Lavinia’s yacht
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Anthony Howell’s first collection of poems, Inside the Castle came out in 1969. In 1986 his novel In the Company of Others was published by Marion Boyars. He was founder of The Theatre of Mistakes and his Analysis of Performance Art is published by Routledge. Plague Lands, his versions of the poems of Iraqi poet Fawzi Karim, were a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for 2011. He is editor of Grey Suit Editions. He is a Hawthornden fellow and has recorded poems for The Poetry Archive. His latest new book of poems is From Inside published by The High Window. His Collected Longer Poems have just been published by Grey Suit Editions UK. https://anthonyhowelljournal.com/
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Introduction
‘Lavinia’ is an excerpt from Book 19 of The Runiad – an epic poem I am engaged in writing. Basically there will be 24 books, each written in 7 line stanzas, with heptameter as an approximate verse form. The poem will be as long as The Odyssey. That is about all I knew about it when I started. My idea is to only half-know what I am on about, mediating between romance and modernity. What theme might be indicated in Book 19 is perhaps mortality and everlastingness, but anything can interrupt this at any time. Shiva and a sense of balance prevail – so narrative needs to be balanced by writing in the continuous present, present politics with past myths. A sort of quantum poetics prevails or seems to. I don’t know. And I don’t want to know.
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Anthony Howell: ‘Lavinia’, an excerpt from Book 19 of The Runiad
I am prone to lose myself in a dream of having to find some elusive thing,
Guessing only that whenever you lose it in your sleep it is best
To wake up. But then, cometh the hour, you fall into a dream
From which there is no waking. God forbid it will be one in which
I’m still searching for something! Fully dressed this morning,
But keen on falling back to sleep, I dimly stroke the cat purring
Vehemently beside me. Well, she wants her fucking biscuits.
Only reason to get up. We outlive our cats until the last one gets
The final laugh… “Ukraine is not losing, but the front is moving
In the wrong direction,” says Marc Rutte. That one made me smile.
Clown-world absurdities committed by our unelected leaders
Seem the only thing that keeps us more or less amused today.
These and Lavinia anyway, who came to me, quite mincingly,
Sporting an enormous hat. A longer lifer! How cool is that?
Lavinia floated up the companionway onto the upper deck.
Tall and slim, and in the habit of wearing diaphanous gear
That came down to her ankles, she had always floated
Everywhere, and, at three-hundred-and-six years old,
She almost always did. Every longer lifer has two ages.
One is their established age, based on the number
Of years that they have lived, the other is their apparent age
Based, but not attached, to the age they had been when
They first started taking the injections. Lavinia’s apparent age
Was thirty-six. She had first been vaccinated against death
At the age of six. Everyone still aged. Everyone had birthdays.
Longer life was not all that unnatural. It was simply that,
As longer life was calculated, one age lasted one ten years.
Thus, Lavinia had experienced the most marvellous childhood.
It had seemed endless. She had blown out six birthday candles
Ten contented times. And then, momentous event, one year later
She had blown out seven of them. Thus, ever so gradually,
Lavinia had grown. It was no miracle though, this anti-death.
One’s ending was simply delayed. More or less indefinitely,
Since one could always get oneself another anti-aging shot.
And usually one did unless by some mischance one forgot.
Lavinia floated on across the gleaming deck to where
Elon her husband reclined, sunning himself in his deck-chair.
Although he had been sunning himself there for some
Three-hundred years, he had experienced no cancer of the skin.
Elon had simply achieved a healthy golden tan.
That was thanks to the sun-screen he had devised in his teens;
The spatial curtain which had made him his colossal fortune.
“Hi there, Tiger, burning light,” said Lavinia, bending
To touch him on his ever so gradually balding forehead.
“In the forests of Kuwait,” Elon responded after a pause.
“That’s assonance!” Lavinia objected. “Forests of
The Isle of White?” “Wouldn’t scan.” She pouted, then stripped
Out of her flowing attire, entered the pool to float on her back
For an hour while the modest sun above burned weakly enough.
Forests flourished everywhere. Since the cull, land had returned
To nature. That is, it had regressed, outside the Star
At any rate. The Star, which stretched from Cape Town
To Saint Putinsburg by now, was occupied by longer lifers,
Bots and shorties. Life there, though, if you could call it that,
Was so restricted, regimented, supervised and deeply-stated
That most longer lifers preferred to remain on their yachts.
After all, much of the world was their oyster. Tod, the new-named God
Had replaced the ozone layer. Not one creature farted, not even
Lavinia. Certain chem-trails saw to that, kept the anus firmly shut.
Everything was sort of sorted, kept in its proper place
Without being too intrusive if you stayed abroad aboard your yacht.
Upward mobility was very firmly a thing now of the past
Longevity had ushered in a brand new feudal society.
They partied on each other’s yachts. Their boats done up
Until they resembled chateaux. They spent decades devising
Original displays of perceptual phenomena in which stimulation
Of one sensory pathway led to the experience of another.
Vernissages were the thing in galleries installed on offshore barges.
And while they liked to linger over details, never did they need
To lift a finger. Shorties saw to that. Their indentured crews
Were invariably shorties; shorties bought and brought
Onto the yacht from their gated compounds on the Star.
Some of the longer lifers opted for the bots instead
But should a glitch occur in a bot, it could lead to disaster
Since your bot, being mere machine, had no fear of going
Under with the ship, and that at least the shorties
Shared with their owners. In this they were joined at the hip.
On the whole, a hale and hearty shorty who might moan
Was easy to control, since each one of them came with the lowdown
On his or her family registered in their owner’s name.
A family member back home could be docked at the touch of a pad
Should the least misdemeanour occur. Their sailing of the seven seas
Went smoothly therefore since the sea itself could be ironed flat.
A hover-craft with anti-hoover smoothing power could see to that.
This was bliss in a boat, afloat. Not in the least a vale of tears.
Kept to a nicely even keel, a cruise could last for years and years.
Current affairs were stable. Longer life had but one single
Enemy. Ennui was that foe. Elon and Lavinia never said
“Good Morning”- it would have been so lame. Poetry though
Was a solace. They went to it for greeting and response. Other ways of saying
Something turned most conversation into a guessing game.
Elon was sixty, so far as appearances went – he had first groomed
Lavinia to be his everlastingly lovely one when he had been
Twenty-nine. At five, she had enchanted him. At six,
He’d had her elon-gated. All it took was a prick.
And so, ever so gradually, they had aged together. Now
They both felt they were in their prime. Lavinia had always
Preferred older men. Elon was like a father to her, sexually speaking, that is.
They spent the years of her extended childhood visiting
Exotic spots, travelling either on the yacht or on the revived
Air-ships that had become elite (the term ‘popular’ was no longer
In favour). No one ever wanted to get anywhere quickly any more.
In terms of landfall, islands were safer. It had been simpler
On islands for the cull to be effective. Each was a paradise
Of its own. All one had to beware of was the wildlife –
Snakes, spiders and such. But the beaches were simply there
For Elon and Lavinia to enjoy. The waterfalls, theirs to bathe in,
In the company of a lyrebird maybe. Human life was gone.
Continents were more problematic, outside of the Star,
Which, as we have noted had problems of its own.
Continents were, if not infested, at least home to parties
Of regressionists. Tensions between these and the progressive
Longer lifers still remained quite hazardously high.
The ‘Old War’ still went on. And the greatest danger came
From the Amazons. Amazon militias were the most fearsome
Foes of the powerful Star. Having been caught in the cull
And in the main exterminated in their own ancestral lands,
A sanguine diaspora had established itself, first in the Green Lanes
Of outer London, then in all areas of Europe that remained
Beyond the Star’s control. Other diasporas peopled by
Survivors of genocided races had joined forces with these
Amazons – short-lived though they were – and all these dissidents
Adopted their philosophy. Fellahin, the Irish, black races,
Native Americans and liberals from progressive British
Public Schools – all became as fearsome as had been the Kurds, encouraging
Their females to train with Kalashnikovs while their shorty men
Either formed militias of their own or focused on becoming
House-husbandly and cuddly while spouting experimental poetry.
Mainlands were unsafe for longer lifers. Gifted a time cornucopia,
Elon and Lavinia used up much of it island-hopping.
Mainly they basked in the sun on deck, or performed esoteric
Exercises to keep fit while moving so slowly that no one
Could see them moving. They improved the architecture
Of their ship. Gave it a Gothic revivalist look some visitors
Denounced as unprogressive. They invented culinary
Concoctions which they took with them to delight the longer
Living owners of other yachts. They took courses.
Lavinia spoke thirty-six languages. They spent an inordinate
Amount of time on foreplay. They allowed each incident
To magnify. This was the only way to get through
The endless hours of day, the long succession of nights.
Elon made an exhaustive study of astronomy.
He searched everywhere for that lost work by Eratosthenes
Of Cyrene. This was a comprehensive compendium
Of astral mythology, including origin myths of the stars
And constellations. But Elon could locate only a summary
Of the original work. Catasterism seemed to him a perk
He deserved for screening out the sun, and while he fumed
And fretted and accused the Star itself of cheap shenanigans
Preventing his being honoured with a constellation in his name,
Lavinia had knitted him one thousand and fifty-one cardigans
Before she cast her needles into the sea. Never to knit one again.
Naturally of course, what they had grown most bored of was
Each other. Difficult enough to keep a marriage together
For three or four decades, let alone a triplet of centuries!
Now the predicament Gods were supposed to have found themselves in
Elicited their sympathies. They tried vice, and pyjama parties
Moored together with other yachts, but after a surfeit of orgies
They were as bored of each other as before. One of their shorties
Suggested to Lavinia that she should try getting pregnant.
Having a kid might well prevent their relationship going stagnant.
Lavinia had him fed to the sharks. Pregnancy went against
Everything longer life stood for. The best way to freshen things up
Was to address them surgically. This could resolve the dichotomy
Longer Lifers brought upon themselves by inoculation
Against death. Lavinia emerged from the pool, her figure perfect
Still. She lay down on the deck-chair next to Elon, then said to him,
“Don’t you think it’s time, Elon, that we should have another lobotomy?”
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