Safe as Houses
Another collaboration with the wood engraver Chris Daunt, this time from the Belle Grove Press, ‘Safe as Houses’ presents two sets of poems at first glance very different, which combine to establish a subtle and distinctly political view. The first, ‘My Father’s Phrases’, contemplates the idioms of a wartime generation which was communal and powerless, looking on the bright side and knowing the dark, shaken but trying not to show it, offering security in an unstable world they termed ‘as safe as houses’. The second set of poems ‘The Revolution of M Chardin’ meditates on the images of his art, seen by his contemporaries as a ‘lower’ form, still life, with common everyday objects for its subject, and reveals a politics which celebrates ‘everything that has no stare/or gaze/or threat in it/and looks straight back’.
‘Safe as houses’
safe as houses
we were not
ever
as the overhead Metro
of Dornier and Heinkel
made its nightly rumble
down the jungle
we all heard
though I was little enough
to be kept in the doll’s pram
all night through
what use
the knowledge
the danger
– told later –
was all meant for others
twenty miles east
in the Docks and tenements
of London
‘safe
as houses’
ours cracked
like some minor Frankenstein
some monster out of film
some worry lines
scoring the cheeks of it
from all those guns
‘safe as houses’
as my father
would say
questioned after doubt
a promise for the future
the long term forecast
always there
as he was not
when he fell
in the kitchen
– or so I guessed –
receiving news
in the telegram
onto my mat
back
from his funeral
my mother
still with us
alone with the cat
who’d attacked her
once he was gone
still giving welcome
still reassuring
waiting
‘safe as houses’
at a loss in her flat
***
I must forget everything I have seen so far and even the manner in which subjects are treated by others.
(Chardin 1730)
‘A Copper Water Urn’
as if enthroned
but with no need
for pomp
a copper water urn
almost human
with its slightly bulky
waist
its rings for ears
its shoulders
its metal turban
pom-pommed
as a hat
no features
but some lineaments
of light
of shadow
cast
to give it
greater weight
instead of donors
in attendance
on one knee and small
a jug
its lid
a ladle leant against a wall
instead of altar
a stool for stand
and tin
to catch
each drop
and we take in
the nature
of this place
not godless
but with no need
of saint
not faceless
but with no need
for talk
substantial
in metal
wood
and pot
dimensioned
by the moulding fall
of light
there is no need
to touch
what we can almost
touch
as far
as that is possible
through sight
another time
a maid will come
and carry water
another time
the jug
will find its weight
perched
on a woman’s
fingers
poured mid air
another time
the urn
will almost fill
the scullery
it dominates
purposeful
unmoving
in a country way
sedate
but here
meanwhile
we can stand back
or come up close
close as we like
join in
everything
is taking place
‘A Copper Water Urn’ Chardin 1734
Recording: from Safe as Houses
