Clive James

In the park in front of my place, every nightA bunch of tramps sleep on the wooden porchOf the bowling green club-house. They shed no light.No policeman ever wakes them with a torch, Because no one reports their nightly stay.People like me who take an early walkJust after dawn will see them start the dayBy packing up. They barely even talk, Loading their duffel bags. They leave no trace,Thus proving some who sleep rough aren’t so dumb.Tramps blow their secret if they trash the place:This lot make sure that, when the bowlers come, There’s not a beer-can to pollute the scene.And so, by day, neat paragons of thriftAnd duty bow down to the very greenWhich forms, by night, for scruffs who merely drift, Their front lawn.

As any good poem is always ending,The fence looks best when it first needs mending.Weathered, it hints it will fall to pieces —One day, not yet, but the chance increasesWith each nail rusting and grey plank bending.It’s not a wonder if it never ceases. In beauty’s bloom you can see time burning:A lesson learned while your guts are churning.Her soft, sweet cheek shows the clear blood flowingTowards the day when her looks are goingSolely to prove there is no returningThe way they came. There’s a trade wind blowing. We know all this yet we love forever.Build her a fence and she’ll think you’re clever.Write her a poem that’s just beginningFrom start to finish.

The idea is to set the mind adriftAnd sleep comes. Mozart, exquisitely dressed,Walks carefully to work between soft pilesOf fresh horse-dung. Nice work. Why was my gift Hidden behind the tree? I cried for miles.No one could find it. Find the tiger’s face.It’s in the tree: i.e. the strangest place. But gifts were presents then. In fact, for short,We called them pressies, which was just as long,But sounded better. Mallarmé thought night A stronger word than nuit. Nice word. The fortDefied the tide but faded like a songWhen the wave’s edge embraced it at last light.Which song? Time, time, it is the strangest thing.The Waves. The Sea, the Sea. Awake and Sing. Wrong emphasis, for music leads to sex.

In the Brisbane Botanical Gardens,Walking the avenue of weeping figs,You can see exuded latex stain the barkLike adolescent sperm. A metamorphosis:The trunks must be full of randy boys. At home, the Java willowsWhen planted alongside a watercourseWere said to stem the breeding of mosquitoes.Here, they have nothing else to doExcept to stand there looking elegantIn Elle Macpherson lingerie. From the walkway through the mangrove mud-flatsSpread south from overwhelming Asia,You can see the breathing tubes of Viet-Cong crabsAnd imagine Arnie hiding from the PredatorLike a mud-skipper playing possum,Although he did that, of course, in South America.Below the tangled branches, bubbles tick.

Yeats was a great poet who was also the industrious adept of a batso mystical philosophy. Do we have to absorb the philosophy before we can appreciate the poetry? If we are lucky enough to be in a state of ignorance, the question won’t come up. The poetry will get to us first. Suppose you’ve heard this much: that Yeats’s best stuff came late. So you pick up the 1950 edition of the Collected Poems and start from the back. The last few lines in the book are the first you see. And now my utmost mystery is out:A woman’s beauty is a storm-tossed banner:Under it wisdom stands, and I alone —Of all Arabia’s lovers I alone —Nor dazzled by the embroidery, nor lostIn the confusion of its night-dark folds,Can hear the armed man speak.