The Sea

Swollen brine, salted ocean,
Deep unpardonable sea,
Whose secrets are, as mine,
Impenetrable but for the creatures
Of dark habits, sediment feeding
Crawlers, and the harsh pincer
Clawed critics, who seek out
The soft flesh from weaker
Bellies, such as yours and mine.

Grayson Ellis, 1973
‘Poetry’s For Cabbages’.
Reprinted with permission.

Sex in Inclement Weather

Climbing the last broken vertebra
Of this mountain range, I look down
On the cottage we had taken for
The weekend of passion, not hiking.
You thought it strange that I’d turned away
From your crinkled nightgown, silken
Underwear, pouting suffrage of
The life we had promised ourselves.
Why had I chosen to walk up here
Among the owls and the badgers
When your loving vulva was there
For the taking, my dear wife of then?
What had the owls to womanly virtues,
Why the badger over the thrust of sex?
You could not know, as I did not know,
Then, unlike now, about my mission
To love nature as though my mistress
And to you I brought only distress
And tales of the badgers and owls.

Grayson Ellis (c) 1979
From ‘Badgers and Owls’

Happy New Year!

First, let me begin by wishing you all a happy New Year. I have just come off the phone from Grayson, who is enjoying his holiday in America. He asked me to pass on his warmest wishes and says that he looks forward to replying to your many emails in the coming weeks.

Given the importance of the year to Grayson – it’s fifty years since he published his first poem – I’ll be trying to update the website more regularly. Family commitments have made it difficult to post during certain times last year, but from now until Grayson’s return from America, I intend to reprint a few of his lesser known poems from some of his more obscure collections. I also hope to finally conduct our interview with Grayson, which I intend to publish here to mark his birthday in February.

Roll on 2009. As he says in his poem, 'Larks Descending', may it be a year full of 'unhindered pleasure and worthy indulgence'.

New Year, 1972

Another one gone. I sit here, the gloom
Of New York, the same as the gloom
Of any book signing, poetry reading,
Lively eyed teenagers, the playful
Urgings of youth set against
The doleful resignation of middle age.
Temptation was never this bad
When I was unread, unpublished,
A mere dreg of the poetry circles.
Now there is honour in my passing,
And I sanctify the flesh I touch
Or taste, as if to mark it with a tattoo
To say that Grayson Ellis was here,
Drunk on the eve of the year, 1972

Grayson Ellis, 1973
Reprinted, with permission, from ‘Deflation’