Poems by Kevin Stratford 1949 - 1984

The Complete Kevin Stratford Archive
resides with the British Library

.
SUITE
 (1980)

To the memory
of
Deputy Dawg
and his
invaluable assistants

Loveable Stupidities

The field is so green, Baba-Louie,
As if I'd never seen one before
It is a field fit for a gentleman

Enamelled and enamoured go the stalks
Or am i the one pushing up my head
To get wet and discover chlorophyll?

Even so, I desire nothing better
Than to continue with what
I call my existence, with a deck-chair.

Dreams of toothpaste, of convention,
Are symptoms of a poor intelligence
Though I have all the traumas.

Stay then, disregard
Everything I ever said. Think there is
Really something underneath it all.

Waltz

Cigars for the deputy! Cigars for the deputy!
Such was the news.
And there was no-one to consult.

Morning rose, don't open for my sake
Whose joys are imperishable
Whose vases are full

Vitamin-pills, take away your beneficence
Now I know what it means
To lie low and take in nothing

Am I pure being? It's what I've longed for
Deep in the anxieties
Of delightful origin.

Cigars for the deputy! Cigars for the deputy!
Such was the clamour.
And there was no-one to consult.

Music

Now sleep the sheriff and the deputy
And I return to my dumbness
Fraught though it may be

I hear old classical records
And somebody whistling
And I think of people

In general. In pursuit of the simple
We could go bland.
In pursuit of the complex

We become unspeakable.
Propose then a delectable
Juste moyen

And let is sound through its scratches
Like a piano sonata by
A restrained Italian.

Aria

I should weep, shouldn't I?
Of course I should. For the
Abandoned game perhaps.

Or the unmeasured threats
I hear of lately. Or the flavour
of a mournful region.

That would be parallel bars
For my unattached emotion.
Think of the development

Which of course we are in
What to do is a divine problem
And ignorance as noble

As hydro-electric scheme.

Baba-Louie's Cavatina

Did I catch you looking
Like Bartok on hearing Shostakovich
Across the dripping taps?

That's because you've read
Too many books. I know they seemed
So fine and dandy

But they make you sick
And magazines are worse
And newspapers addictive

Tea with the Archbishop of Nantes
Would be a relief
In historical perspective

But that, I fear, is denied
You. Ready? Stick on the album.
Let's hear Milt Jackson again

Or Coltrane or Klemperer
Or raffish Miles or powerful Pierre
Or whatever kicks up the dust

Of this helpless planet.
Take me in your arms and lope again
And cancel the subscriptions.

Fantasia

They delight in being opposite
And cut across the park so recently
Only to be snowstorms in the Russian melodrama

Of what to eat next.
Something keeps on purring
Through a meson-storm of perhapses

Which I suspect is your organism
I slide into the region
With transport and accessories

I am entitled to ask Where am I?
But all falls back into the almost flickering.
Here for example is a bowl of fruit.