thoughts for them, the dead,
The ones who know me and yet I know them not.

031103

1am

The Weekend

At one moment I asked the cab driver about the item
Hanging from the rear-view mirror. He told me it was a
Koranic prayer to safeguard against accidents.
A one word mumble - ‘Good’ - was all I could reply.

Earlier Shoreditch had been the accident waiting to happen.
A wrong-haired riot of passing beauty, as ever, only more so.
A friend swearing a song of betrayal as you let the sucker
Punches disturb a balance you knew you’d long-time lost.

But to milk this is poor practice. They’ll come and they’ll go
And one day they’ll be an old belt in the cupboard
Or a scrawl of a note in a book not read in years. Our value
Is but a moment and then it’s done, an accident of history.

[Some you’ll cry for harder than the rest, some will
Save tales for their children and a few will curse
The things you gave. Others wake from a chaotic dream,
Scratching their head trying to pin down your name.]

051103

1am

Love Poem

He thought that just as some journeyed to foreign worlds
Seeking the weirdest sunset, the deepest breath or
The truest drug; others took their journeys
Through the geographies of the heart. They
Braved pathologies to rival any warlord’s;
Cruelties to make dictators blanche; Extremities
That rendered all poles or equators mean.

Those who sought out danger close at hand, he thought,
Were no less heroic nor foolhardy than those who sailed
The Seven Seas. A questing soul might try to turn away,
But knew the trip it spurned would return to haunt,
And haunt again. Until that time the soul be cast away,
Set loose in a fiery longship. When the fire that eats the soul
Could be consumed within the fathomless ocean itself.

061103

1am

On Bonfire night an email from Baghdad telling of
Sixteen year old GIs and war films on the hotel video.
On the Thames a huddle of cormorants
Skipped over the water in a black, lacka-
Daisical ballet, too kung-fu to be believed.
My plasterer came and cursed a traffic warden
Who dipped by on a moped, dressed out of the Matrix.
In Montevideo my wife got back at six am
Drunk but merry. Guy’s burnt on the stake one
More time; the world ticks over like quartz.

111103

1am

A writer doesn’t do much. Sits home fiddling with
An abstract muse. A house party stacked with writers
Didn’t do much different to any other party: Drink,
Drugs, line dancing, shards of polite abuse.

A former partner who I condemned by email for fraud,
Cowardice and greed, to name but a few, retaliated
By saying I lacked understanding of a world which
Goes by the name of business. Told me to ‘Get over it’

That action-world where people do, fiddling with hearts,
Minds and paypackets. But a party full of business
People is much like any other party: people drink
Dance, dish out dollops of well managed abuse.

131103

1am

The time of the monk draws to a close.
A monkish question: is faith a series of days:
Rising, facing doubt, persevering? Or is it
A lifetime’s law to be chased down in spite of
Days, months, years when the object of that faith
Has been all but forgotten, no more than a shadow
Of a shadow of some form beyond recall?

Is sour luck sent to test that faith and drive it
Underground? The fickleness of friendship too,
In cities the size of states. The loneliness their
Citizens share, each version a snowflake of its own.
These conditions combine to lure faith away,
Abandoned to city foxes’ sniffing, leaving no choice
But the former faith: blind stoicism to will us on our way.

151103

1am

Aphelia, woman in a river, in Camberwell.
With multi-sexed friends debating merits of
Monogamy; obligations of friendship.
[A friend should be both more than a catch-
All and less than devil’s advocate.]
Fast walk home through Southern back
Streets. [Are people penguins, discuss.]

181103

Final notes. The clanging noise was the cry
Of a radiator wanting to bleed, my neighbour
Advised. My social life re-awoke, with drinks in
Shoreditch, Camberwell and the kitchen. Now
Trying to read the work of Rimbaud but doesn’t
Do it for me at all.

Have learnt much about single life
These last five weekends. The aimlessness
I am not yet used to; the more random
Nature of living; the suspicion of incompleteness.
Which could be no more than a suspicion
(But how would you ever know?)

It still feels as though the only way to prevent
Disintegration of the self is through the dogma of
Work, even when the value of that work prompts
Hazard lights to think of flashing. But the other way,
Of cross-legged contemplation, serenity, sweet Karma:
This eludes me for now.

Saw a man thrown from his moped to tarmac
On Commercial Street and now I wonder whether
The thoughts that went through his mind
As he danced through the air left him sated,
Or wanting more. He got up and walked away,
Unscathed, scot-free.

NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL 2003

The poems/ extracts below form a journal of a trip made in 2003. The photographs are incidental. Some come from that time, some do not. Please note that should you be reading down the page, you will read the journal in reverse order. Nothing too wrong with that, it is noted, in a world where time travels backwards as often as forwards.

Newark, New Jersey

The airport shop sells Jelly Beans and Chomsky. I buy both.
Think of the WTC site, a shrine to patriotism and tack.
Vendors flog anything from five dollar crystal engravings
To fake Gucci handbags. Through my sunglass lens I saw
A rainbow in a clear blue sky. Heavenly sign or trick of the light?
I’m nonplussed. On Hudson a man begged for ten dollars
Then offered to buy my hat. What have I missed ?
In the three D city whose Most Valued Citizens are its dogs.

Watch Fox News for word of empire, hear the man sing that after
Nine Eleven some say they’re looking for a fight, and hell, he thinks
They’re right, don’t know the difference between I-raq and I-ran,
But still – the can-do optimism, this land is our land,
From Bahia Blanca to Parque Mauricie… And a woman calls
C-Span and tells the world to visit smirking chimp dot com
If they really want to find out what’s going down
In the homeland secure.


28.06

Café on Madison and East 65th

Random choice of the Witney brings a Bourgeois
Exhibition: two hundred and fifty pieces of insomnia. Naïf
Indulgent, only flashes of beauty. Words sloshed in with
Biro scrawl. It rains in idealised landscapes and a woman drags
A millstone from her ankle. She writes: Je marche
Dans la nuit…J’aime mieux rien voir.

On Ellis Island arriving immigrants had to pass a
Literacy test. The source text was the bible. In their own tongue
They read the like of: A great wind came from the wilderness…
Smote the four corners of the house…and I am the only one
Escaped to tell thee. The views from the Registry Office
Windows takes the breath away. Two per cent were refused.

The hotel staff speak poco English. At seven thirty my poor sleep
Is ended by two men sanding a door in the next room down.
I ask them to stop. They look at me blank. I ask in Spanish,
They say Perdon, and stop. I sleep in til eleven. At some point
In a heat soaked night, public service TV showed footage of
John and Bobby D, too young, too gauche, in the back of a yellow cab.
Zimmerman cracked wise,

talked about Cash,
acted like he owned
the whole damned town.

27.06

Train to Penn Station

Hungover

Crazy Bill just walked out the 3am door
Didn’t even say goodbye. Earlier, halfway down
The bottle of rum, he’d run round the penthouse ledge
Screaming. (Man on the train talks about Brit MPs
Caught in a Ruckus). Nikolai described his
Abuelos farm in Nowhereville, Bahia Blanca
(The only sound is the crash of the olas);
Ben drank and ate with lean Yorkshire grit;
Steve and Ciara waltzed, laughed, looked in love
Beneath the halo of a capital night, White House
Out of view, Brazil on their horizon. (Iraq’s
A mess, says the man behind me, like he knows).


26.03

Arlington Cemetery

The Designer Ballet of the changing of the Guard
At the tomb of the unknown soldier.
Ghetto moves and porn star shades.


25.06

Blue Line, Washington DC

Note: You can use mobile phones on the air conditioned metro.

Selected Stops

Van Dorn Street
National Airport
Pentagon City
Pentagon
Arlington Cemetery
Foggy Bottom
Smithsonian
Federal Triangle
Capitol Heights

Arlington Cemetery

Their monuments come in two guises: grandiose and subtle.
The subtle ones move you. A black cataract of names
Spilling onto the grass of the Vietnam. The Kennedy flame
With four stones, one marked merely ‘Daughter’. They induce pathos
Without seeming to try. The grandiose smack of bullish attempts
To mimic other empires that rose and fell as this one must.

On the Potomac, the breeze is capricious.
Occasionally the boat tell-tale takes wing,
The sail puffs. Then it dies, the water’s glassy still
And we drift. Helicopters buzz. Pentagon gooks hide in
Forested banks. Never felt quite so much like Nam as this,
On a sun-kissed day, in the company of friends.

Bar crawling. Big Hunt to Madam’s Organ.
The Addis Ababa Sports Bar. Wind up in Mulligans.
Whisky all the way. In one the third floor roof is raised
And the power sky rains down. Pressed shirts
Drink pitchers and talk turkey. We do the A to Z,
Once a decade thing. Steve says he needs the facts,
But the spin’s so great they’ve slipped away.

‘That’s the place to put it’, the cheerful cloakroom man
Grins as I take the card out of my hat in the Library of
Congress. Earlier we’d sat in the Supreme Court
Calculating a martyr’s chances (better than even).
They grant membership without pain and tell us about Brazil.
Liberty is everywhere, like cleaning fluid. It lights up their smiles.


25.06

Georgetown, Washington DC

A serious youth reading Aristotle took the seat next to me at Plattsburgh, USA.
I didn’t sleep. Gave up trying sometime after Albany.
Dawn broke over the hills of Upstate New York.
Soon after the forest gave way to a bricolage of
Brands, motorway and marsh. Somewhere off the New
Jersey turnpike my second deer approached a motorway verge,
Dallied there, hesitant, before the bus thunder roll. Big Apple
Crunched the six am skyline with now customary panache.

Washington, envisaged as a second Vatican City,
Fails to live upto the billing. No sign of intrigue. A White House
Set flush to its public. Police on pushbikes sequester the rear
For thirty minutes max to release a presidential motorcade.
Annoying middle aged staffers, who’ve picked the wrong wing to park.
Sharpshooters then retreat from the roof, the road returns to its people.
Scout patrols pose at the railings whilst a gardener mows the lawn.

Only the colour divide seems to disclose the immediate facts of power.
The bus station thronged with huckster jive and ten blocks west the centre
Appropriated by white men in pressed shirts. Doors held open by minority
Labour so the players can cruise straight through. No-one seems too
Concerned. It’s super-hot. The push-bike police wear tattoos and bandanas.
I take a swim with my friend. One hour later we watch him talking to millions.
About Syrians killed on their border by allied forces, hunting Saddam.


23.06

Dialogue at the Border Midnight

US Customs Officer: What were you doing in Canada ?
AGLF: Visiting my sister.
USCO: Does she live there?
AGLF: Yes. She does.
USCO: (Scrolling through passport) Where did you get this?
AGLF: (Thinking he is asking about temp US visa) I came into JFK a week ago.
USCO: (This man is dumb -) No. The passport.
AGLF: In Uruguay.
USCO: What were you doing in Uruguay?
AGLF: I was working.
USCO: Doing what?
AGLF: Er… theatre –
USCO: Are you going back to Uruguay?
AGLF: No. I live in London now.

USCO checks his computer. This takes a minute or two. AGLF waits.
USCO, (Bald; specs; gun), hands AGLF back his passport

USCO: (Deadpan) Bye-bye.

AGLF returns to coach.

Bus Station, Montreal

Leaving for Washington DC

A girl from the US snaps that she doesn’t speak French
At the porter whose French is incomprehensible.
Leaving family behind, about to journey through the night,
The continent’s scale comes back into focus:
Odysseys embarked on just like this, bitter Sunday tears,
Adios in a hundred tongues. Folk like me hoping the empty seat
Beside them

Stays empty;
One last smoke before we roll.
And please love let me
sleep.

22.06

Isle Des Soeurs

For lovers of names

Dipped my toes in the waters of Memprémagog
Today. Stepped over stones to reach the sable.
Mountains of Vermont perched on the southern
Corner. The surface tepid; but just below a current
Kissed with ice. No matter how hot the day
This water belongs to the mountains. Above all:
A name to worship, fear, flee. The waters of Mem-
Phrémagog. Bordered by Magog’s crowded beach,
Québécois dotted like almonds in a croissant,
And the aquiline needle of its church spire
Describing their path to heaven or to hell.


21.06

Isle Des Soeurs, Montreal

Late night Québécois cable TV.
A white haired man talks to camera.
He tells a story, subtitled, of two trappers
Arrested in his youth. One Indian, the other white.
Near Uranium City. For maybe killing a child.
And eating that child. Released a month later,
One of them might have died. They were poor
Trappers. Lean, pitiable, when the caribou was plentiful.
A hundred dollars bought a lot of food in those days,
He adds. Two hundred buys next to nothing now.

In Mont Tremblant, the forest still possesses
Its own autonomy. Planes could crash there,
People vanish; the forest would still as perfect be.
A fawn tiptoed across the road, looked over its
Shoulder, moved on, sighting that rare species
And thinking nothing of it. There’s no place more
Beautiful, save a hundred thousand others,
Accessible to none but deer and their Indian
Spirit trackers. We passed through, on our way back
To civilisation: none the richer or poorer, just bitten by
An image on the retina, to take to our graves.


19.06

Isle Des Soeurs, Montreal

A woman stands at the head of the queue. She quizzes
The Francophone black man at length about the cost of
Niagara Falls. He reacts to her every caprice. The
Queue lengthens. His flat face barely shows it’s one of those
Afternoons.

On the island it takes half an hour of pedalling
In circles to find the trail. Which hugs the Saint
Laurent for a klick or two. Scarlet breasted black
Birds, swallows, herons fishing rapids. Then it all
Closes in, dozers chew on trees, another
Condo for the western world. My sister shouts: Did you see
The size of that TV ?

The phone rings and there’s no one there. Only bleeping.
The call of the tamed. No corner shops here. Just super
Marchés. Cars crawl at banal speeds. They are held at bay
By pensioners, inching across the tarmac. They’re dreaming
The liberty of untamed space and the untrammelled speed
Their makers promised.


18.06

Train Journey – New York to Montreal

Yonkers -
Kawasaki factory
Recycling centre with an ad on it:
Don’t Trade it – Donate it – www.donateyourcar.com
Mighty scale of the Hudson

Croton-Harmon -
Nothing to see

Poughkeepsie –
Frazzled Dutch tourists
Mountain streams
Mining country

Rheincliffe -
The station gives nothing away
Occasionally on the far bank a palatial building which could be a rich man’s fancy or a prison

Hudson -
Chartered in 1785 (“Rediscover historic…”)
Rolling red corrugated iron canopy
The river finally starts to narrow
Pollen adrift like a snow flurry

Albany -
Invited out to breathe the air
Which is warm but riverfresh
Crossing the Hudson – like a frontier town out in the boondocks.
First skyscraper since NY

Schenectady -
Gold dome on a blue sky
Land looses shape shorn of the river

Saratoga -
Climbing into the hills
Forests to get lost in
Willowy streams
Girl in a black dress with red shoes walks across the tracks to alight

Fort Edward -
The woman eating sunflower seeds next to me has gone

Whitehall -
Mid afternoon
A train that trundles through land so green you could eat it
A gothic hammerhouse looms above the town

Ticonderoga -
On a stretch of water freckled with water lilies, stretching like an after dinner belt which gives to Sunday pleasure seekers cruising silently between wilderness shores

Port Henry -
Sliver of cultivated New England
Champlain as wide as the Hudson
Red brick station house

Westport, Essex County –
Alpine Americana
Meadowland, grazing cows, red roofs
The train left the river behind, tiring of snaking at walking pace between cliff and water

Plattsburgh –
1st sign of Canada – a Canadian National flatbed trailer
7 and a half hrs later, tiredness gains ground

Rouses Point –
Flat plain. Big sky. Clean cut edge of the US of A

Approaching Montreal –
The Belgian plains of Canada
1 hour late
Beauracracy
Dutch clouds
Ten hours
The whistle sounds and the clouds gather


15.06

Sushi bar, Irving Place

Three quarter’s of the chefs are Hispanic.
A long faced man reads Ezra Pound.
The waitresses are Japanese.

Had a whisky in the oldest bar in town.
O Henry’s favourite, founded Eighteen Sixty Four.

A man called Bob told me next to nowt.
Asked for a Jamieson’s, the barman blinked.

The Hispanic chefs dab with Oriental efficiency.
Artigas, statuesque on the Americas
Should approve. Exiles adapt, stoically.


14.06

Hotel 17, 17th St.

Pinioned by a Manhattan thunderstorm
I ponder a play of the richest man in the world.
Based on Escobar, his menagerie, demeanour and violence.
Just an idea, possibly too abstract, Huysmans;
Rejectable for an absence of humanity. And yet,
You walk the streets of Gotham, as I did this morning,
And the energy of wealth over nature, man over beast,
Assaults. So much, so new, so old, already.
Like a living Riveaulx. A culture perishing
In the act of its own construction,
Declaring: The greatest of the great is
Inflated, egotistical, doomed. Owned by
A hubris we only now understand.

I was caught outside when the rain came.
Sheltered beneath a second avenue canopy.
A Saturday street market. Did not notice at first
The watches that the stall was selling.
The rain got heavier. I looked at the watches.
The rain held. One caught my eye. I asked
The rain to stop, but it didn’t, so I bought the watch.
It has claimed my ten dollars. It was waiting
For me.

14.06