Wolf Tongue (12 page)

Ranter loping

running retrieving

motoring chasing

her with a cloakclasp

sniffing the trail

loving wanting

eyes on any horizon

but this blind spot

leaping the fence of his enclosure

nose down in open fields

stunned with blood

trailing her scent

greyhound quick from his trap

Moaning:
this must be the last lap

And it isn’t

even the first

swooping aloft

skylark on Skye

swanning around

gliding over glades

snipe drumming

stealing into empty nests

shimmering in hillhaze

Cheviot to Killhope Law

Ranter’s folly

time and again

flouting the law

of averages

less than he started with

more than he bargained for

Ranter. Call him Leveller, Lollard,

his various modes.

Whispering sedition, libel,

love-lockets of memory

coaxed from his brain box

Whispering
I love you I need you

to the stone in her

the still stone in her pale blue water

Fox she saw

in Manchester snow.

A winter flame, she said.

Red as a heartache

pumping through him, flourished

like a rose

before her

at the dream station.

Another extravagant example

another project running over budget.

Men in the know

chewing ends off cigars

eyes rolling to heaven

over Ranter’s back,

where he mewls alone,

barking:
The luxury of punishment

is breaking us all.

Ranter the straight man

replying:
I know, I know.

Ranter: Leveller, Lollard,

Luddite, Man of Kent, Tyneside

broadsheet printer,

whisperer of sedition,

wrecker of looms

feathered and peltstricken

bound with skin

hung up in trees

Bamburgh to Canterbury

wasted on the ground

alone in his slurry bed

Ranter mashing his teeth

chewing over memories

of her with a cloakclasp

Picking up Bede and Cuthbert

on the ham radio

in his birdbrain wolfskull

wondering why they don’t answer back

wondering why Sweeney hasn’t called from Killiney Hill

above the gentle shores of Black Rock

all too busy keeping famine from the door

Halfden’s longboats

ploughing the shore

Bamburgh at bay

Newcastle gets ready

Men of distinction

in the chapel yard

Ranter roped up

hurt in him

heel on his neck

Halfden’s heel

under the Raven banner

Hadrian’s leather boot

militiamen

academy-trained

or the swinish from pubs

clubbing his door

with butts

Ranter reminded

of blisters and boils

hurled off the causeway

asking for Bede

Salt.

I got salt.

Asking for Aidan

I was shown the shore.

More dismal dismay

for me and my fiefdom.

Aching for seawind taste.

Sky’s forever moving, spindrift

dazzling when sun gets through.

Thrift like a haze.

Learning silence of cells,

moon through the slot,

prayer power in the dungeon

of his life.

Nut-brown brothers

with earth-browned hands.

Nets and psalters

laid down for the day.

Aching for breakers

breaking his monotony,

sick on the boat

to the island he loved.

Norsemen used to it

life on land and sea.

Maker of maps,

gutter of towns.

Bamburgh to Bewick,

eye of the island

in flames.

Forsaking the dunes

dune misery

stranded on the strand

monks

organising

the next page of Codex

from a cell

driving himself

out of the wild

Returning, returning

Ranter searching for the good thing

the place with a centre

inside her cloakclasp

lignite and beryl

sweeping up her generous plaid

hoping she will utter a good thing

giving him reason

to turn and return

without pus-pillows

burst on his back

chin

cleftsmote

heart a stranger

to the good thing

Gifts and bounty

on the wedding feastshelf

unwrapped

none taken up

all of these days

none of them opened for more than a year

Dear God

what kind of country is this

reduced and reduced

cloakclasps exchanged

braid-pins and pipers

straw men attending the feast

fipples, fiddles and bows

smaller than the word for small

smaller than the French word

the Irish

smaller than the smallest word for small

Ranter ranting:

Where is my bride

holy of holies

Curse on the weather

for being so straight

and everything else bent

rubbing stubble

on his wolfchin

Cambridge fenfields

burning up summer

without her

Ranter the wanderer

Ranter’s bride

walking the Weald:

Pilgrim’s Way.

*

God, give me strength

What kind of country

People wearing shoes

exercising the cheek to breathe

cheeking the Law

Lollards, Levellers

Upside Down folk, Miltonic upstarts

heroes & heroines

reading Shelley

taking up Anarchy like a pen

and Ranter

on the run

running and running

remote and reduced

reduced and reduced

Pelted with feathers

in his other life

One third

in trees.

Word for reduced

word for running

word for betrayal

word for bond

the one for moving

for fast

rocking down

the Dartford Loop Line

Ranter away with himself

broken and broken

running to Lee

where she clouted his head with stones.

*

Lord, Lord,

Bede is your servant

Let me be his.

A whole day without her.

Two.

Three running into four.

Scratching them off

in his cell.

Grief.

Word she used.

Now it’s a badge.

No one to touch in this risky business

moving and moving

chasing her across lawns of Albion

Ranter’s record

filed to copy:

Ranter, I said.

Call me Ranter.

Name woven inside

this cloakclasp.

This is my power:

To peck and roar.

To be feathered,

furred and fanged.

To hunt,

sky above him.

Grub-hunting

earth at his feet.

Feasts and pipers,

dogs on the moor.

Allendale’s princedom

running with streams.

One third in trees.

One third heather

stalking

the sheep’s track.

Trout only

surpass him

for swiftness

up streams.

Hunt

fly

hover

howl

harass

wheeling in air

alone on his rock

Then I am a man.

One third, warming

the fipple.

His flute song.

Upright to earth

this dear green land.

Clouds go

where I tell them.

Bolt-holes of memory.

Harmony with Kes.

Badger reads me books.

Good old Brock.

The rest is skin,

gun at his back.

Surviving in houses

broken by marriage.

Warlords with clout

at the rim of his princedom

*

Listen Cuthbert.

Come in Bede.

Your time’s up

I need help.

Aidan

where are you?

This is Ranter calling

on VHF.

Halfden’s heel on his neck

grubbing for lugworms

Druridge to Dungeness

Tide pouring over

causeway he loved

Ranter revolving

riptide of his life

My fingers cannot

grip the limpet shell

Kelp on his ankles

Crabs gathering in silent gangs

Crown and cloakclasp

soaked in saltflow

Kilt in pools

sucked by elvers

Dear Christ

my eye is put out

Eels mating in his hair

word for bruised

word for banished

words for forgotten victory

word for psalter

words for slowness in her

none to be said

Vespers lost

brine pours over

broken pustussocks

soaking chestchin

Ranter not giving in

*

Ranter, Ranter

shew us

Leveller, Lollard

what do we do?

Say this:

Go to the fields

make hay while sun shines

when it rains go anyway

in the goldstook meadow

afraid of sickle and stranger

villagers of Reeve

beating with hammers

straw and wooden

effigies of Paine

until

their hands

ran with blood

*

Dear Christ

what kind of kingdom

People standing in the fields all day

in the rain

doing nothing

leaning on sticks

glaring, miserable

resentment filling

their chapped bodies

afraid of everyone

and themselves

flexing wolfmuscles

feathertips turning

snipe drumming

gin-trap sex

climbing above her

clamping in loveclasps

dog in his rage

vixen in heat

*

Ranter, Ranter

glory and light

wisdom and fount of wisdom

bringer of beck water

climber of Killhope

law unto himself

picker of rosehips

conversant with Brock

swooper with Kes

dispenser of fortunes

terrible plain speaking

distiller of bilberries

smiter of spar

loper, glider,

dashing for game,

loading his gun,

cleaning his blade,

trap setter, marriage-breaker,

reader, desperate for attention,

bruised and mighty,

strangler of cries,

particularly his own

driver and driven

moving across this dear green land

hunting her with a cloakclasp

curl in her hair

in the nest of her family

brooding

and all this:

trembling, touching,

feasting and famine

*

Ranter’s diary:

Particularly lovely

lee wind

ruffled her garments

Deptford to Woolwich

handsclasped

remembered her praying

air she was still in

staring

into the green courtyard

of the poor people’s hospice

in Woolwich Old Road

Boats for pleasure

Boats for war

bobbing on the tide

Isle of Dogs

he ran with fangs

barges for bridges

across dry docks

fipple bent

in his creased beak

singing:

make me a blackbird again

not a groaning man

no collar on him

no family ties

but ring of blood

sweat circles

on featherpeltskin

watching his own

winding-sheet

and the smooth water

its sad envelope

as he touched the hem

of her life

Below the Yacht pub

Ranter writing

with a stick in the mud:

My whole life pulp

Brock wouldn’t touch

Waiting for Sweeney’s

Irish misery

beamed in from a bough

Howth to Sandy Cove

ham radio 

ham-fisted

wrong-footed