The Prison Prayers of Manasseh

Manasseh, vagrant, second son
Of Charles and Freedom Lee
Kneels on the lightless flinten floor
Of Kingston jail, Surrey:

‘Who was Grai? 
My poor dad’s motor. 

Who was Shushi? 
My meal. 

Who was Tushni? 
My mother’s reed-woven manger. 

Who was Vesher? 
My danger. 

Who was Churi? 
My heirloom: thumb-worn steel.’ 

Manasseh was the second son of Charley and Freedom Lee. 
The only time they got to church that year was when 
A flood came, silvering all the fens and, under its sheen, 
Drowned sheep and fox and worm 
And the colours of hope. With freezing fear 
The husband and wife, both eighteen, ran 
To St John the Baptist’s sanctuary (nine miles, and hours on foot 
Even in the dry), not seeking font or bread or water, but a name. 
The lesson was Joshua 17, and when the echoing promise 
Of ‘a lot for Manasseh’ came shivering down the nave, 
The blue of the baby’s cheeks was eased, and though his eyes 
Stayed shut, the tiniest mist came up 
From the pink-white threepenny round of his days old mouth, 
Fogging the eyes of his underweight mother and 
Desperate, harmless father. 

‘Who is Old Beng? 
My rival. 

Who are the Galos? 
Bars. 

Who is Mandi? 
Cold behind them. 

The Wavver Mush? 
Ahead. 

Who is the Yogger? 
Father of Birds. 

Puv ta Paani? 
All: my looking glass.’ 

Manasseh, vagrant, second son
Of Charles and Freedom Lee
Kneels on the lightless flinten floor
Of Kingston jail, Surrey.

Grai – horse. Shushi – rabbit. Tushni – basket. Vesher – gamekeeper. Churi – knife. Old Beng – the devil. Galos – policemen. Mandi – I, me. Wavver Mush – other man. Yogger – gun. Puv – earth, ground, field. Paani – water.

 *

The Wild West

A Crook is cawing Crooked words
On eardrum-numbing winds outside.
Guardsmen ignore him. Blackbirds
Jerk their heads, sharp-eared, dark-eyed.

The Race of Crooks is sapling thin,
A wattle-fingered host.
Their set-square noses, cranky teeth,
Time leathered skins, root knot and wreath-
Taut shoulder blades are closing in
To hack the shrub and spook the ghost.

Higgledy Jim, the colonel, cranks
His quick march in his breast.
His blood-silk neckerchief is noose-
Tied, meting pulses through the sluice
Of arteries. His blood’s his rank,
Stiff scapulae his epaulettes.

Gorse-born brigades of Crookmen trek
Up spinneret-born tracks.
Their aspects brown with mud and blood,
Their boots made muffled with the crud
Of earth. Their backs are buckled, backs
The country leaned on hard: their necks
And names are crooked, vexed,
Misshapen, long time marred.

The Crooked, bent with backbreak heft,
Want gold for graft. Twilit they sit
And whisper warning words, and plan:
Birds understand. Few others can.

These days the Crooked Tongue is hid
Although it lives; still, old men did
Research, and said it bled to death
In the days of Billy the Kid.

A Crook is cawing Crooked words
On eardrum-numbing winds outside.
Guardsmen ignore him. Blackbirds
Jerk their heads, sharp-eared, dark-eyed.

 *

A Royal Wedding

For the New Forest Gypsies

Between his face and his hand was swept
At the edge of the glade a mizzen-sail of mayflies, silver pollen,
Chance and vanishing vapour
Slowed to a dream-speed, very lazy waltz
In sunlight weave:

Finger and thumb holding the ring he bought for a second hand
At a bit of a distance,
Spying through the nothing heart of its empty centre

A green-walled shed, and green-roofed,
White wood shuttered and skirted;

Big enough, just, for the three
Of the one kind priest and pair;
In need
Of a proper cross above the narrow door; of a touch
Of paint; of haughtiness; perhaps
Some thin, unknowable inscription.

Standing about are mended caps and tweeds, and petticoats
All fixed in gratitude.
The clearing’s tamped dirt floor will bear their eighty
Or ninety feet, some shod, some soft and trusting
Still to a summer’s grace:

Ahead of his love, and in the light of her face
Shall be the lilac tint of the Hampshire dust

And in her work-lined hands his love will clutch,
String-bound, a tight and small bouquet

Of stocks, sweet peas and heather
Frilled with soap-wort’s fragile stars
That the folk of houses call
Gypsophila.