Editor’s note: Nicholas Murray was born in Liverpool and now lives in Wales and London. He has written three poetry collections and critically acclaimed biographies of Bruce Chatwin, Matthew Arnold, Andrew Marvell, Aldous Huxley, and Franz Kafka. He has also published two novels, “A Short Book About Love,” and “Remembering Carmen,” and books on Victorian travelers, Liverpool and Bloomsbury. He runs the poetry imprint Rack Press and is a Fellow of the Welsh Academy. Visit nicholasmurray.co.uk.
Orang-Utang
We tense at each collision
as you strike the bars.
Those orange wisps of fur,
the bruised, black nose,
the eyes that plead
as if I held the keys
that could release you,
from this narrow cage.
East
Did it come on the wind,
through the thickness of ancient forest,
at her grandmother’s house by the lake:
the announcement of Spring,
the different taste of air,
and the chant of renewal?
Did she read, in the rustle of leaves,
or the cry of rooks in a high elm,
the first drafts of truth?
Bear
The quiet civility of chess
absorbs Sofia’s central park,
the players wordlessly absorbed.
Light early summer air,
new flowers, girls in groups
flirt with the nervous boys.
The noise of an accordion
a glum and ragged bear,
led forward on a chain.
His master orders coffee,
yawns, and yanks the chain;
business is bad, the world and its compassion!
Someone must suffer: let it be the bear.
Who at the next pull staggers up
and claps his dirty paws.
Icon
These angular, sad men
in pointed beards
and rivuleted cheeks
take down their Christ
and fondle him
like tender lovers.
Their pained eyes
ingest his agony,
their pinched hands,
gothic-arched,
seek pardon
for this imposition,
this surrogate hurt
that should have cut
their flesh not his.
Vole
Small forager and fossicker
beneath a drift of leaf;
twitching snout alert
for food, ears to danger,
fine whiskers pricked,
dark bright eyes alive:
a dainty dish to set before an owl.
