Simon Armitage - Seeing Stars: Poems

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF Copyright 2010 by Simon Armitage All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada, Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber in 2010. www.aaknopf.com Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-59943-8
I. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-59943-8
I.

Title.
PR 6051 R 564 S 44 2011
821.914dc22 2010052918 Front-of-jacket photograph William Wegman Jacket design by Carol Devine Carson v3.1 For Sue

I am a sperm whale. I carry up to 2.5 tonnes of an oil-like balm in my huge, coffin-shaped head. I have a brain the size of a basketball, and on that basis alone am entitled to my opinions. I am a sperm whale. When I breathe in, the fluid in my head cools to a dense wax and I nosedive into the depths. My song, available on audiocassette and compact disc is a comfort to divorcees, astrologists and those who have pitched the quavering canvas tent of their thoughts on the rim of the dark crater.

The oil in my head is of huge commercial value and has been used by NASA, for even in the galactic emptiness of deep space it does not freeze. I am attracted to the policies of the Green Party onpaper but once inside the voting booth my hand is guided by an unseen force. Sometimes I vomit large chunks of ambergris. My brother, Jeff, owns a camping and outdoor clothing shop in the Lake District and is a recreational user of cannabis. Customers who bought books about me also bought Do Whales Have Belly Buttons? by Melvin Berger and street maps of Cardiff. In many ways I have seen it all. I keep no pets.

Lying motionless on the surface I am said to be logging, and lobtailing when I turn and offer my great slow fluke to the horizon. Dont be taken in by the dolphins and their winning smiles, they are the pickpockets of the ocean, the gypsy children of the open waters and they are laughing all the way to Atlantis. On the basis of finders keepers I believe the Elgin Marbles should remain the property of the British Crown. I am my own Godwhy shouldnt I be? The first people to open me up thought my head was full of sperm, but they were men, and had lived without women for many weeks, and were far from home. Stuff comes blurting out.

and I both agreed that something had to change, but I was still stunned and not a little hurt when I staggered home one evening to find shed draped a net curtain slap bang down the middle of our home.

She said, Im over here and youre over there, and from now on thats how its going to be. It was a small house, not much more than a single room, which made for one or two practical problems. Like the fridge was on my side and the oven was on hers. And she had the bed while I slept fully clothed in the inflatable chair. Also there was a Hsker D CD on her half of the border which I wouldnt have minded hearing again for old times sake, and her winter coat stayed hanging on the door in my domain. But the net was the net, and we didnt so much as pass a single word through its sacred veil, let alone send a hand crawling beneath it, or, God forbid, yank it aside and go marching across the line.

Some nights shed bring men back, deadbeats, incompatible, not fit to kiss the heel of her shoe. But it couldnt have been easy for her either, watching me mooch about like a ghost, seeing me crashing around in the empty bottles and cans. And there were good times too, sitting side by side on the old settee, the curtain between us, the TV in her sector but angled towards me, taking me into account. Over the years the moths moved in, got a taste for the net, so it came to resemble a giant web, like a thing made of actual holes strung together by fine, nervous threads. But there it remained, and remains to this day, this tattered shroud, this ravaged lace suspended between our lives, keeping us inseparable and betrothed.

When James Cameron was a young man, this happened to him.

After his eighteenth birthday party had come to an end and the guests had disappeared wearing colourful hats and clutching cubes of Battenberg cake wrapped in paper napkins, Jamess mother sat him down at the breakfast bar. The smell of snuffed candles and discharged party poppers floated in the air. James, Im not your mother, she told him. What? he managed to croak. I work for the government and my contract comes to an end today. Does dad know? asked the bewildered James.

Hes not your father. Dont be cross with us, were only doing our job. James felt like a gold tooth sent flying through the air in a fist fight. What about my brother, Peter, and all the family? Actors, she said, very matter-of-factly. I dont believe you. Not auntie Madge.

Especially her. She went to drama school. She was always a tad Shakespearian for my taste but some people like that approach. The small tear in Jamess eye, like a baby snail, finally emerged from its shell. Will you leave me? he asked. She said, Theres a taxi coming in half an hour.

Ive left a chilli con carne in the fridge and theres a stack of pizzas in the freezer. Pepperonithe ones you like. Were opening a bed and breakfast place on the east coast. Actually its a safe house for political prisonersI can tell you that because I know you wont repeat it. Suddenly she looked like the meanest woman who ever lived, though of course he loved her very being. James went outside.

His best friend, Snoobie, and Carla, his girlfriend, were leaning on the wall with suitcases in their hands. Carla was wearing sunglasses and passing a piece of chewing gum from one side of her mouth to the other. Not you two as well? said James, despairingly. Fraid so, said Snoobie. Anyway, take care. Ive been offered a small part in a play at the Palace Theatre in Watford and theres a read through tomorrow morning.

Shes off to Los Angeles, arent you, Carla? Hollywood, she said, still chewing the gum. James said, Didnt it mean anything, Carla? Not even that time behind the taxi rank after the Microdisney concert? Dunno, she shrugged. Id have to check the file. James could have punched a hole in her chest and ripped out the poisonous blowfish of her heart. He walked heavily up to the paddock. If hed been a smoker whod quit, now would have been the time to start again.

If hed been carrying a loaded firearm in his pocket he might have put that to his lips as well. Then a bird fell out of the sky and landed just a yard or so from his feet. A cuckoo. It flapped a few times and died. However tormented or shabby youre feeling, however low your spirits, thought James, theres always someone worse off. His mother had taught him that.

It was then he noticed the tiny electric motor inside the birds belly, and the wires under its wings, and the broken spring sticking out of its mouth.

Back in the early days of the twenty-first century I was working as a balloon seller on the baked and crumbling streets of downtown Mumbai. It was lowly work for a man like me with a sensitive nature and visionary dreams, but at least I wasnt moping around like a zombie, tapping the windows of taxis and limousines with a broken fingernail, begging for biscuits and change. Besides which, these were no ordinary inflatables, but gargantuan things, like gentle, alien beings. To drum up business Id fill one with air and slap the flat of my hand on the quivering skin, the sound booming out among passing tourists, reverberating through body and soul. It was a sticky and slow Thursday in March when he crossed the road towards me, that man in his seersucker suit, and chose a purple balloon from the bag, lifted it with his little finger like evidence found at the scene of some filthy crime, and said, How much for this? We haggled and he bargained hard, drove me down to my lowest price, which was two rupees, then he said, OK, but I want it blowing up.