Returning from a raid,
just missed the tower
where, over the West Door
the Wild Man with oak leaves
wound round his body
faces the Dragon
wreathed in vines.
Crash landed at Church Farm,
ploughing itself in,
churning up the loam.
Two crew dead.
The Flight Engineer
periodically revisits
the old country, resuming
his portion of the pasture.
by Jeremy Hooker
from ‘Debris‘ a sequence of poems
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses
by Louis MacNeice (1907-1963)
January, 1935
Rambling At The Bridge Head 