Not many people remember Laurie Lee, and those who do probably connect his name with the novel Cider with Rosie. But his great love was poetry, and the other day I found a little volume of it, My Many-Coated Man, from the André Deutsch Paperback Poets series, on my bookshelves, and was struck by the quality of the work. Here is the title poem:
My Many-Coated Man
Under the scarlet-licking leaves,
through bloody thought and bubbly shade,
the padded, spicy tiger moves---
a sheath of swords, a hooded blade.
The turtle on the naked sand
peels to the air his pewter snout
and rubs the sky with slotted shell---
the heart's dismay turned inside out.
The rank red fox goes forth at night
to bite the gosling's downy throat,
then digs his grave with panic claws
to share oblivion with the stoat.
The mottled moth, pinned to a tree,
woos with his wings the bark's disease
and strikes a fungoid, fevered pose
to live forgotten and at ease.
Like these, my many-coated man
shields his hot hunger from the wind,
and, hooded by a smile, commits
his private murder in the mind.
