26
FOR THE CAMBRIDGE POETS


I don't come to this part said John very often.
And nature, said Dorn, is so wild, said
some poet. And Mr Prynne once lived where Milton did
& so many poems got published that did not make any sense
I used to think it was deliberate until I realised
that the very place made me ill. I'd burn
it all down, or perhaps save the buildings for orphanages
or grand lunatic asylums & homes for disabled dogs.

And out of it, I suppose, I would say a little writing
more now by indirection, which is the best, almost the only
able to grasp where we are & what says we are or are not.
These words might save the place, but they'll have to go louder
louder! before they reach that substrate of poison, privilege & mud
the ooze from old stone only the rich could pay money for. Dirt
flows through it, from it, the filth of seven hundred years of power,
knowledge, wasted, please, like champers on the lawns: that
is, dear reader, that common culture which we share
bent to keep the great flywheels going that spin the shaft
that turns the engine that feeds us all rottenness & honey.