on the other side of the words

I love these rainy Sundays inviting silence and inwardness, especially when you are still slowly recovering from a nasty cold. And how restful it is to ignore the first intimations of summer and cuddle with the winter mood, resisting work, lazily replying to e-mails, flicking through a pile of old books... till you come upon an old obsession that pretty much sums it all up.

A gentle mantra, strangely disquieting, strangely consoling, as I wrote here and so many times before - and will continue to, because the spell never, never breaks. I'll go on listening to and feeding and loving the beast. He won't go away.


Shut up. Shut up. There’s nobody here.
If you think you hear somebody knocking
On the other side of the words, pay
No attention. It will be only
The great creature that thumps its tail
On silence on the other side.
If you do not even hear that
I’ll give the beast a quick skelp
And through Art you’ll hear it yelp.

The beast that lives on silence takes
Its bite out of either side.
It pads and sniffs between us. Now
It comes and laps my meaning up.
Call it over. Call it across
This curious necessary space.
Get off, you terrible inhabiter
Of silence. I’ll not have it. Get
Away to whoever it is will have you.

He’s gone and if he’s gone to you
That’s fair enough. For on this side
Of the words it’s late. The heavy moth
Bangs on the pane. The whole house
Is sleeping and I remember
I am not here, only the space
I sent the terrible beast across.
Watch. He bites. Listen gently
To any song he snorts or growls
And give him food. He means neither
Well or ill towards you. Above
All, shut up. Give him your love.


W. S. Graham, 'The Beast in the Space', from 'Malcom Mooney's Land' (1970), in Collected Poems, 1942-1977 (London: Faber, 1979), pp. 147-48.