Here at Cooee in Melbourne, I should be very sorry not to read any more
emails and poems from Douglas Clark in Bath.
I have been too busy and tired here as second semester ends, to respond to
the poems and always engaging remarks as they come in.
 
Wondering about adding to the recent spate of self-introductions, I have
decided to post the rambling verses I call 'How Many Sleeps?'
These were written when I was 62-3, and have now appeared in a little
magazine here called 'Tirra Lirra' (because the editor is 'by the river', I
think).
I mention in the lines on studying English at Auckland University circa 1960
that Allen Curnow was one of my teachers, and Wystan Curnow of this list a
fellow-student...
all so rambling, to then ruminate on my narcolepsy (mild) and in section 8
the sad miscarriages in recent years suffered by my wife.
(The two children by my first wife figure here only in the maudlin lines
about my funeral-plans.) The unprecedented rush of ego which occurred three
years ago that got me to write at such length still surprises me. I already
know that very few readers get past the opening section in which I mention
too much about me and my generation of students in Auckland back then. and
now teachers... Thomas Crawford who taught us Robert Burns ended up in
Aberdeen. Bill Pearson, novelist of NZ's Westland, died just a few weeks
ago. C.K.Stead now mostly a novelist is still going strong.

How Many Sleeps? Max Richards
tone-poem in the key of B

1. Old Imbiber Recalls Young Imbiber

Plunge your hands in the basinŠand wonder
what you¹ve missed ­ Auden¹s words, not mine, but daily
their repetition tolls for me, as nowŠ.

This basin will be here after I¹ve gone,
and I don¹t mean to another bathroom,
unless there¹s a Bathroom in the sky.

Yet there was another basin here once,
and where is it gone? To a better place?
Or just to some strapped first-home-buyer

intent on cheap plumbing improvement?
Me now, I¹m not planning on moving.
Staying put has come to feel ideal.

This weathered weatherboard will see me out,
the homeliest home a home-lover ever had,
the best place for my best self to flourish best.

Open fire-place; big bed with ¹lec¹y-blanket;
many good sleeps to look forward to.
When I go they¹ll have to carry me out.

Admire these shelves ­ double-booked: Everyman¹s,
Penguins, World¹s Classics, topped up with Viragos:
tradition and some individual talent.

Books! ­ bargain-basement remainders, partly ­
in my youth I dreamed this room: the canon,
before the tiresome threesome shouldered in ­

race, gender, class ­ to complicate the list;
when theory was still Aristotelian ­
imitation, purgation, recognitionŠ

plus Coleridge¹s Biographia ­
the primary imagination
and the creative infinite I AM!

            *
Hadn¹t God said: I am that I am. I make
things be. Perceiving is like creating.
Deeply perceiving, deep in the wordhoard,

poets were makers and made things tooŠ.
So we opined in our youthful dreaming,
Andy ­ and Michael ­ and Alan ­ and I.

The artwork opens up in its own way
the Being of beings ­ Heidegger
said that, but no-one mentioned him back then.

What the artist desires, said Freud, is honour,
fame and the love of women. Power and wealth,
also mentioned, we modestly deleted.
The dying fall of Dylan Thomas breathed
inspiration into our effortful
acquiring of tradition (or at least the books).

            *

A floor-to-ceiling private library:
the best that has been thought and said ­ and booked,
precious life-blood of master-spirits,

treasured upŠto a life beyond life
(Arnold, Milton, two great phrase-makers),
sippable from wing chair and ottoman.

How we laughed, at Œvarsity¹ in Auckland,
where the prof¹s ideal was Œfeet up, book in hand¹!
Ha! the betrayals of belletrism!

Reading was doing. He would be dozing.
We would never end up like him! ­ I have.
How many sleeps before the big one?

             *

Babich¹s rough red, any local
ŒDally plonk¹, we drank by the flagon, then;
purgative recognitions were more than mimed.

Preachy Christians set the college tone.
The classics prof thought ladies should wear skirts,
and that pious Virgil foreshadowed Jesus.

The Rationalists, whom I briefly joined, were worse,
raging beyond reason at Œmumbo-jumbo¹,
Œimmortal souls¹, God the creator.

A rare Bohemian in subfusc
unbecoming beret might be seen,
Being and Nothingness in hand.

The best did not lack all conviction:
that was us, discovering commitment.
Fidel Castro our hero outbraved the Yanks.

Paul¹s Book Arcade had all the World¹s Classics;
books from America! all the new
Penguins: Eliot for two shillings.

(Stevens and Yeats were only in hardback.)
Whatever takes possession first of
an under-furnished teenage mind will stick.

In Strang¹s I snapped up cheap old volumes
of Everyman¹s Library ­ I will go
with thee, & be thy guide in thy most needŠ.

            *

Among our teachers were Curnow and Stead:
Karl let me sip his typescript New Poetic.
It warned me off discursiveness ­ in vain.

Allen¹s voice energised poems with being.
Sprung rhythm he explained as well as Hopkins:
the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

­ a line I saw graffiti-ed in the Men¹sŠ.
His shafting dull dead poems thrilled me ­
the fresherettes kept on with their knitting.

He taught us Yeats, who reached out for traces
of the local and special, the only
thing one knows even a little of.

How I did slink from the first lecture that
I dozed off in! ­ on Everyman. (Whose?
Neither of the above ­ one of the scholars.)

Through Tom the Scot with Ben Nevis brow
sang proto-socialist Robert Burns.
J.C.R., whatever he read, found

Catholic tendencies: Œhad he lived
longer, this poet would surely have
returned to the embrace of Mother Church.¹

The fierce eye and black eyebrow of
Elizabeth Annie Shepherd caught me out
confusing Henry James¹s second version

of Isabel Archer with his first!
Her horror of error was contagious.
Pray God I haven¹t spelt her name wrong!

Bill the Westlander wrote a novel
as Victorian as the Victorians¹.
He called New Zealanders Œfretful sleepers¹.

They ­ we ­ remained reluctant to awake.

            *
Such deference I gave them all! and most
to Mus the prof; yet had the nerve to say
the Lycidas he loved was insincere.

Was there a technique for sincerity?
Milton seemed to lack it, Yeats was dubious.
Byron preened and posed, but came out right.

Auden dazzled but was often shonky.
From England Roger acquired a drab book
He¹d heard might have the clues: The Less Deceived.


            *

Shouldering a bulging leather bag
through cloudburst, heat-wave and Christmas rush,
I was the poet of the Postmen¹s Branch:

public servant in green serge strides,
private servant of Imagination.
One night I dreamed ­ first to burst upon

its vast glooming reptilian swampland ­
my own new Ancient Mariner,
but got to paper not a single word.

In the caf I practised economy
and alienation, infatuation and
estrangement, dithering dilatoriness.

Whole days were dawdled away in bookshops.
At lectures I learned donnishness.
In libraries I imbibed the wordhoard.

Permitted the key to the Glass Case,
I found, next to the rare New Zealand books,
Henry Miller¹s Tropics ­ treasured up

to a life astoundingŠarousing. Stiff-
featured, flushed as so often, I returned
the key shyly to the girl at the desk.

Next time, I asked to borrow Miller ­
but no, Œwhatever¹s in the glass case
is only for reading while supervised.¹

I read the library New Statesman
Œfor its reviews¹. It was ¹62 and ­
now I¹m sixty-two, reading now the LRB

airlifted subscription (overdue), and
turning into one of those old men
you see in shopping centres, whiling

away the time, Œbest-before¹ date long since reached.
My beard and hair are dyed silver, you know,
and James, my Collins Street hair-stylist,

suggests I dab mascara where it thins.
When was my prime? at the Postmen¹s Branch
delivering others¹ messages? or in

the School of English, teaching others¹ poems.
Yet, whatever makes entry first into
those under-furnished teenage minds should stickŠ.

            *

Flax-flower fronds, toi-toi plumes I worshipped;
on a hillside slanting to the sea lay
flushed with palpitating sense-perceptions;

loitered with Alan in some settlers¹ grave-
yard, hopeful of tapping the shallow past
to learn the trick of standing upright here.
  
Michael, anthropologist and poet,
taught me to distinguish doing from being:
proposing to achieve the latter,

later achieved a lot of doing.
Mike loved Marcia, Sue loved Wystan, Jim loved Jill.
They mated and departed, went o.s., ­
   
streamers stretched from dock to ship, the classic
send-off; or, awkwardly modern, goodbyes
were at Whenuapai¹s black tarmac edge ­

multiplied, researched, returned, committed.
Margaret, returned from Europe, sizzling
with discovery of difference, chose

what was most distinctive in her country;
buzzed the bush in a v-dub; I held the map;
aiming her camera at every old meeting-house,

outside and in. Not one snap came out,
but she had found her focus and her life.
Colin and Jane, Rob and Marg, Andy and

Libby, Graham P and Graeme D,
Barbara, Tony, Michael, Judith and Max ­
picked up their talents, ended up elsewhere.

Was there a brain drain? ­ depends on your point
of view. Crossing the equator, did the basin
in which you plunged your hands divulge a clue?

In Australasia, water goes widdershins
down the waste-pipe ­ Robert Graves¹s words, not mine.
At the equator it must pause, reverse.

Distance looked our way ­ Charles Brasch¹s words,
not mine ­ and then it usually looked away.
I had lain with the land like a would-be lover,

and it had no further use for me, unless
as postman. Settling in Melbourne, I helped,
as Robert Muldoon later said, raise

the IQ on both sides of the Tasman.


2. Little Bye-byes; or, the Belletrist Betrayed

Put up the feet, cushion the head, prop up
a book, programme the hi-fi, break out
brandy and chocolate ginger, settle the dog ­

on the partner¹s lap most likely ­
and here I am, sliding towards satiety!
Count the minutes till body conquers mind

and all five senses sink to resting mode.
Chin on chest and slippers slipping off,
the self slips down in sweet abeyance.

Soon it¹s: ŒWhy don¹t you go to bed?¹ and:
ŒI thought you wanted to watch the movie.¹
TV helps pass the time? I don¹t need help.

Cleaning my teeth I note the basin¹s coolth,
its perseverance and renewable shine;
the patchwork quilt, the downy doona;

smooth bedsheets, pillow, welcome dark.

3. Handsome is as Handsome Dozes

No need for a wing chair and footstool ­
wherever I am I only have to
lean back, let the old eyelids droop

and I¹m away ­ in my office, at some
meeting, giving my best attention
to the best of speakers, dancers, friends,

musiciansŠ Guys, forgive my lapses!
Thanks for having me, and seldom showing
anger at my doze. The only lectures

I didn¹t doze in were the ones I gave,
and others dozed in them ­ if they stayed.
Choosing the most uncomfortable chair,

a seat in front under the speaker¹s eye,
availed somewhat but not throughout.
The act of concentration brought me low.

A person looks so sweet when asleep,
don¹t you think? Harmless, childlike, reprieved;
the burden of burdens disburdened.


4. A Momentary Lapse

The moment of first faltering from
alert to somewhat-less arrives always
sidling in with promise of reward.

The word just heard, the melody passing
from woodwind to violins and back,
the swoop of the ballerina downstage ­

these assume a richness of connect-
edness, a charm beyond their makers,
calling to an answering self in me ­

a self which has been waiting for the call
but hindered by responsibility,
the duty to attend. Down with all that!

The moment is here, words fly together,
new meanings shine and radiate. Welcome
presenceŠbut where¹ve you gone? A dream

pervades me, intuition has dissolved;
the five senses cease, betraying their
five-sided world in blended darkness.


5. Downward to Darkness on Extended Wings

A doctor tells me I am a mild case
of narcolepsy ­ runs in families,
and hasn¹t my son got a tiny touch?

I slink away from meeting, class,
or concert, rehearsing the Dormouse line
from Lewis Carroll¹s stressful tea party:

ŒI heard every word you fellows said.¹
Besides, I¹m still convinced I also heard
words no-one but me has heard, music

of never-performed grace, swooping downstage
and touching with extended wings my face,
my eyes, my lips, my best self shining

a path through blankness to a good death ­
the burden of burdens disburdened,
the pillow smooth and cold; clean marble.


6. The Morning News

Words wake me: it¹s morning, but still dark.
Burden, abeyance, bathroom basin, books ­
repeating themselves in the finite mind ­

everything in the key of B. ŠB
natural ­ if onlyŠ Before the thud
of the morning paper on the drive,

before I¹m capable of talk, perhaps
arranging words in lines can net some life.
Imbibe, image, infinite, inhabit ­

another alliterative setŠ
I must make of them whatever I can;
wakeful a while, postpone again that call

to the Narcolepsy Research Foundation.
Days are finite; non-being comes my way.
A cleanly-enamelled life, a mind half

as well-furnished as this house ­ however
they may seem extendable, even winged,
re-write-able ­ are non-renewable,

on borrowed time, returnable
toŠno great Library in the sky,
translatable to no other-worldly tongue.


7. Books, Boffins, Bachs and Blues Bring Blended Banquet

Blear-eyed bibliophiles, blink no blinks.
Bring out the brightly-bound books: Bibles and
ballads, Byron, Burns and Blake; Brontes and

Behans; Baldwin, Bishop and Bellow.
Biblioholism bosses North Balwyn.
Imbibing precious life-blood, begin!

From their Burke road boutique those boffins,
Brassy Bang, aloofly-brooding Olufsen,
burgeon with remote-button-bossable decibels.

Tubular bells battle bassoons and blaring bugles.
Baroque J.S. and all the blooming Bachs!
Bass-baritone Bjorling booming Benjamin Britten!

Ludwig van B. and Bix Beiderbecke!
Blues-players busking Basin Street,
Bobby Blue Bland and the Beale Streeters!

B.B.King, Bechet, Big Bill Broonzy!
Boogie and be bop and plaintive Billie,
Big-band albums of Black, Brown and BeigeŠ

Brahms, Bizet, Berlioz, Bruch, Bloch, Bernstein!
Bring us your bountiful, blameless bliss.
Bat no eyelids till bedtime¹s bye-byes.


8. By and By, the Big Sleep

Words wake me: embryo, imaging centreŠ
still dark at five, but the first birds chirrup.
My wife, child of the 50s, woman

of the 90s, last thing last night played
Bernstein, music to make her dance again.
What is never far from her mind I must

recall: I visit with her the specialist.
My role is simply to hold her hand.
His is to show again the life within

life. The machine screen shows swirling
as of galaxies, focuses on stillness.
What was new life has gone beyond reach.

Not God ­ Nature has now taken four.
Oh, Nature gives and Nature takes away,
as if the creative infinite I AM

could be jealous of the secondary
power passed down to women. Holy Mother,
Holy Child now instil holy terror.

Hospitals have the shining-est basin-ware.
No wondering ­ you know what you have missed.
Home is the quietest place, nursing

your named camellias in the side garden.
How much sleeplessness in the dark,
dearest, have I been slumbering beside?

You know. Day dawns, another in which
you may deliberately dance, or not,
and care for other people¹s children

grieving for what you never even held.

            *


Biding its moment, my long-foreboded last
bedtime ­ ushered in by no-one knows what
unstoppable events ­ will but no buts,

blotting all, brilliant or boring, to blankness.
Wordless and deaf at last, blind, unbreathing,
brought to book, a better rest, a long boxŠ.

But what if I outlive my loved ones?
Don¹t you dare to predecease me, dearest,
dear son, dear daughter, dear few friends.

Live, I beg you, and if you must grieve, then
let it be in accord with how much, how
little, living we have shared, no moreŠ.

Buy me a plot, last-home-buyer, book a late
berth in the burial ground by Arthurs Creek
under the gums where wattle-birds coo-ee.

Yonder glooms the watershed dividing-range:
Mt Disappointment nods to Mt Despair,
and beyond is the back of beyond.

A better place than most to be seen dead in,
it will take no getting used to.
Bid me an imperturbable bye-bye:

tears need not be spilled. Dearest,
I must go without thee. Non-being needn¹t
be unbecoming ­ mine nor anyone else¹s.

Friends, gather this once on the cemetery
slope, near the grave-digger¹s galvo shed.
I will have absented myself from this send-off.

Bundle the burdensome remainder
in a deep-dug undisturbable bed; see to
a slab of bluestone, please, so bones stay put.

If the day is warm, bellbirds may be
about their repetitious business,
tolling as if for meŠand thee, for all.

Back home, break out some beady-eyed bubbly
till it winks back from the brim. Bollinger?
Oh not without me! ­ me having newly

become a total abstainer ­ perhaps
some local tipple. Propose a toast:
to future readers: may there be some.

May they shoulder every book man¹s burden,
inhabit the wordhoard, keep it living.
It may go with them towards life beyond life.

Sip steadily, and go on sipping. May
you enjoy good sleep. There is another
world: it is within this one. Who said that?
            
                                September 2000