Jackself Read online

  Jacob Polley

  Jackself

  PICADOR

  This book is dedicated

  to my mum

  and

  to my dad

  Soul, self; come, poor Jackself . . .

  G.M. Hopkins

  By a knight of ghosts and shadows

  I summoned am to tourney

  Ten leagues beyond

  The wide world’s end

  Methinks it is no journey

  Anon.

  Contents

  The House that Jack Built

  Every Creeping Thing

  Jack Sprat

  The Goodies

  Jackself’s Quality

  The Lofts

  Lessons

  Applejack

  Peewit

  The Goose Shed

  Nightlines

  Cheapjack

  The Whispering Garden

  It

  Les Symbolistes

  An Age

  Jack Frost

  Plantation

  Blackjack

  Snow Dad

  Pact

  The Hole

  Jack O’Lantern

  Redbreast

  The Misery

  Jackself’s Boast

  A Haunting

  Spring-heeled Jack

  The Desk

  Jack Snipe

  Skipjack

  The Comeback Deal

  Tithe

  Jack O’Bedlam

  The House that Jack Built

  the first trees were felled

  and sailed in, wrecked, then slept

  an age in the northern sun, blackening

  to iron

  were found by horsemen

  leading their horses and raised as

  cloud’s axles, rafters of night, a god’s gates

  were passed through, seen

  from miles off, rolled the sun

  and moon along their lintels, rooted,

  put out leaves for a second time

  creaked, tasted the rain, held

  the wind to their hearts while

  the horsemen streamed like

  their horses’ manes

  into the dark, their fires

  black smudge in the subsoil, their bridles

  of gold underground

  lived long, grew great

  were a second time

  felled, dressed

  were sharpened to stakes

  and raised as a fort

  by farmers who’d followed their ploughs

  to the treeline for fuel

  to bake the pots

  their ashes were buried in

  with a scattering of grain

  like stars

  each small clay

  heaven still hangs in the earth

  were overgrown,

  steered clear of

  called dragon’s ribs

  devil’s cot

  were nested among, rotted

  down beside

  harboured foxglove, eggshell,

  owl pellet, primrose, honeycomb

  were glazed, split,

  put out buds of malachite, blossoms

  of salt, grew again, put out

  small translucent fruits named

  by the women who prized them

  teardrops, ice apples, clarities

  were offered bread,

  dolls of woven grass, plaits of hair, coins

  with the obverse ground smooth, beads

  of turquoise

  twisted, straightened, filled

  with rooks, held again

  the wind to their hearts, creaked, scraped

  off the sunlight’s scales with their leaves, were

  a grove, grew

  manes of lichen, were murmured

  under, gave counsel on still nights

  of open doorways the dead came through

  on horseback or shouldering flails or bearing chimes

  of ice apples

  gave shelter

  were felled for it, their roots

  ripped up by a legion’s engineers

  and left like brainstems

  rucked on the earth

  were timber but the pitsaws

  snarled in their rings of iron

  broke teeth on the flints

  that welted their sapwood

  were good

  for nothing, stacked, fired, marched

  away from, sucked up the flames,

  hissed, smoked, glowed blood-

  black, were tempered, twice-

  forged

  bided

  on site as battle-stain,

  in story as Head Wood

  lay half-buried, grown over, still hot

  were stumbled upon

  by navigators, hit

  with hammers and rang

  until they were made lock gates

  to slam

  shut on the slow wet

  grew green, slime-

  faced, knew runoff, weird particulates,

  held fast against drizzle’s

  tonnage, the nudge

  and bonk of a bloater

  were left

  stinking when the water died

  stood strange in currents

  of deep grass, open wide

  flexed, hungered once more

  for the light, bulged, branched, rived

  out of their lacquer, unfurled

  leaves of oilskin, shook down clots

  of blossom

  lived

  long, grew great

  weren’t felled but walled in, roofed

  over, giving span

  to a farmhouse, hanging

  a hall from their outstretch, bracing floor

  after floor on their inosculating

  joists, which sang

  to a barefoot tread and were called

  home of shadows

  heart of the wind

  Lamanby

  Every Creeping Thing

  By leech, by water mite

  by the snail on its slick of light

  by the mercury wires

  of the spiders’ lyres

  and the great sound-hole of the night

  By the wet socket of a levered stone

  by a dog-licked ice cream cone

  by spores, mildew

  by the green atchoo

  by the yellow split pea and the bacon bone

  All the doors must have their way

  and every break of day its day

  instead of a soul

  Jackself has a coal

  and the High Fireman to pay

  By head-lice powder, Paraquat

  snapdragon’s snap and rat-tat-tat

  who’s at the door

  of the door of the door

  it’s Jackself in his toadskin hat

  Jack Sprat

  who depends

  on strong drink and soft food

  gives Jackshit

  comprehends

  fearlessly by mouth, lacquering bricks and bottles with curatorial spit

  who watches Thomascat

  stalk the sliding light across the hearthrug on afternoons

  of his limited Jackspan, none of which he can get back

  not the suns and moons

  of it, not the crackling fur, lavender and turpentine smell of it

  who mumbles his greens, his fists, the bars

  of his cage

  whose one-piece suit isn’t nightmare-

  retardant

  who is driven round and round in strangers’ cars

  for comfort

  who can achieve unawares,

  like Thomascat, aloof only to be turned upon by those minted ladies

  he’d brought so low before him

  whose face is reset hourly
/>   whose mind is solid fear

  whose trades are none and all

  the possible

  who will come into anthracite,

  corbel, gasometer, throstle

  who gnaws boot- and book-leather alike

  who covets the onion

  wrapped in plain brown onion skin

  whose small memory is a gift that makes

  the world over again

  when he wakes

  The Goodies

  goody on you goody sweet

  smell goody goody touch

  goody butter, goody meat

  goody shoes on goody feet

  a goody cake with six

  goody candles to yank

  the goody shadows round

  by their goody hair

  goody blow goody out

  goody fire’s little spikes

  breathe goody in

  then pop the goody squeak-face with a goody silver pin

  no wishing it wouldn’t be

  or wasn’t or would better be

  no wondering how so hard it hurts,

  just two goody thumbs and a goody peephole

  for goody staring, goody weepers, standing goody by

  in nothing but your goody suit with goody in your eye

  goody easy goody true

  who’s the goody

  goody you!

  goody up the goody staircase with a goody creak

  to watch the moving pictures on the screen of goody sleep

  no worrying the world to shreds

  no going blind or blue

  just a choice of face on waking from a dozen goody heads

  thank goody goody dust do goody do

  or you’ll be trapped with one grey face your baddy pokes right through

  Jackself’s Quality

  can’t be bought

  or stolen

  Mudder hasn’t bottled it

  Mugginshere hasn’t brought it home

  in his briefcase

  the farmer hasn’t clipped its weighty foam

  from his blackest sheep

  the hawk-man, with a rag of meat

  in his leather glove, can’t bring it

  stooping from the sky

  Thomascat

  hasn’t fetched it from the farmyard

  to lay still warm at Jackself’s feet

  the dark continent

  Jackself peels from the flank

  of a Friesian cow, ties to his ankles

  and drags across the flatland

  at midday, doesn’t prove

  his substance

  the night

  is made of what he needs

  he moonwalks in daylight,

  afraid like snow he’ll wane or drift

  before he can hold

  the road out front, the fields behind

  and the earth in the churchyard

  so Jackself crawls to the coal-shed

  and eats

  The Lofts

  Jackself has climbed into the lovely lofts

  of Lamanby, their floors ankle-deep

  in silver dust and the floorboards

  spongy with woodworm

  in the attic corners great cauls

  of cobweb hang from crusty chains, frayed rope, horse tack

  and the skeletons of past Selves, their skulls

  packed with sea salt and tea-leaves

  Edwardself, Billself

  Wulfself with scraps of his shaggy self still attached

  alas

  in the vaulted gloom

  sunbeams fizz

  off a canine here and there

  a gold medallion

  that flares from its nest

  of spider-grey chest-hair

  back they go, the Selves

  Aself, Oxself and coracle-ribbed, ape-armed Selfself,

  his ochred bones trophied in a flaky niche in the clay wall

  Jackself holds his pullovered forearm

  to Selfself’s flute-like radius, which swivels

  in the draught

  soon,

  Jackself murmurs, and every Self skeleton

  clinks

  thanks a fucking bunch, Jackself cries

  and his cry echoes back

  echoes back

  the mouse in the hope chest

  nibbling the cuff

  of Annself’s unworn wedding gown

  stiffens its whiskers

  the ghost of Billself’s army pony flicks an ear

  and paws

  the unshiftable dust and Selfself sings a silent song of the horned whale

  and the white bear

  Jackself, if only you’d found that meteorite

  at the bottom of the coal hod

  or that necklace of eagle claws

  strung from the handle of the skylight

  but you were too afraid to stay and hear

  the silence that was yours

  by birth, and back you thundered down the stairs

  Lessons

  the names of things and their relations, adding and taking away

  Jackself is taken away

  from the rest of the class and added

  to a corner most days

  days that stink of cow-gum,

  mouldy silence and the screech

  of Miss Clout’s chalk stick on the blackboard

  a wall is for staring at

  a desk for sleeping at

  Jackself can do that

  there’s nothing to read and the world’s written

  backwards

  at lunchtime Mr Workbench, the Headmaster,

  moans the Lord’s Prayer and everyone

  and Jackself must join in

  Jackself has many trespasses

  but no daily bread

  is baked in the school’s ovens

  he must ask the dinner-ladies’ forgiveness

  for the cartilage stew and spreadable carrots

  the flavour of warm steel tins

  a floorboard’s for eating off

  a fart for letting off

  get thee, Jackself, to the trough

  for you are pig-slow, a starey calf

  and can’t even hold a pencil stub

  in your hooves to letter see,

  Miss Clout says to Mugginshere,

  see what he’s written all these hours and days

  and she shakes the sugar-paper sheet

  of wobbly noughts

  standing over her, Mr Workbench solemnly inclines

  his one-thought-

  at-a-time head

  but Jackself’s far

  and away

  his mind a corner

  of beehives

  his fingers a box of matches

  his nose the afternoon rain

  his ears yesterday

  his eyes green eyes

  his tongue an earwig

  before it hatches

  Applejack

  by hedgehog path

  and badger path, Jackself

  happens with the clouds

  into sunlight

  water-

  damaged sky, silver in the floor

  and Jackself on all fours,

  his skin skin his

  talk all gone

  hound’s tongue oxeyes

  birdsfoot rosehips

  grain of the wind

  in a buzzard’s wing

  bones, empty as the sky

  crab apples oak apples applejack

  cold

  under his ink cap,

  holes in his foxgloves, his

  foot leather black

  and supple now he knows

  his own mind with it

  goes

  by cattle grid

  and cattle trough, icy

  sloshings in him

  fears

  the dog

  and Lucy Fur, who

  glints at night

  where he trembles, shut in

  everywhere with his own

  he
artrush and the trees’ roar

  a white root

  threading the muck

  under a rotted log

  wakes him

  bent pale stalks,

  leaves let go

  to dry-curl and turn on the surface