Robert Leach : Boy and Baggage

Published by Dionysia Press, Edinburgh; 118pp.

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On Boy and Baggage : ‘But wait till I tell you the really good bit. There’s a book of poems by a guy I’ve never heard of before, and it’s just superb. The book is called Boy and Baggage and it’s by one Robert Leach. The blurb on the back doesn’t tell you much. Concentrate on the poems. It will be worth it. ‘It’s a long time since I got so enthused over a new collection by a writer I don’t know ... It’s bloody impressive stuff. Subject matter, language, imagery, emotion – all show masterly touches ... ‘Love Feast’ is a superb flight of imagination ... I’ve read this poem several times, savouring the precision of the word choice and the startling rightness of the imagery. ‘Felicities abound in this collection ... I find myself in moments of idleness picking it up and gloating over it.’ – Dennis O’Donnell, Cencrastus On The Snake at Your Back (in Boy and Baggage): ‘What fine poems these are! ... Here is a poet who has triumphantly brought off that most difficult of feats – to write poems for children which are neither condescending nor falsely childish, but poems in their own right which will give pleasure to all who read them, young and old alike. They will enrich their lives in the way that all true poetry does.’ – Albert Rowe (from Boy and Baggage) LOVE FEAST 1 Spiked through the heels by the butcher’s S-hook, And cowled in a blackened sack, The hare hangs Like a stopped clock pendulum, Or a gibbeted malefactor. I point and nod, and the meat-monger Hoicks it down, lays it on his slab, And saws at its neck a little, almost respectfully. One whack decapitates it, And dark blood gurgles out in a splodge, Then a trickle. He chafes, plucks, worries at tufts of leg hair, Dextrously turns down a polo neck of fur And strips off the pelt like a major domo Peeling back a cheveril glove. Smooth, dark purple, muscle meat. He gouges out the guts, hosepipes what’s left Heedlessly, and plastic-bags it. ‘Five quid.’ 2 Lumpy parcel, bloody bag Last posterity Of an ancient hag, Granter of fecundity. Blood-blotted package Of laughing shyster, Forbidden passage Of a fickle trickster. Dead meat, inert corpse, Flyblown flitch And fallen chops Of shape-exchanging noted witch Who chose this body To fire, inspire Needy Biddy, Her heart’s desire. Defunct bag-bulge, maggot-feast, Most and least Of a pugilist, A dancing beast. 3 Three days later, in a rancid cloud of hare stink, I place the smooth, bent, red body On a chopping board, sharpen my blade, And make to joint it. Hacking at where thigh bone meets pelvis, Cracking joints and sinew sticks, grasping The slippery leg in my floundering fingers, I force flesh from shoulder-blade and ribcage, Wrenching, spiking, carving. The diminishing carcase slips and flops, Juicy in its own blood, And my hands are scarlet stained and sticky. Bones in the bin, meat in the pot: It’s ready. 4 In weathered uplands of skylark and standing stone, I drove down a well-worn, green-edged lane, And a jack hare sprang up in front of me, and ran, Standing ears tipped with black, Drab-brown coat, and a springy lope Like a Harley Davidson-powered pogo-stick. At thirty miles an hour, he seemed to drag the car, Tugging me like a Jack o’ Lantern across a bog, Urgently magnetizing me here to there Like a Siren where the tide tugs billow, Till an opening to a field appeared And my hare sheered off, where I couldn’t follow. And as he turned, I saw his eye upcast And goggling: he left me, scorched, aghast. 5 The jugged hare pricks our nostrils, Prompts water-mouth. We sit in a cornucopia of anticipation, Belly-empty, throat-drought. In this next act, taste out of scent, Will my labour of love and knife and flame Connect to its blaze, lit by fear? To the mysteries and bewitchments Of other consciousnesses, far or near? Where’s the respect for breath and bud? What if I eat? Partake of this beast? What fusion, infusion of body and blood Flows from the consummation of this feast?