(6)
The Refugee in a sleeping-bag on a steel floor
opens his eyes on darkness and wonders
did he remember before he left to visit
the old holm oak up the fields, to hold
the spiked leaf in his hand and listen
to what it said? Go, it said, go now.
I’ll be with you, I’ll let you know
when we’re on the sea.
(7)
The vast dark history that trails behind the route,
the great lamentation stretched across the western land-mass
for the fall of Constantinople, Dufay 1454, a version
still sung in Greek villages. And the local text,
for whomsoever is lost. Whomsoever is here,
Whomsoever is there, Whomsoever is
everyone you ever cared about
hidden in what’s left of the world
where would that be now?
(23)
Contrary to planning permission
a room full of light, windows on
three sides looking out on the whole,
on the whole valley. The valley below.
The forgotten books which fill
all the shelves in the house,
warning of the pending war in which
Britain becomes a fascist state by default.
Upper Kentmere, the light passing through
sheets of glass brushes soundlessly against
our turned backs as we sit there trying
to explain why we decided not to follow the world.
(24)
And all night the ghosts gritting their voices
on the pages of forgotten books …
There is no photograph, drawing or print that can begin
to show what we are, divided and silent in the lap
of the night wind that rears the sea against the stone
as the red army marches into town.
Peter Riley’s chapbook “Proof …” consists of 27 separate but integrated poems, unnumbered and untitled in the original. The first poem introduces the figure of the Refugee, “Proof that the world exists. Crossing Europe / in the backs of lorries, the noise of the engine, / the road rolling under, deeper by night.” While the Refugee’s fragmented story continues, the first-person narrator looks keenly at his English rural and “factory-zone” locations, and sees Europe. History pulses in large waves through the music of these poems – “sonnets” in the original sense of the word, “a little sound”. A wren’s call, described in precise detail, ends with the “tell-tale machine-gun rattle”, which is in turn a soundtrack for the Refugee, whose journey begins with handing over 500 euros cash at “at a far edge / of urban tension”.
In the sixth poem, where my selection begins, the Refugee, “in a sleeping-bag on a steel floor”, worries whether or not he performed an important pre-journey ritual, an act of mysterious, oracular communication with a leaf from “the old holm oak up the fields.” Holm oak, Quercus Ilex, is native to Mediterranean woodland. It’s known as an invasive species in the UK, and that botanical subtitle could be a reminder of the language of anti-immigration political rhetoric. The “spiked leaf” has a kinder message: “I’ll be with you, I’ll let you know / when we’re on the sea.” But what if the traveller in his anxiety forgot to give that leaf its moment of attention?
The seventh poem changes key, then opens out from a “vast dark history” to “the local text, / for whomsoever is lost”. The date in line three probably denotes the year when Guillaume Dufay (c 1397-1474) composed the Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitae, a four-part motet that is a “great lamentation stretched across the western landmass / for the fall of Constantinople.” Collective loss is combed into the thin traces of individual people individually cared about, but no one is found: “whomsoever” remains doubly displaced, “hidden in what’s left of the world / where would that be now?” Dufay’s lamentation and the “version / still sung in Greek villages” both seem unequal to what they mourn, insufficient in human “proof”.
Poem 23 begins wryly rebellious (“Contrary to planning permission”) and seems to blossom into joyous ownership. Opening windows one by one in “a room full of light”, it builds a panoramic view towards “The valley below”, adding a lovely echo of the Cornish folk song, The Sweet Nightingale. But, as the segmented form indicates, this is a poem of contradictions, and the next verse jolts complacency with its reference to “the pending war in which / Britain becomes a fascist state by default”. The books have been forgotten, perhaps because they disturb the householders’ peace, or because the view outside demands full attention. But “we” (a couple, a nation?) have their/our backs to the light, and are engrossed in the virtuous decision “not to follow the world”. The windows have opened on ambivalence: exile luxuriates in pastoral, while politics slithers into fascism off-stage.
Upper Kentmere, an area once prey to the Scottish raiders (reivers), belongs now the Lake District National Park. There are areas in the British Isles that have been turned into museums of the ideal: they exist for tourists and the associated hospitality industries. Beautiful and comfortable, they stimulate false images of nationhood, they are part of an identity through consumption.
In the next poem, the ghosts “gritting their voices” might be cursing, or conspiring to defend the “forgotten books” but meanwhile the more easily-consumed visual media fail to reveal the truth of a “divided and silent” people. The night wind, the sea and the sea-beaten stone remind us of the Refugee’s treacherous journey, the blind might of history, the absence of welcome. Peter Riley often makes the poems in “Proof …” question one another, and the “red army” (note the lower-case) in poem 24 may glance slyly ahead to “the local Junior Brass Band” of 25. But the hard and haunting image lingers: an army bringing the colour of blood through the green “valley below” and into town.
