Poems That Make Grown Men Cry (23 page)

Read Poems That Make Grown Men Cry Online

Authors: Anthony and Ben Holden

The writer, actor and comedian Alexei
Sayle (b. 1952) has appeared in TV series such as
The Young Ones
and
The Comic Strip Presents . . .
and films such as
Gorky Park
(1983)
, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
(1989) and
The Thief Lord
(2006).

Friday’s Child

W. H. AUDEN
(1907–1973)

ROWAN WILLIAMS

The story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–45) is moving enough in its own right – the tale of someone who abandoned the chance of safety in order to work for the
overthrow of Hitler and paid with his life. But Auden broadens out to see that life as a test case for faith. The poem puts side by side
all the intellectual uncertainties around faith, all the
reasons for shrugging your shoulders about it and moving on, and then concludes – with a devastating shift of gear – simply by pointing to the figure of the crucified Jesus, silent but
changing everything, a God whose apparent ‘absence’ leaves us free. Like Bonhoeffer’s sacrifice and death, this is what actually keeps faith alive, not any
ideas or proofs.

Friday’s Child

In memory of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
martyred at Flossenbürg,
9 April 1945

He told us we were free to choose

But, children as we were, we thought –

‘Paternal Love will only use

Force in the last resort

On those too bumptious to repent.’

Accustomed to
religious dread,

It never crossed our minds He meant

Exactly what He said.

Perhaps He frowns, perhaps He grieves,

But it seems idle to discuss

If anger or compassion leaves

The bigger bangs to us.

What reverence is rightly paid

To a Divinity so odd

He lets the Adam whom He made

Perform the Acts
of God?

It might be jolly if we felt

Awe at this Universal Man

(When kings were local, people knelt);

Some try to, but who can?

The self-observed observing Mind

We meet when we observe at all

Is not alarming or unkind

But utterly banal.

Though instruments at Its command

Make wish and counterwish
come true,

It clearly cannot understand

What It can clearly do.

Since the analogies are rot

Our senses based belief upon,

We have no means of learning what

Is really going on,

And must put up with having learned

All proofs or disproofs that we tender

Of His existence are returned

Unopened to the
sender.

Now, did He really break the seal

And rise again? We dare not say;

But conscious unbelievers feel

Quite sure of Judgement Day.

Meanwhile, a silence on the cross,

As dead as we shall ever be,

Speaks of some total gain or loss,

And you and I are free

To guess from the insulted face

Just what Appearances He saves

By suffering in a public place

A death reserved for slaves.

(1958)

A published poet himself, as well as the author of numerous volumes of theology, Rowan Williams (b. 1950) was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury before he stepped down at the
end of 2012. He was made a life peer in 2013 and is
now Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Long Distance I and II

TONY HARRISON
(1937–)

DANIEL RADCLIFFE

Tony Harrison is, in my opinion, the most important English poet of the latter half of the twentieth century. His poems are often brutal and confrontational, but in ‘Long
Distance I and II’ he is simply a son mourning the loss of his parents. If the last line doesn’t bring you up short,
you have a heart the size of a snow pea!

Long Distance I

Your bed’s got two wrong sides. You life’s all grouse.

I let your phone-call take its dismal course:

Ah can’t stand it no more, this empty house!

Carrots choke us wi’out your mam’s white sauce!

Them sweets you brought me, you can have ’em back.

Ah’m diabetic now. Got all the
facts.

(The diabetes comes hard on the track

of two coronaries and cataracts.)

Ah’ve allus liked things sweet! But now ah push

food down mi throat! Ah’d sooner do wi’out.

And t’only reason now for beer ’s to flush

(so t’dietician said) mi kidneys out.

When I come round, they’ll be laid out, the sweets,

Lifesavers
, my father’s New
World treats,

still in the big brown bag, and only bought

rushing through JFK as a last thought.

Long Distance II

Though my mother was already two years dead

Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,

put hot water bottles her side of the bed

and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn’t just drop in. You had to phone.

He’d put you off an hour to give him time

to clear away her things and look alone

as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn’t risk my blight of disbelief

though sure that very soon he’d hear her key

scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.

He knew she’d just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death,
and that is all.

You haven’t both gone shopping; just the same,

in my new black leather phone book there’s your name

and the disconnected number I still call.

(1960s)

Since playing the title role in all eight Harry Potter films, Daniel Radcliffe (b. 1989) has starred in
The Woman in Black
(2012);
Kill Your Darlings
(2013),
in
which he played the poet Allen Ginsberg; Alexandre Aja’s
Horns
, based on Joe Hill’s bestselling book; and the romantic comedy
The F Word
. His theatre credits in London and
New York include
Equus
(2007–8),
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
(2011) and
The Cripple of Inishmaan
(2013). His television work includes
David
Copperfield
(1999),
Extras
(2006),
My Boy Jack
(2007),
and
A Young Doctor’s Notebook
(2012). He will next star in the role of Igor in
Frankenstein
.

The Widower in the Country

LES MURRAY
(1938– )

NICK CAVE

This very sad poem of loss revolves mournfully around the unmentioned death of the farmer’s wife, as we follow him through his dire and ineffectual day’s work. He
is that tough old Australian country man, so familiar to me, just getting on with the business of life – and this is sad enough in
itself – but it is the violence of the last two lines,
that screaming unconsciousness, that really brings on the waterworks.

The Widower in the Country

I’ll get up soon, and leave my bed unmade.

I’ll go outside and split off kindling wood,

From the yellow-box log that lies beside the gate,

And the sun will be high, for I get up late now.

I’ll drive my axe in the log and come back in

With my armful of wood, and pause to look across

The Christmas paddocks aching in the heat,

The windless trees, the nettles in the yard . . .

And then I’ll go in, boil water and make tea.

This afternoon, I’ll stand out on the hill

And watch my house away below, and how