Peter Hughes

FOUR PETRARCH SONNETS

189

Dodici donne onestamente lasse

I thought I saw the tiller girls sail by
with a european union flag
the chancellor shouting out directions
& whipping poorer members of the crew

who had already ditched their possessions
thrown all their supplies & clothes overboard
& left their kids on an unnamed island
in vain attempts to keep the boat afloat

I saw the continent define itself
in opposition to a ransacked world
which bleeds & feathers several western nests

I saw the boat begin to rock & list
as the officers stared without blinking
& storm clouds started moving from the south

190

Passer mai solitario in alcun tetto

as solitary as a tail of ice
& debris streams across the firmament
extending several million miles
sometimes you just have to do your own thing

I quite like pretending to be grumpy
in an influential way which could ram
a hive of stinging darkness on the heads
of poets for a thousand years or so

while all the normal people have a beer
& potter about poking vegetables
& becoming more aerodynamic

at the barbers you can learn a great deal
about perspective & resilience
& the dreams of other people’s daughters

198

O cameretta, che già fosti un porto

the welcome comfort of my caravan
becomes my personal unpadded cell
in the privatised detention centre
tucked away in the suburbs of my head

my pull-down bed is not so inviting
as in former times & appears to be
a monstrous opening into nowhere
a cushioned portal to oblivion

of course I shouldn’t blame the caravan
the problem is it’s just too full of me
& the poltergeists of my obsessions

it’s got to the point where I can’t stay in
I haunt the streets & fields until morning
liaising with accidents & strangers

201

Real natura, angelico intelletto

every so often the powers that be
dream up some distraction to take our minds
off fiscal iniquities & drone strikes
this involves lip-service to some old art

bleached free of political valency
thanks to a mixture of context & time
a spurious sense of community
which is mainly bunting & Elton John

comes to an end just after it’s started
so the rich can drive home & lock their gates
while the poor remain standing in the street

with renewed relish for austerity
injustice & poverty - after all
a prince has kissed a girl & tapped his foot

A Selected Poems was published by Shearsman in 2013, together with a volume of responses to Peter Hughes’ poetry, An Intuition of the Particular, edited by Ian Brinton. Reality Street published Allotment Architecture in the same year. Peter’s versions of Petrarch’s sonnets have been appearing in pamphlets from Knives Forks & Spoons, Like This Press, Oystercatcher and Red Ceilings.