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Michael Hamburger Poems
Birthday
A shovel scrapes over stone or concrete.
Cars drone. A child's voice rises
Above the hubbub of nameless play.
An afternoon in August. I lie drowsing
On the garden bench. Fifty years melt
In the hot air that transmits
The sounds of happenings whose place and nature
Hang there, hover. That's how it was
For the baby laid down on a balcony
At siesta time in a distant city;
And is here, now. The known and the seen
Fall away. A space opens,
Fills with the hum, the thrumming of what
I am not; the screams, too, the screeching;
Becomes the sum of my life, a home
I cannot inhabit - with the sparrows even
Mute this month, all commotion human.
Elsewhere, my mother at eighty-eight
Lies on deck chair, drowning
In that same space. Were my father alive
Today he'd be ninety, the tissue
Undone in him larger by thirty-five years;
But the sounds and the silence round him
The same; here, to receive him, the space.
A train rattles by. A drill, far off,
Throbs. A cup falls, shatters.
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Old Londoner
1
1974
It's a bad year all right, it's a mad year.
The seasons lead us a dance. All summer
Cold air streams clashed with the warm,
Cloud clotted with cloud across
Now the leaves are turning, poppies burst into flower
But rain closes, lashes them, ripping the petals.
Bees, chilled or drenched into drowsiness,
Can't rise to drink. For once my chrysanthemums
Let me down, can't fill out their buds. Today
It's winter. Tomorrow it may be autumn.
Government after government fell -
Into confusion. New ones took over, confused.
Ends won't meet, anywhere. No,
Ends disown their beginnings, effects their causes.
So suddenly changes come, they startle the changers.
Nothing increases but prices, and they with a vengeance.
Who makes paper, sugar, salt
Disappear from the shops - and re-appear?
It's no good heckling the politicians:
They've run out of promises, let alone explanations.
The world has shrunk to a tea-cup - with a storm inside it.
I'm one of the lucky ones. At seventy-five
I can go out to work: odd jobs,
To keep up the old style that was always
Beyond our means. With time for a bit of gossip,
With treats, a tot of rum at the Market -
As long as it's there - a gift to myself,
Gifts to my friends, even to strangers.
Those were our luxuries. And they are still,
With few of us left in the street, few streets left
As they were when most of us had our feet on the ground,
Small though it was, our patch of it in the terrace rows.
That's it, then: making do, while I can,
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11
1975
What happened? Winter. Went out for a drink, late.
On the way home it hit me - from inside. I fell.
Lay there. How long? Two coppers arrived. Thought I was drunk.
Dragged me back to the flat. Dumped me. Lay on the floor.
How long? Couldn't get to the bed. Couldn't eat. Nobody called.
I was going down. Then came to again. It was day
Or night. I was cold. Somebody banged on the door. When?
Couldn't shout, couldn't move. The banging stopped.
Another night. Or day? All the time it was getting darker,
Inside me. And now they broke in. Ambulance men.
Took me to hospital. Dumped me again, to wait
For a doctor, a ward. Said I'd have to be moved
To another building. A stroke, they said, and pneumonia.
But their voices were fading. Knew I was for it, the dark.
Name, address of my next of kin. Didn't want her, my daughter
I hadn't seen in years. Let her come when I'm gone
And clear up. Get rid of the bits and pieces
She told me off for collecting - ornaments, books,
All that's left of my life. And grab the indifferent
Useful things. Only don't let her bother me now.
Stick in those tubes, if you like. They'll feed my going.
But no more questions. Enough of words now. Enough of me.
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How to Beat the Bureaucrats
For R.K.
You can't hit them: they're paper-thin.
You can't hurt them: the paper is not their own.
Yet fight them we must, we who are peaceable
And feel pain, or all will be paper.
They waste your time. It will cost you
More of your time, all the leisure they've left you.
They drain your energy. It will cost you more,
All the wit, all the zest they have left you.
Yes. Fill in those forms. So minutely
That it's harder for them to sift
The relevant facts from those you have sent as a bonus
Than it was for you to compound the mixture.
Invent complications more abstract even than those
They afflict you with. Further sub-divide
Their sub-divisions. Force them to print new forms,
Open departments, engage new specialists
To meet your case. Overfeed their computers,
Till they spew only pure mathematics, deplete themselves
And close down for mystical meditation
On the infinite fractions of Nothing. Meanwhile
Bombard the computers' feeder with more and more paper,
Till from paper and ink a man or woman emerges,
Word is made flesh; and, gasping in piles of paper,
They learn again the first of our needs, to breathe.
Ah, and the file will yield up its leaves to unclassified winds,
Inspectors inspect themselves and promptly submit
Applications in triplicate for their own dismissal,
And the clerk will lie down with the client.
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