New Collected Poems by David Gascoyne & Roger Scott (ed)

Author:David Gascoyne & Roger Scott (ed) [Gascoyne, David & Scott, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781907587375
Publisher: Enitharmon Press
Published: 2014-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

A VAGRANT AND OTHER POEMS

(1950)

A VAGRANT

‘Mais il n’a point parlé, mais cette année encore

Heure par heure en vain lentement tombera.’

ALFRED DE VIGNY

‘They’re much the same in most ways, these great cities. Of them all,

Speaking of those I’ve seen, this one’s still far the best

Big densely built-up area for a man to wander in

Should he have ceased to find shelter, relief,

Or dream in sanatorium bed; should nothing as yet call

Decisively to him to put an end to brain’s

Proliferations round the possibilities that eat

Up adolescence, even years up to the late

Thirtieth birthday; should no one seem to wait

His coming, to pop out at last and bark

Briskly: “A most convenient solution has at last

Been found, after the unavoidable delay due to this spate of wars

That we’ve been having lately. This is it:

Just fill in (in block letters) on the dotted-line your name

And number. From now on until you die all is

O.K., meaning the clockwork’s been adjusted to accommodate

You nicely; all you need’s to eat and sleep,

To sleep and eat and eat and laugh and sleep,

And sleep and laugh and wake up every day

Fresh as a raffia daisy!” I already wake each day

Without a bump or too much morning sickness to routine

Which although without order wears the will out just as well

As this job-barker’s programme would. His line may in the end

Provide me with a noose with which to hang myself, should I

Discover that the strain of doing nothing is too great

A price to pay for spiritual integrity. The soul

Is said by some to be a bourgeois luxury, which shows

A strange misunderstanding both of soul and bourgeoisie.

The Sermon on the Mount is just as often misconstrued

By Marxists as by wealthy congregations, it would seem.

The “Modern Man in Search of Soul” appears

A comic criminal or an unbalanced bore to those

Whose fear of doing something foolish fools them. Je m’en fous!

Blessèd are they, it might be said, who are not of this race

Of settled average citizens secure in their état

Civil of snowy guiltlessness and showy high ideals

Permitting them achieve an inexpensive lifelong peace

Of mind, through dogged persistence, frequent aspirin, and bile

Occasionally vented via trivial slander … Baa,

Baa, O sleepysickness-rotted sheep, in your nice fold

Are none but marketable fleeces. I my lot

Prefer to cast at once away right in

Among the stone-winning lone wolves whose future cells

Shall make home-founding unworthwhile. Unblessèd let me go

And join the honest tribe of patient prisoners and ex-

Convicts, and all such victims of the guilt

Society dare not admit its own. I would not strike

The pose of one however who might in a chic ballet

Perform an apache role in rags of cleverly-cut silk.

Awkward enough, awake, yet although anxious still just sane,

I stand still in my quasi-dereliction, or but stray

Slowly along the quais towards the ends of afternoons

That lead to evenings empty of engagements, or at night

Lying resigned in cosy-corner crow’s-nest, listen long

To sounds of the surrounding city desultorily

Seeking in loud distraction some relief from what its nerves

Are gnawed by: I mean knowledge of its lack of raison d’être.

The city’s lack and mine are much the same.

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