In that part of the youthful year, when the
Hoarfrost copies his white sister’s imprint
On soil, image that soon fades,
The farmer, down on hay, looks out over his
Fields, and curses; but after a power shower,
When he looks out again, he sees the grass is green
And with a spring in his step he heads to the 4x4;
Just so, Berrigan made me lose heart
When I heard him sighing, but just as quick
He whipped out the plaster to heal my wound;
For when we reached the foot of the mountain
Of rubble he smiled and threw me a rope.
With this I clipped myself to him, then we
Began the ascent, moving carefully from
One slab to the next, Berrigan in front,
Me behind; pulling me towards the top
Of a great splinter of concrete, he said:
‘Now grab hold of this ridge, but test it first
To see if it will take your weight.’
This was no road for gilded cloaks,
For though I had Berrigan to guide me,
And he had the weight of a shade,
We struggled to mount from crag to crag
Without crampons or hexes.
When we came to the point where the last stone
Breaks off, I was so sweaty and puffed out
That I couldn’t take a step more.
Yet no sooner had I sat down
Than Berrigan began to take the piss:
‘Get up off your backside, academic,’ he said.
‘I’m a fifty-year-old man,’ I replied,
‘What you going to do about it?’
‘Nobody,’ he said, ‘ever won fame that way.’
And at that he gave me his hand and yanked
Me to my feet; I stretched and puffed my chest out,
Trying to look as if I was up for it,
Then we took off with heavy steps towards
A large building that shone brightly in the
Darkness, traversing a narrow bridge.
As we went I made an effort to speak
So as not to seem faint, whereat a voice
Rose up from the pit beneath the bridge,
Though what it said I couldn’t make out,
It was like the voice of a man running at speed.
I peered over the side of the bridge
But saw nothing in the gloom, so I said:
‘Master, why don’t we slip round the end there,
where the grass is worn away, and look into the pit?’
‘Nice idea,’ he said, ‘lead on.’
From the centre of the bridge, we came to
The point where it ends and joins a steep bank,
And from this vantage point the pit opened up
To me: down there I saw a terrifying confusion
Of literary agents, all wearing name tags,
Double-barrelled, triple-barrelled, quadruple-
Barrelled, all of such a monstrous girth
Even now the thought of them makes my blood run cold.
Let the Libyan desert boast no more, for
Though it engenders chelydri and jaculi,
Phareans, cenchres and double-headed amphisbenes,
It never spawned so great a plague of venom,
Not even if you added the whole of Egypt
And all the lands of the Arab spring.
Amidst this cruel power-dressing swarm
Were authors running, naked and shit-scared,
Without hope of pied-à-terre or invisibility cloak.
They had their hands tied behind their backs with contracts,
And their loins were all disfigured and bloated
With the size of their advances.
Just then, an author ran straight past us –
An agent shot out and clamped her teeth there
Where the neck is bound upon the shoulders.
No Mills and Boon was ever written so
Quickly as he took fire, burned up,
And collapsed into a heap of ashes,
Which fell like leaves onto a carpet of
Unsolicited manuscripts, where some of the
Best work of its time lay rotting and neglected.
After he had been incinerated like this,
The ash particles reunited themselves
And he resumed his former shape
(Just so, as J.K. Rowling informs us,
The phoenix dies and then is born again
When it approaches its five-hundredth year).
As a man suffering a stroke or a heart
Attack will fall, and knows not why
(Perhaps high blood pressure, stress, cigarettes,
Or a failed marriage, drags him down, or some
Impure line of coke chokes his vital spirits),
Then, scrambling to his feet, will look around
All bewildered by the great anguish he
Has undergone, such was this author when he rose.
Berrigan asked who he was and he answered:
‘It’s not that long ago, though God it seems it,
That I rained down from Hull into this fierce gullet.
I loved the bachelor pad more than human
Intercourse, preferred to stay at home with
A packet of fags and a bottle of whisky
Than spend an evening down the pub
Exchanging polite chat, preferred a
Magazine to a real woman –
Less trouble at the end of the day.’
I said to Berrigan: ‘Tell him not to budge,
My mother once worked with him in the
Library at Queen’s, ask him what he’s doing here.’
But the poet heard very well what I said,
And didn’t try to hide it; he turned towards me,
Coughed, and with a look of guilt, said:
‘That you have caught me by surprise in this
Wretched pit pains me more than the day
I kicked the bucket, for that’s something you can’t help.
But I’ll answer what you ask: I’m stuck in this
Hell-hole for stealing a library book when I
Was at Oxford – largely so Amis couldn’t
Get his hands on it. There – not even Motion
Knows about that. Some might say I’m here
Because I narrowed the scope of poetry,
But that’s poppycock. I don’t want you to
Rejoice over the fact you bumped into me
In this pit if you ever get out of here
Alive, so prick up your ears and drink in
My prophecy: The Arts Council will strip
Poetry publishers of all their miserable
Grants, and the one who publishes your books
Will be the first to go under. After that
There’ll be no room in the market for
Anything more elevated than Pam Ayres!’