The Saturday poem: Blood and Lead

by James Fenton, winner of the 2015 PEN Pinter prize

James Fenton in his garden, Longleys Farm, Cumnor. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian

James Fenton

Saturday 20 June 2015  The Guardian

Listen to what they did.
Don’t listen to what they said.
What was written in blood
Has been set up in lead.

Lead tears the heart.
Lead tears the brain.
What was written in blood
Has been set up again.

The heart is a drum.
The drum has a snare.
The snare is in the blood.
The blood is in the air.

Listen to what they did.
Listen to what’s to come.
Listen to the blood.
Listen to the drum.

• From Yellow Tulips: Poems 1968-2011 (Faber, £12.99). © James Fenton 2006