Gaudete Read Online Free Page A

irrupts quietly into this sphere.
    Controlling the explosive china with watchmender’s touch,
                                                          he too drinks coffee.
    He advances remotely, fumbling with keyhole words.
    Suddenly he meets her small steady pupil
    And sees her dry tangle of hair
    And an outrage too dazzling to look at ignites the whole
                                       tree of his nerves, a conflagration
    Takes hold of everything –
    His words seem to scald and corrupt his lips.
    An insane voltage, a blue crackling entity
    Is leaping around the kitchen
    As if it had crashed in through the window.
    Pauline Hagen feels her face go numb.
    She stares at the black labrador
    Which is enlarging, goggling, bristling
    And snarling gape-mouthed.
    Invisible hands
    Are prising its jaws apart.

    Hagen’s face-crust has crimsoned. He is yelling.
    An avalanche is on the move.
    It will have to come.
    There is so much he must not fail.
    Humiliation of Empire, a heraldic obligation
    Must have its far-booming say.
    Three parts incomprehensible.
    A frenzy of obsolete guns
    Is banging itself to tatters
    And an Abbey of Banners yells like an exhausted
                                                                  schoolmaster.
    Arsenals of crazier energy open.
    Depth charges
    Of incredulity and righteousness
    Search the taciturn walls and furniture.
    Finally he just stands, gripping her shoulders,
    Blasting her from all sides with voice.
    She has shrivelled small, regaining her distance,
    Trying to balance her coffee.
    The labrador is spinning in a tight circle.
    She sees the foam at its jaws.
    And glances at Hagen – her half-anxiety
    Outstripped by a quick smile, a flash of malice –
    And the dog attacks him.
    Its fangs hook in the weave of his jacket.
    He flings it from him, barking its name, astonished.
    It returns and clamps solidly on to the meat of his thigh.
    He feels the shock of its hostility deeper than its fangs.
    He kicks it away.
    He bellows to overawe it.
    It comes back
    And leaps and leaps at his face.

    Now Hagen
    Swerves the full momentum of his rage on to the dog.
    He lifts a chair.
    This dog is going to account for everything.
    Fangs splinter wood and wood shatters.
    Only exhaustion will stop him.
    Till at last he stands, trembling,
    Like somebody pulled from an accident.
    He drops the broken stump of his weapon.
    He kneels
    Beside the stilled heap of loyal pet
    Hands huge with baffled gentleness
    As if he had just failed to save it.
    He lifts its slack head.
    His horror is as dry
    As volcanic rock.
    His wife is watching him
    As if it were all something behind the nearly unbreakable
                                                 screen glass of a television
    With the sound turned off.
    Lumb’s voice
    Is stroking her deeply,
    Touching at her heart and lungs and bowels glancingly.
    She goes on sipping her coffee.

Again
    The tall woodland rains echo,
    A descending hush of roar.
    And the Minister’s blue Austin van slides to a stop
    Behind the white Ford.
    Garten sinks to his knees
    As if under the intensification of joy.
    His lips
    Surprisingly full red in the thin-skinned face
    Filter crooked enlightenment.
    The Reverend Lumb’s long figure
    Has emerged. Brisk
    Under the muscled, sooted boles and silvery torsos of the
                                                            uptwisting beeches
    He appears tiny.
    The long cassocked back
    Is bending
    At the Ford’s suddenly open door.
    He is leaning right inside.
    Garten
    Rises above the napes of tender curled bracken
    As if clearing an aim
    And he sees
    The Minister’s feet sprawling.
    Lumb
    Is fighting inside the car.
    His hand
    Claws for a grip on the car-top.
    Suddenly he comes out backwards
    As if tearing