chris's rose hill flat, 15 june 2004

In My Flat
In my flat everything
Seems to be wearing out.
But I like old worn pennies
Victorian school books
Tattered newspapers
Old tomes, old Penguins

A name in the Flyleaf
Adds charm to a book.
I am a collector you see.
The room has never
Been dusted
So it is like a Rowlandson
Cartoon of a bookshop.

All I need is parchment
And a quill pen
I then could declare
Myself a Hermit
In a cell in an imaginary
Monastery
I would not need money
Hark, hark the dogs
Do bark
The beggars have
Come to town.

Christopher Baily
Monday 26 November 2001 7am

© estate of christopher baily

Furniture

How we furnish our rooms
Dictates the manner of our lives.
In this room where I write
The Housing Office
Bought the furniture for me
The bed, the sofa, the arm-chair
& A chest of drawers.
I lie on the bed, it is dark
And the bookshelves & tables
Are my own
Somehow it all seems temporary
When Christie upped sticks & left
Rillington Place
He sold the mahogany furniture for a tenner
Furniture is the last to go,
When we are dead.

Christopher Baily

Sunday 6 January 2002 4.45pm

I have forgotten how to sleep

I have forgotten how to sleep

I have forgotten how to sleep
And yet I am so tired
Like a failed party leader
After the defeat
Ashen faced, almost delirious
With fatigue
And now the resignation speech
I have forgotten
How to sleep.

Christopher Baily
21 January 2002

© estate of christopher baily

Fathers

Fathers

Father, yes, but not fathers
In the plural.
Can one generalise about fathers?
Are they our black shadows
Beating down the years?

Father, you are still around.
Every day I think of you,
But you have gone from my dreams.
You died nearly twenty years ago,
Without so much as a wave
Of your pocket-handkerchief.

Fathers,
Father.
We all have fathers and mothers
Who, with any luck, loved us.

We go out to fight for our fathers.
Caloo calay,
“Beware the Jabberwocky, my son,
The eyes that glare,
The jaws that snatch.”

Sons of fathers,
We become fathers in our turn
Except me,
I have no child,
No boy to shine resplendent
Like the sun in a dark sky.
I have no child,
No girl for my fey princess.
I am childless,
I mourn for unborn children,
Fathers show us the way.

Christopher Baily
18 January 1999

© estate of christopher baily

Consequences

Consequences

We never know the consequences
Of our actions.
Each foot-fall echoes in
The wood.
Our voices, in idle conversation,
Ripple out beyond the walls
Of the room where we talk.
The shadows lengthen
In the garden.
But there is something beyond
Mere chance.

And strangest of all is love.
When we make a new acquaintance,
And it is as though
We have known each other
All our lives.
And so we feel the hand of Fate.
Are we all ghosts
In each other’s dreams?
But I am solitary,
Haunted by voices,
In my head…
Nothing for me is left
To chance.

Christopher Baily
Sunday 14 April 5.15am

© estate of christopher baily

city on a hill

City on a Hill

The buildings shine in the heat
Like white teeth
I wish to see this city
No second coming, I hope.

The city on the hill
Dreamt of by philosophers
Rumours of war
“And was Jerusalem builded here
In England’s green and pleasant land”.

The lanes twist
Through cow parsley and buttercups
Are strewn through the meadows.
Hello Ma, Goodbye Ma
Don’t worry, Ma
I’m only bleeding.
The sun rises behind the Tor
Oh Glaston!
You are my city on a hill.

Christopher Baily
28 May 1999

©estate of christopher baily