Greacen001Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen001ManuscriptTrains stop at the wrong placesEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen001Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen001_0.jpgLHL ArchiveTrails Stop at the Wrong Places
Throwing the newspaper aside with a limp gesture,
"Ah yea”, one thinks, looking out of the train
At a grassy knoll just past a timbered village
Suddenly frozen and trance-like,
Paradigm of what we have dreamed of
(Cidered enchantment all scented summer through)
"Ah yes, 1 could live, work, happily die there,
0 for winged heels so 1 could fly there!
Feel off each swaddling city layer
Of present, too present end known identity,
And build from scratch a new man deed frow deed,
So scrapping this soiled familiar self
With its thousand hesitations and little deaths.
But already the train has moved
(For, oddly, time has not stopped for even a second.)
And that green knoll near a village
Has blurred and been placed on the rack of memory.
Pick up the newspaper, read mindlessly:
"CHILD OF THERES FOUND DEAD IN WOOD",
Flick over the page and stifle an oath.
Trains stop at the wrong places.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171301Greacen002Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen002ManuscriptWell, just a quick oneEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen002Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen002_0.jpgLHL Archive"Well, Just a Quick One"
The golden liquid in the glass
Is drained in joyous little sips;
The minute hands lope on.
Thus Time, the enemy, must pass.
Ignoring all attempts and all defences
To stay each sixty seconds' worth
Of Kiplingesque. 0 what's the use
Of all our vain pretences
Of medium, slow or quick ones?
Old Father Time will have no stop.
However much we try to hold him
He simply ups and runs!
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171302Greacen003Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen003ManuscriptWoodpulp VirginEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen003Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen003_0.jpgLHL ArchiveWoodpulp Virgin
The white end empty page,
sweet woodpulp virgin,
How in your oblong cage
Shall we trap vision?
We’ve got our notebooks full
Of wild and surging notions,
How can we learn to school
Each wayward fancy?
By scrupulous remembering
And concentrated thought? Perhaps
The bird, upon the wing
Is really killable.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171303Greacen004Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen004ManuscriptThe ArtistEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen004Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen004_0.jpgLHL ArchiveThe Artist
The artist must refine and pare
To lay his inner meaning bare;
But then his ruthless hand must stay
Lest he chisel the heart away.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171304Greacen005Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen005ManuscriptA MomentEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen005Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen005_0.jpgLHL ArchiveA Moment
Wine-ruddied, map-like face,
Eye brightly alcoholic
Glaring at a wood fire.
Shrill laughter splinters time.
A moments loops from prose,
And spirals off to space.
Yes, this gold coin we hoard
Against the halfpennies of age.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171305Greacen006Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen006ManuscriptEach longs for ideal selfEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen006Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen006_0.jpgLHL ArchiveEach Longs for Ideal Self
Each longs for ideal self,
The self that's out of reach,
Genius like Leonardo's
Or vibrant moral forces,
The trivial and profound
In this are both agreed ~
Each probes the festered wound
then scuttles underground.
O what can ease the itch
That filches nightly sleep,
Slanting our eyes with dread?
No matter what they say,
Accept we must; accept again,
And so declare to far and near;
There is no other way
If you would find the day.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171306Greacen007Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen007ManuscriptHow the heralds trumpetEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen007Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen007_0.jpgLHL ArchiveNow the Heralde Trumpet (Spring 1952)
Now the heralde trumpet the glad triumphant news
With gay abandon; the putty city faces brighten.
Signal the message then - "Now it is spring!" -
And write it everywhere. Sing it and dance it endlessly.
Spring, alas, of soldiers on the move; the quick stroke
Of steel tearing through village and over new-turned earth,
Crushing the slow peasant faces, breaking the ploughs
In this spring of liberation - meaning for the lucky
A quick scorching death by petrol bomb!We dare not think
of the unlucky.
0 bitter spring of man's long agony and fear.
But for a moment escapist, consider in street or public garden
The pink blossom icing of cherry tree gently smudging
The lengthened, day with colour; acres of sky at evening,
Serene, moving in silence to night’s still mystery;
The lonely youth breaking his heart in secret love;
The poet writing out his urgent but unheeded words.
Yet, winter past, our boundless need remains,
And we ask again for courage in a new season,
That from our failing strength and near-despair
May flow new hope, new certainty, new faith
And - whisper the seditious word! new peace.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171307Greacen008Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen008ManuscriptOne day last AugustEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen008Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen008_0.jpgLHL ArchiveOne Day Last August
One day last August, travelling by bus to Annslong,
Past fields brown-pimpled with haycocks,
And whitewashed rectangular houses,
I tried - expatriate now - to overhear
The homely rhythms that these people use
As running murmur to a simple way of life
Through their world's wilderness of tangled hate
I tried to see the obverse of the coins
That tinkle brash in every little till
And echo that intolerance I knew too well.
Then came the answer on that August day:
If you would find the virtue of this place
Then search it out in tidy village streets
And in the narrow, stone-walled fields,
For there these people build in quietness,
Far from the politicians vulgar rant
That tears the fabric of this land.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171308Greacen009Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen009ManuscriptJames JoyceEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen009Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen009_0.jpgLHL ArchiveJames Joyce
Let us recall that bitter, dogged Dubliner, Jamese Joyce,
Whose yeasty chaos travelled Europe in his aching brain.
Trieste, Zurich, Paris, Rome and other cities
Knew the young exile buoyed on anger and contempt
For all that was provincial, meanly self-sufficing.
A furnace blazed in his mind’s core perpetually
And would not give him rest from constant labour
Until the multi—imaged soul cascaded many thousand words
Barbed and pristine with a febrile, love-hate energy.
Silence, exile,cunning - those sharp keys he cut
To unlock the obdurate gates to Europe,
These keys made in his Dublin prison in friend-wasted days,
When Ibsen, Jonson, Hauptmann floodlit each chamber of his mind
And he determined not to honour those fierce claims
Of country, family and church: I will not serve.
Then think of him, half-blind and penniless in European towns
Rocked by the restive daemon of creativeness,
Showing a will inflexible against the little streets
With hatred in their piping, rabble voices,
He ceaselessly dredging an oceanic mind for images
To haunt our splintered century and show us to ourselves,
Crying aloud with all the anguish of our time.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171309Greacen010Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen010ManuscriptA wind in midsummerEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen010Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen010_0.jpgLHL ArchiveA Wind in Midsummer
Even in the midst of summer
A small, harsh voice many cry
While in the dusty August gutter
Tokens of a later season lie.
Now in this summer—suited weather
Look what flotsam can be found -
Brown and red leaves scattered dryly,
Obscenely wrinkled on the ground.
Then through the evening stillness
Passes a wind both sharp and neat;
A shiver of death brushes the silence,
And scatters leaves under our feet.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171310Greacen011Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen011ManuscriptChristmas treeEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen011Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen011_0.jpgLHL ArchiveChristmas Tree
Now when December days drag out to the year’s end
Through a tunnel with hardly a blink of light
One day unexpectedly leaps into flames.
We see the radiance for a moment through child eyes,
And know that all could be different because He came
To Bethlehem those weary centuries ago.
The Christmas tree shivers in a trance of light
For a moment we recapture a lost delight
And think that if things are not for the best
Perhaps they are not all for the worst;
That the game is worth these lighted candles,
That if our feet still refuse to dance
Across the pavements of a sodden world
With luck - and grace - we may get another chance.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171311Greacen012Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen012ManuscriptA memory of Bantry BayEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen012Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen012_0.jpgLHL ArchiveA Memory of Bantry Bay
Eveninig stands still as if at the stiff command
Of ancient gods that straddle the ink-blue hills;
The sea lies smooth, her lace-white band of foam
Forgotten, storm-past, peace-breathing
From fall of sandy cliff to curved horizon.
Summer walks the hedgerows like a gipsy queen
Flaunting and flinging far her red ear-rings of fuchsia.
On such an evening life is time-free, no longer perilous,
And our coming sleep a sweet rehearsal for death.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171312Greacen013Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen013ManuscriptFling back the curtainsEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen013Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen013_0.jpgLHL ArchiveFling Back the Curtains
Fling back the curtains,
Let the sweet light flood
Into the winter room.
Blaze, blaze at noon.
White sun-god dazzle us,
Burn through our hollowness
New purpose bringing.
Dizzy us with affirmation;
Praise birth and seed-time.
See in the sun's domination
Love's radiance over all!
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171313Greacen014Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen014ManuscriptDeath in PortugalEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen014Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen014_0.jpgLHL ArchiveDeath in Portugal
(In memory of Mary Lee Houston, deceased January 7, 1961)
Blonde hair boy-cropped, green stockings, dirty mac,
Slight hand a-tremble, lighting cigarette on cigarette,
Nerves near the surface, heart always on the rack;
Often depressed, but sometimes zany-like in drink,
Now could one overhear the mumbling reaper say:
"You’ll find your way from shyness, coldness , fear,
Far from Port Hope, Ontario, - and London too.
Your fate is death in Portugal, my dear."
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171314Greacen015Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen015ManuscriptA London SeptemberEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen015Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen015_0.jpgLHL ArchiveA London Septembet
Slabs of grey light fa11 earthward
On paths brown-carpeted and crisp,
That crackle underfoot at every step.
Autumn rides back a gold-red, sober queen.
Fall that we know so well, yet so endlessly new!
We talk and walk under a temperate sun,
Wishing for short silence; absence of fear,
If only for a time; a cooling of the hot blood
Of violence, wanting authority only to leave us in peace
To stroll and chat under the leaf-thinned trees,
Happy are children playing outside time's shutters -
And mindless, too, of our blood-red hands.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171315Greacen016Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen016ManuscriptAt night in LondonEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen016Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen016_0.jpgLHL ArchiveAt Night in London
----_»--------------
Light, light, too much of it, too harsh, too bare
For lovers walking in the brisk electric air.
Unknowable the dark, unsmiling Thames.
Half cynically he pauses, questioning,
But lightly she answers "Love is everything".
Darker than wine your waters. Father Thames.
Sill the others answer, too, or turn to the wall
When they hear her whisper, "Love is all"?
Flow on dark, cool and uncommitted Thames.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171316Greacen017Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen017ManuscriptWild bells ringingEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen017Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen017_0.jpgLHL ArchiveWild Belle Ringing
The fields sleep on in gold and green
While sunlight hurls deep shadow pools
Across the mildly dosing land.
Under these trees the bronzed lovers,
Timeless and aimless, pause from loving,
Browse and listen to the intent hum
Of steady, worker bees. 0 honeyed love,
Outside this oasis the tall world struts.
Well, let it strut and rant and reel!
Others quickly run, but we must gather wool.
Here's earth - and light more than enough,
Love arching over all, sea-wide, sky-high,
Timeless and aimless ones, chained into freedom,
Far, far from death, and lost in space,
For you alone the wild bells ring!
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171317Greacen018Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen018ManuscriptThe upstairs roomEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen018Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen018_0.jpgLHL ArchiveThe Updstairs Room
(For Roy McFadden)
Two poets sit together in a club
(An upstairs room mid-century style)
One drinking whisky, the other beer.
Former images pass in file.
Do you remember? could it have been?
It was indeed. The smiling liquid seems to wink.
Each poet sips another golden tear,
Knowing it's later than he used to think.
Were those the days? Well, yes and no,
For days of youth though timesless days
Are days time-bound by heart’s unease
And recklessness. And yet the poets praise
And lift the glass to certain yesterdays,
Those sunset evenings spent together
In hope and argument and chaff
That could defy their elders' chilly weather.
Two poets sit together in a club ...
You ask what point or moral’s in this story?
Just this, my dear impatient stranger:
Friendship still edges life with glory.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171318Greacen019Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen019ManuscriptFacesEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen019Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen019_0.jpgLHL ArchiveFaces
Faces: sun-shielded, indoor faces sprout everywhere,
Cinemas, bus queues, lifts in department stores;
Faces sprayed with the pallor of the city-bound,
Waxen as dolls in tenement attics;
Faces on whom the spilled rouge of apples
Reminds one of the unending Aprils of childhood,
When lilac was as mysterious as perfume of Arabia;
0 the unforgettable fragments of unburied childhood!
Faces at windows, dismayed behind lace curtains,
Faces of the unadventurous and meek;
Faces of the arrogant, walking where angels wince;
Faces of country cousins, town truants, anxious aunts:
The face of a typist, Helen, in glum suburban beauty,
Once seen in a cobwebbed moment, always remebered:
Faces of the dead, the mask serene, contorted:
The living face of poetry, the all-enduring image.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171319Greacen020Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen020ManuscriptThe blind monthEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen020Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen020_0.jpgLHL ArchiveThe Blind MOnth
November fills bridges, streets and even country lanes
With yellow vapours, blows on the tired heart
A chill reminder of the year’s decay,
shunts fog into the throat, fog into the mind,
Blankets desire, outlaws blood's summer riot.
Now the October rust-red and charred-brown days recede
Into the calendar, traceless though kind-scented,
All fullness frosted, all richness raided.
November, month of the dead, month of shadows,
Month of the year's betrayal, our invocation
Is a hoarse mouthing to the misty gods
For a single sign, for one grey dove on attic roof,
For affirmation of light in this blind month.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171320Greacen021Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen021ManuscriptThe hollow voicesEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen021Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen021_0.jpgLHL ArchiveThe Hollow Voices
Doom says the lead—ribbed sky,
Doom cries the angry bird.
Doom says the crooked house,
Doom cries the empty word,
As my true love and I were walking,
Were walking one fine winter’s morning
We heard the voices, hollow-mocking voices
But we wouldn't listen wouldn't,
Wouldn’t listen...
Doom says the valley thunder,
Doom cries the biting sleet,
Doom says the twisted spire,
Doom cries the vacant heart.
But my true love and I were kissing
Upon that fine frosted morning.
We heard the hollow, hollow voices,
But we wouldn't listen, woudn’t, wouldn't
listen.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171321Greacen022Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen022ManuscriptBy the winter seaEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen022Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen022_0.jpgLHL ArchiveBy the winter Sea
What can we say to-day that is not negative?
Do not and again do not. Thus failure to act
Seems more commendable than a positive stance,
Here at the foam—edge of the pounding sea,
Grey, neutral, dirty-specked, with March wind scourging it.
And across the faded acreage of years the drums
Of childhood beat themselves to death. 0 do not act
Like frenzied drum-beaters, incensed by doom.
Encased in winter despair may one still hope
For another spring, for a tunnel away from gloom
Far below the crust of the earth, then out to a valley
Green in a haze of summer noon, gold fires ablaze?
Or, not advancing, retreating sometimes, faith’s crumb holding,
Making an effort to be honest about motives,
(The Hamlet self, the double man ringed round by question marks)
Can affirmation come, keeping at arm’s length meantime
The lonely sobbing of this winter sea,
And smothering that maddened drum-beat of a childhood
Lost long aeons ago on a Northern shore?
Do not and again do not - wait, it will come!
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171322Greacen023Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen023ManuscriptSongEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen023Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen023_0.jpgLHL ArchiveSong
Only the elementals stay
All else must fell away
Time washes over night and day.
Only the errant memory of a face
In the mind can hold a place
While time keeps up his steady pace.
Only the sea and land
Never dissolve. Time will not stay
But runs ahead to meet decay.
Time washes everything away.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171323Greacen024Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen024ManuscriptFace in the mirrorEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen024Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen024_0.jpgLHL ArchiveFace in the Mirror
Face in the mirror, don't tell me your name,
Don't even tell me the way you came
(Without my permission) or if you’ve been true
To the dreams of youth. To one or two?
Can I look at this face without a twinge of shame?
Face in the mirror, remember your pledge?
Romantic temper allied to a classic edge;
To chisel out the crystal line,
And make it strong, not to refine;
To clip but not to maim the living hedge.
Face in the mirror, a Journey still to go,
Towards the final winter snow,
I shall go with you where you will,
If only courage pay the mounting bill.
Face in the mirror answer yes or no
To the pull of your history. Atone,
Then go your chosen way alone.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171324Greacen025Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen025ManuscriptFlying home at ChristmasEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen025Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen025_0.jpgLHL ArchiveFlying Home at Christmas
Flying home at Christmas ... 0 cloudy memory
Unroll your private film, yield up your fleeting echoes,
Those quick snatches of childhood joy and misery ...
Now see suburbia slip by, Tudor-and-russet-brick,
While after mediocre mile; past modern pub and group of shops
Out to the mild and smokeless air ringing the Airport.
Then watch the sun of saddle afternoon quicksilver the wing-tip.
(A dirty scrap of newspaper eddies: yesterday’s muddled headline lie.)
And now we rise, soon viewing below a child’s toy set -
Row on row of irregular, red-roof-tiled villas,
Each desirable residence with its patch of faded green
Like a played-over and scratched, billiard-table top.
Look down! look down!
(The blase traveller merely lights a cigarette)
At the smole-wound haze of London town!
Mist drifts like cotton wool, condenses on the pane;
But high above the clouds we view a foamy—coloured sea,
And look! - the horizon’s bloodshot, copper-red.
Then, feeding on present sights, old memories return,
Each jigsaw shape and colour to the eager traveller,
Who troubles like an excited child.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171325Greacen026Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen026ManuscriptSpring in Hyde ParkEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen026Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen026_0.jpgLHL ArchiveSpring in Hyde Park
Time is an island now, here on the stiff grass
Where footsteps falling into night pass and re-pass;
This is an island, from the day of dry routine,
A time when being hardens into Has Been.
0 every way we look lights ring us round
Pushing the edge of darkness in. Sound mimics sound.
Across the evening park float random noises
Of bus and taxi, soft hints of lovers' voices.
And as night jollies in around this little island
We walk like searching children on a tideless sand.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171326Greacen027Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen027ManuscriptKensington GardensEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen027Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen027_0.jpgLHL ArchiveKensington Gardens
Silent the grave green silky sea,
Still as the central heart of Sunday calm
In the dust-red suburbs where only
Occasional cars cough out their tired warnings
And children’s badinage swirls high in the air,
Silence and stillness stretch to 'white infinity
Here in those new-leal-springing gardens
Where London pauses from hectic monotony.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171327Greacen028Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen028ManuscriptThe partingEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen028Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen028_0.jpgLHL ArchiveThe Parting
The clouds are muttering for rain,
While birds in solid squadrons fly from storm;
The telegraphic wires sadly affirm
The bleakness of a steely spring.
He throws down the evening newspaper,
Changes into ragged slippers, glances
Down at the street where the rain
Like stretched elastic falls in lengthy strings;
And he takes his favourite book from, the top shelf,
Almost at random, so mechanical it is.
This voice speaks softly from a lost summer:
"0 will you say it again ...
Say it all again!
Will you say it then
Ae you say it now?
Will you be true
And can I be sure?
0 will you say it again ..."
Footsteps drop like anonymous parcels.
Deep, deep into the gashed night
A gramophone wheedles a tired melody
From the next-floor apartment:
And he thinks, more desperate than angry:
"I can never say it again,
Never, never say it again.
For the past is past
And cancelled out finally.’*
And yet that other voice maintains
Its level melody,
Its hollow, ruthless, tender, plaintive melody:
"0 will you say it again ...
Say it a11 again!
Will you say it then
As you say it now?
Will you be true?
And can I be sure?
O will you say it again ..."
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171328Greacen029Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen029ManuscriptDeath of a musicianEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen029Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen029_0.jpgLHL ArchiveDeath of a Musician
Draw the curtains
Pull the blinds
As the house empties
Out its sounds
Its master has gone
On his long travels
And no one
Sings or talks. Revels
Are melted as snow;
Here a vast stillness
Of tongue and piano;
Golden the silence
Rich, deep. slow.
In the dead man's house
No whisper, no echo,
Nor scamper of mouse.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171329Greacen030Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen030ManuscriptNight nowEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen030Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen030_0.jpgLHL ArchiveNight Now
Night now; all London’ s varnished over with the dark;
Dark now, dark as the buried and unseeing root,
And as the cowering earth-worm dark ...
The green leaves shudder in the everning, chilled
Hostages in a giant city, skeletal and bare
Of love. 0 exiled one in this leprous time
Walking the damply grey and heedless streets
With not an echo in the wide and thoughtless world
Now render up your strange, innocent, cleansing light!
Nor else can cure nor wake the shuttered eye;
So prisoned in the bewitched dark
See now all summer glide away in a deep trance;
Goodbye the loveliness, goodbye the ache
For other summers lost long centuries ago.
Then let us choose another time to dance.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171330Greacen031Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen031ManuscriptThe sleeping heartEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen031Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen031_0.jpgLHL ArchiveThe Sleeping Heart
Nor sea nor wind can wake
The sleeping heart. At anchor then
It lies, and need not take
Into its last deep fold
The taut world's angry cries.
Asleep but not indifferent
It guards itself from mad alarms
And rests content.
But wait what noise is that?
Hark! hark! the dogs do bark
And beggars sack the town.
New cries on every side are heard,
Pretenders jostle for the crown!
And yet at peace the sleeping heart
Reeks not of strife and sharp debate;
Nor sea nor wind can shake it now,
Nor love's assault can break it now.
Asleep but not indifferent,
It rests content.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171331Greacen032Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen032ManuscriptOne aim emergesEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen032Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen032_0.jpgLHL ArchiveOne aim Emerges
One aim emerges sharp as day
As elemental, clean and full:
To write one line, hard, beautiful,
Simple and naked as the sky.
One aim alone, dominant as light:
Emotion caged but not destroyed.
Then issue through the windless void
A flash that lacerates the night!
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171332Greacen033Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen033ManuscriptThe nightmareEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen033Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen033_0.jpgLHL ArchiveThe Nightmare
(or The Two Shadows)
In any case life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows
why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart
with such anguish, being shadows: Virginia Woolf, Jacobs Room.
The shadows turn away. Who is that man,
A prisoner of mislaid hopes, who shuffles in distress,
Through the moraine of the years? What soul unblessed?
The coming was hard, but touching the liquid fire was harder,
Down, down, down into the shifting nightmare depths,
Falling through forests green and spongey where a thousand
metallic eyes
Glinted from snakeheads like a thousand little fires •••
Look up, first shadow, and see the zigzag way you came!
(He cannot lift his head for shame.) O the way was long,
The coming was hard and soft by fits and starts,
As he fell and twisted but never resisted
And came in a dazzle and haze of amazement
But look! the second shadow is stippled
With startling brightness, as though pinpointed, by vivid day
- His twin lies passionless, mute, mantled in night -
For he resisted falling, all the way.
True, he also fell in the end, witness his wounds.
He turns his head towards the broken back of the sky,
And seemingly finds peace in this outlaw sphere of loneliness,
Knows freedom through necessity, finds life in death.
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171333Greacen034Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen034ManuscriptPreface for a poetry collectionEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen034Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen034_0.jpgLHL ArchivePreface for a Poetry Collection
The arrow, shot by practised hand
That many times the selfsame route has chosen
Flies winged to that point exact
The hand decreed. Yet further flies
Towards unknown infinity, a blue-grey blur
That in the mind's unmapped.
Each poem is an arrow, too,
Shaped for its definite flight
Yet hiding a most secret destination
Even its own maker cannot know.
Speed then each poem to that knowd point
My little cunning can command -
And onwards where you will!
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171334Greacen035Unpublished PoemsGreacen Estate19 JanLinen Hall LibraryWednesday, March 16, 2016TIFFGreacen035ManuscriptHe thought he loved the VaticanEnglishhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/greacen035Linen Hall LibraryLinen Hall LibraryAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SAhttps://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Greacen035_0.jpgLHL ArchiveWe Thought he Loved the Vatican
San Juan, Puerto Rico,
August 31.
Graham Greene, the novelist, was detained by the American
authorities on arrival frou Haiti. Mr Greene, who was on his
way to London, will be sent back to Haiti. No reason was given
for the action.
Manchestor Guardian, September 1, 1954.
We thought he loved the Vatican
With its Cardinals robed in red,
That for the sins of whiskey priests
His heart had often bled.
We thought he loved the Mother Church
And doctrine straight from home,
That he, like Mr. Evelyn Waugh,
Had there a home from home.
We knew that England Made Him,
That Brighton Rock had tried to batter
Us into piety, but felt The Lawless Roads
Came nearer the Heart of the Matter.
But oh how wrong we were!
How long we've dozed in a mist!
And how clever those Yanks in San Juan
Who uncovered this Christless crypto-Communist.
For Graham is really "Gramovsky" on the Kremlin files
(And Green is "Grenovich" in a certain nation)
While all the novels are messages in code
And "whiskey" in fact means "deviation".
And we thougt he loved the Vatican...
(For "Conclave" read "Praesidium", for "Bishop" "Commissar")
So this knave G. Grenovich, infamous Russki spy,
Loves not the Vatican but the Soviet Red Star!
TextRobert GreacenWednesday, July 20, 2016 - 19:171335