horse

An Elegy for Tristan Tzara

In the hungry kitchen
The dog sings for its dinner.
The housewife is writing her poem
On top of the frigidaire
Something like this:

    'Hear in the kitchen
    The crows fly home
    Into the red-robed trees
    That walk across the sky.

    Hear under the floor
    The three fountains rising and
    Trickling through the bridge
    Into the sea of poems.'

In the kitchen the housemother
Pours soup for her thousand children

Hot August noon: already on that day
Since sunrise through the Wiltshire downs, most sad
Of mouth and eye, he had gone leagues of way;
Ay and by night, till whether good or bad

He was, he knew not, though he knew perchance
That he was Launcelot, the bravest knight
Of all who since the world was, have borne lance,
Or swung their swords in wrong cause or in right.

Nay, he knew nothing now, except that where
The Glastonbury gilded towers shine,
A lady dwelt, whose name was Guenevere;

On Trinitye Mondaye in the morne,
This sore battayle was doom'd to bee,
Where manye a knighte cry'd, Well-awaye!
Alacke, it was the more pittìe.

Ere the first crowinge of the cocke,
When as the kinge in his bed laye,
He thoughte Sir Gawaine to him came,
And there to him these wordes did saye:

"Nowe, as you are mine unkle deare,
And as you prize your life, this daye
O meet not with your foe in fight;
Putt off the battayle, if yee maye.

"For Sir Launcelot is nowe in Fraunce,

(Translated by G P Skratz)

o god our kaspar is dead
& now there's no-one to steal away with the burning flag &
snap it every day in the dark cloud's braided hair.

no-one to crank the coffee-mill in the ancient cask.

no-one to conjure idyllic deer from the petrified grocery bag.

no-one to sniff ships umbrellas bee-keepers udders of wind
spindles of ozone no-one to filet the pyramids.

o god god god our good old kaspar is dead. lord lord
kaspar is dead.

Pitch here the tent, while the old horse grazes:
By the old hedge-side we'll halt a stage.
It's nigh my last above the daisies:
My next leaf'll be man's blank page.
Yes, my old girl! and it's no use crying:
Juggler, constable, king, must bow.
One that outjuggles all's been spying
Long to have me, and he has me now.

We've travelled times to this old common:
Often we've hung our pots in the gorse.
We've had a stirring life, old woman!
You, and I, and the old grey horse.
Races, and fairs, and royal occasions,

The blue forest, chilled and blue, like the lips of the dead
if the lips were gone. The year has been cut in half
with dull scissors, the solstice still looking for its square
on the calendar. Perhaps the scissors were really
lawn mowers or hoes. Perhaps God's calendar is Chinese.
As first I didn't understand those burlap dolls
slouched in Central Pennsylvania craft stores.
Where were the button eyes, the tiny pearl nostrils?
the smudgy pink watercolor cheeks?

I enter the woods--part Gretel, part Little Red.

Rejoice in God, O ye Tongues; give the glory to the Lord, and the Lamb.

Nations, and languages, and every Creature, in which is the breath of Life.

Let man and beast appear before him, and magnify his name together.

Let Noah and his company approach the throne of Grace, and do homage to the Ark of their Salvation.

Let Abraham present a Ram, and worship the God of his Redemption.

Let Isaac, the Bridegroom, kneel with his Camels, and bless the hope of his pilgrimage.

Men fight all shapes and sizes as the racing horses run,
And no man knows his courage till he stands before a gun.
At mixed-up fighting, hand to hand, and clawing men about
They reckon Fuzzy-Wuzzy is the hottest fighter out.
But Fuzzy gives himself away -- his style is out of date,
He charges like a driven grouse that rushes on its fate;
You've nothing in the world to do but pump him full of lead:
But when you're fighting Johhny Boer you have to use your head;
He don't believe in front attacks or charging at the run,

Yes, there it hangs upon the wall
And never gives a sound,
The hand that trimmed its greenhide fall
Is hidden underground,
There, in that patch of sallee shade,
Beneath that grassy mound.



I never take it from the wall,
That whip belonged to him,
The man I singled from them all,
He was my husband, Jim;
I see him now, so straight and tall,
So long and lithe of limb.



That whip was with him night and day
When he was on the track;

Born of a thoroughbred English race,
Well proportioned and closely knit,
Neat, slim figure and handsome face,
Always ready and always fit,
Hardy and wiry of limb and thew,
That was the ne'er-do-well Jim Carew.
One of the sons of the good old land --
Many a year since his like was known;
Never a game but he took command,
Never a sport but he held his own;
Gained at his college a triple blue --
Good as they make them was Jim Carew.
Came to grief -- was it card or horse?