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PETER RILEY

Peter Riley is the author of some twenty books and pamphlets of poetry. His Passing Measures (a selection of poems from 1966-1996) was published by Carcanet in 2000. Since then his principal books have been Alstonefield (Carcanet 2003), The Dance at Mociu (Shearsman 2003) , Excavations (Reality Street Editions 2004) and A Map of Faring (Parlor Press, USA 2005). The Gig (Toronto) issue 4/5 2000, was devoted to a discussion of his poetry, with a detailed bibliography.

THREE POEMS

Salt falls into my eyes. Meadow path,

linear track of missing flower heads, salt falls

to the earth, the lime on orchard trees,

every movement approaching death, in focused air.

Who focused the air, who turned the small button? Up

towards the forest ridge goes hope and the tide

sweeps away. We are flimsy things that sprout

wisdom teeth and disperse into the night mists

in which small fires burn. The ash falls

into my eyes, the day cooking its end.

SZÁSZCSÁVÁS: THE OLDER STRATUM

Needing new shoes and remembering everything.

The voice shaking but true, treading across the pain.

I’m going to where no one knows me. The strangers,

and the sky with its stars. Don’t weep, little mother,

I’ll buy you a red scarf with polka-dots.

At night there is nothing, silence of the earth,

impenetrable darkness of the eye, that cannot see

a human face turned up to it or tell the difference

between a turnip and the head of a child with nothing.

I have nothing, I earn nothing, but I have a good time.

I remember only one thing: an oak root under my foot.

And when they arrived, in the early morning,

the star was hidden. The beautiful shining star.

You should see this place in the spring.

Long since the stars sank making love possible.

So get on with it, engage the universe, get

out there and walk it in rain and pain in

the grasslands’ brilliant costumes the darkness

gripped in the day’s cracks, making love possible.

If love is possible. Heroes crack open the mountains

claiming the time in which we are cancelled. We need

a made thing that stands against this, a gate through

the hissing grass, the great belts of light on the uplands

building hope on thrush heads and their long tunes.

And the stars caught in clefts of rock

white apartment blocks on the far hillside

you out there, taking the weight, treading the pain,

pushing air through your teeth singing love

is indestructible, shield your eyes.