The Dordogne

Twists and turns
Of the Périgueux wynds,
Dank sunless passages,
Alleys and turrets,
Courtyards with exquisite stairs,
Moulded doorways and ancient corbels,
Balconies and elegant steps,
And everywhere the salamander,
And on a staircase in the Rue du Plantier
Adam and Eve stand carved,
Eating of the Tree of Knowledge,
While the serpent peeps out at them,
Tail curled round the tree trunk.

This is the land Sir Lancelot in exile
Divided as spoils among his loyal knights.
The land of Fournier-Sarlovèze,
Greatest and most ferocious of warriors,
Who, during the war in Spain,
Rode into Salamanca Cathedral on his charger,
Galloping right up to the choir;
He broke into a barricaded convent
And astonished the terrified nuns
By bellowing the Holy Office in stentorian voice;
In Russia he charged five thousand Cossacks
With just eight hundred men.

As the panting sow, lusting after truffles,
Can smell the black root’s aroma
When it ripens in November,
And infallibly dig it up,
So can I scent poems in the air.

No need have I of any philosophy
Save the wisdom of wine:
To taste a single year in time,
Fruit of the suffering earth
As stars and people fall into oblivion.
What alchemy is this, extracting
Nectar, elixir,
From the darkness in the vine?



The church in Saint-Amand-de-Coly
Its west tower monstrous and foreboding,
A fortress of the damned;
Inside, the medieval monks and villagers,
Surviving in constant dread
Of sudden attack and destruction,
Sought refuge from attackers,
Climbing ever higher to defend themselves,
There are secret staircases
And hollow pillars
Where they hid.

In the church at Thiviers
The carvings on the capitals
Show monsters attacking human beings
Who cling desperately to coiled branches,
Other men try to ride on the monsters’ backs
Or flee from them in terror.
Force-fed like a goose
Whose liver will end as foie gras,
My mind, stuffed with visions,
And raised in the dark,
Swells to bursting.

In the Priory of St-Julien at Cénac
On the exterior of the apse is carved
A man presenting his bare arse,
To repel evil spirits;
Further round, up high, we spy
A naked couple, lewdly embracing;
Inside the church
Lazarus is raised from the tomb
While watching women hold their noses;
Men and women dance naked
While a man beats a drum;
A snake between two naked women
Castigates the sin of lust;
A pig devours two human heads.

On the Lascaux cave wall
A man is falling backwards, dead, yet ithyphallic,-
Wounded into trance-like power,
With the stillness of absolute vision-
Dropping his bird-headed wand,
Between two wounded beasts;
One of them, a rhinoceros, limps away.
The other, a bison, bristles, enraged,
Her bowels hanging out
Gravid beneath her,
A spear stuck in her,
Very near the vulva.
Yet she seems indifferent, invincible.
And the earth is blissom,
Regenerated in death,
Out of the hunger
For meat and sex.

At Brantôme, I muse
On Pierre de Bourdeilles and his scurrilous pen,
Writing with relish of “Les Femmes Galantes”,
Lay abbot of the town, on his island,
Blessed by the bones of St Sicaire;
A Gascon soldier of fortune,
Crippled by a fall from his horse,
Bitter that this paltry abbacy
Was his only reward for serving the Catholic cause,
He brooded here, bitter and broken,
Scribbling his memoirs with fantastic scorn,
Unsoothed by the clear gentle river,
Or his rose garden’s scent.

Deep inside the Rouffignac cave
The roof of a low wide hall is covered
With profusion of horses, in brown and black,
Galloping, grazing, standing startled,
Running into each other and away,
Superimposed on one another,
Frenzy of hand and eye and heart.

At Hautefort I hear the voice of Bertran de Born,
Volleying crossbow bolts of political satire,
Praising war and mocking his foes...
Nothing could keep him from meddling in poisonous feuds,
And joining the wastrel Prince Henri’s rebellion,
Ravishing the countryside,
Even sacking the Virgin’s shrine-
The mad prince died for his sacrilege,
And here at Hautefort,the troubadour
Surrendered to the vengeful king.
Condemned to death by Henry II,
Wily Bertran asked first to sing a plaint he had composed
For the king’s dead son,
And so moved Henry with his singing
That His Majesty pardoned him and spared his life,
And so the wicked troubadour rode away,triumphant,
Seeking fresh mischief and adventure,
Till age and conscience found him out
And he ended his days on a monk’s bed of ashes.

At seven-shrined Rocamadour, high above the gorge,
The Black Virgin stands on the altar,
Candle-haloed in the gloom,
Dark countenance bestowing
A proud secret smile, beyond comprehension,
Her direct gaze piercing into the other world,
Amused by her own inexplicable power.

The church frieze at Assier
Exalts the sacraments of artillery,
That made the fortune of Galiot de Genouillac:
See-guns being hauled into battle
And cities under siege,
The awesome creativity of war.
Inside, the armourer’s likeness lords over his tomb,
Posing nonchalantly with a cannon,
Vaunting his own glory in the eyes of God,
Certain that his good repute promised immortality.

Limestone country of the Dordogne,
The rock white, amber, pink, purple and grey,
Burning with ethereal fire at sunset!
Each riverbend reconfigures the perspective,
Reflection on reflection, high and low married
With iridescent harmony and love.
Gorse and broom light the hillsides,
Blue scillas in the fields, white narcissi, cowslips,
Gentians, rock-roses, marguerites, and columbines...
Lost to the senseless world,
I sit and watch fish rise in the clear water,
While a nightingale sings in the chestnut tree above.