Poems for Debbie

"What have you done today to make you feel proud?" Well, most of what I have done has been the exact opposite - for one thing I suffer from an addiction to food that needs to be curbed. But I have completed the prologue to a new HP universe novel-length story called KATHARINE MALFOY: VENGEANCE ITSELF, which I intend to publish in one or two of the Harry Potter fan fiction websites. Because of some new ideas I have had about the rest of the story - or fic, as they are called among fans - I have had to lengthend the prologue till it came to look a bit thick. I have tried to manage the narrative so that it does not bore the reader.

Today's piece of writing is a group of poems I wrote at various times for the love of my life, a lady called Debbie Wallace. She threw me off, and I dare say that she had good reason to, but as far as I am concerned there is nobody else. In my mind, I am married to her.

D.W.

You steady point in unforgotten night;
Star, shining star, you light unmoved in darkness.

TO D.W.

Is there another thing for language's song
To sing, for music and for measure
To string and weave in gold and silver treasure
Of ringing filigree both slight and strong -

than Love? O no; for every thing not wrong,
In which the mind can find its rest and leisure,
All that is true, and being true gives pleasure,
And being true can last a whole life long -

is loved. And what else can be said
Of you, my darling, and your faithful heart,
True to its nature, and by nature led

Straightly and cleanly as any work of art,
Learned in more logic than any cold head,
Knowing by love the whole, and not the part?

FOR A WOMAN WHO DESERVES AN EPIC POEM, IF SOMEBODY COULD WRITE IT FOR HER

Let me sing, golden language of poetry, of what needs better poetry than mine;
Let me sing of a thing among mortals, and the words she deserves are Divine,
For the truths of the Lord and the devil rise on each boring step of our way;
Let me sing how the valour of Saints is in London in our vulgar day.
Let me sing of the love of my life, of a flower of thirty-one years
Whose growing few men ever noticed, with the commonest name that one hears,
Who has shed her perfume in the desert of dark-red working class London bricks
Like a cheap heart-red poppy in a field till some stranger comes carelessly and picks
Without noting the grace beyond kings, the slender red veils and the veins,
The lovely uncorrupted radiance where no petal holds maggots or stains.
O you fresh clean-faced bloom of the rose, O my Debbie so bright and so pure
That some people would close your blue eyes so as not to be seen and endure
The seeing of a just woman's sight who can see what is right to be done
And what shouldn't appear on this Earth and be seen in the light of the sun;
That some people would strike you with ruin to bring lower than where is their place
The truth and unthreatening kindness that is worse than all threats in their face
That is yours as your nose and brown locks, as the splendour belongs to the gold,
As the growing of strength is of youth, and respect belongs to the old;
That is yours as love is of beauty, as admiring belongs to the great,
As excitement belongs to the mighty ancient tales that men love to relate;
Yes, the kindness and truth of your soul, that you prove on and on, day by day
To the eyes of all those who will listen and see what you do and you say -
It's that truth and that kindness I loved, it's your honesty and heart I adore,
Though I never can have it again, though I'll never see you any more.
Fare ye well, o my brave and much-loved, fare ye well, o you fair face and heart;
If I could as I would, my own Debbie, I would not have allowed us to part;
Not if word, not if work or if pleading, not if thing or if things I had done
Could have given my life in your hands, better life than ever I won.
Fare ye well, you sweet-faced and sweet-minded, you the one precious thing in a time
When my hopes were all turned into darkness, when the true things were spattered with grime;
Fare ye well, O you true, funny and earnest, you the one thing I never could have,
Fare ye well; I will never forget you; fare ye well, you my last and best love.

A DREAM OF DEBBIE

The grace of your small hands enchants and calls
Through your white arms and shoulders and each part;
I hush in fear that anything may start
The air that keeps the silence of our souls;

And softly grows the cage, and softly falls,
That warms your tender breath, and holds your heart;
My hands are moving like a clumsy cart
Through your hair's fruitful meadow as it rolls.

I'm drunken on your face as on fine wine;
And thirsts my thieving touch after my eye
To reach for the gold casket pure and fine

Of precious treasures without flaw or lie
Lit by two jewel-stars that sweetly shine,
And sweetly kiss your lips, and sweetly die.

ST.VALENTINE'S DAY 1998

Not long ago I took myself aback.
We were - do you recall? - in a long talk;
And it was night, and I was calling you,
Calling to you. Debbie, if every night
Had been forgot, and every day had died
Before God's eye, from when I had first met you
And the November night I heard my name
Called by your voice, and went so full of joy
That only the Ode to Joy could sing my feelings;
If all these days till now were brought to nothing,
They still would not be wasted. For to love you
Can be no more a waste than for flowers
To grow and blossom, or for the daystar's light
To glance across a meadow in the spring
When birds are singing, and daisies shine like gold
And silver coins and jewels spread on Earth
By a rich king to satisfy his poor
With bright and lovely things before the sky.
So is love for you; and if a million flowers
Were born and died unknown, they'd not be lost -
No more than a good deed that no man hears of.
And you're a flower, a kindly gift of God,
A single star worth more than all the thorns
That pierce and grip and shed my blood in vain
Around your face. For my heart's in you;
And nothing I may suffer can kill that
Or change the life you're given till I die.
And so I talked that night and heard your voice,
And then heard mine, unready, unexpected,
For I had never thought the words I spoke:
"I was born and put on Earth to make you happy."
And there I stood, astonished at myself -
Because I knew at once I'd said the truth.

O Love, the mountains bend their proud heads down,
And lions rest in your lap their royal frown.

FOR D.W.

Four weeks and more have slowly ground
Since I have heard your mouth's sweet sound;
Thirty dark days have turned around.

And I miss you, dear,
And I miss you.

Each bit of time a grating shock
As if the cogs were made of rock;
As if sand crunched within the clock.

And I miss you, dear,
And I miss you.

You would be like a song at the other end,
Like apple blossoms, sweet perfumed and fair,
Like light and dance and talking with a friend,
Like painting when it paints kind light and air;
Like water when it dances down the hills,
Like lakes that mirror clouds as they slip by,
Like rivers as they slide by silent mills,
You would be like the breeze from a blue sky.

But you're not there, and I must wait
And do not know how far the date;
O hurry! it is already much too late.

And I miss you, dear,
And I miss you.


TO D.W.

Every one thing you had to do you did;
You bore such burdens as would break our backs;
You’re clean, you’re true, and bound to remain hid
To a world that follows large and filthy tracks.

Your path is diamonds, hidden in the mud
Of our love of power and of strength
That fixes our eyes on what is bad
Wasted in Time, and time of little length.

But all across the aimless tracks of time
Eternal eyes are in each time and know.
The truth of things, the face of virtue and crime;
The judgement of the world is now;

And you are known, upright before your Lord
As you're in truth, a fair and naked sword.

TO D.W. (II)

No. Neither this, nor this, nor this is you.
My language fails; my gift of sight is weak;
No word I say of you in verse can speak
The true, belov'd, and unforgotten you.

I fail to tell how ordinary your presence;
I fail to tell how nice you are to know;
I fail to show how yet the very essence
Of courage is what seems little and low.

Should I call you a hero? That's too serious;
Should I say you were charming? That is twee;
There is no word with meaning lovely and various
Enough to tell how you are and were to me;

And yet you're praised, if not in my poor rhymes,
In that I wrote of you so many times.