Across the Land and the Water: Selected Poems, 1964-2001

Weary of always

the same trees and

a country far from crossed

the legionnaire rests

in fancy’s meagre holding

Revolving around him by turns

his life and a bloom of tobacco

smoked by the wayside

The hammered out sections

show him whenever he moves

which of his organs

alas are sick

Cheerful after all

humbly sat on his shield

he bids us good day

the one-eyed

king of the blind

Our memories are quite similar

but pickled alive

in a poison which

accompanies objects too

as a part of this emptiness

The heartening message

that Pythagoras once

would listen to the stars

barely comes down to us now

Then let us hope

our children are learning

to dance in the dark

With borrowed voices

the ventriloquist renders

others’ pipe-dreams

A gentleman disguised

as a moth pulls

tropical birds from a hat

The gaudiest parrot

weighs a memorized

word destiny

in his hand

As accustomed dupes

the local fowls

sit in the cheap seats

thrilling to the da capo

Dialectically thrashed out campaigns

and drafts from days

pending wasted battles

Like every evening

the set task is left

undone in the sandpit

Heeding a dubious silence

I sleep at night

with my ear to the ground

Its distant sounds

spell out

the lessons of a lighter world

My beard grows overnight

every time

like a dead man’s

I have even begun

to speak in foreign tongues

roaming like a nomad in my own

town weighing the witch’s

thaler in my hand

It would seem to be time

to apply to the outworks

and register what

we have forgotten

Once there

given the superior outlook

my poor sedentariness

will pass

In honor of my canny schoolmate

and god of wonders

I had promised a

Chinese fable

In crow’s-feet characters

the black bird

translated itself

nimbly to my page

The little vixen however

escaped and tumbled

in the grass and all

but laughed herself to death

So all I have left

is this monosyllabic

creature on my shoulder

The mightiest however

seem those kings

who have never lived

Even today

they tempt us

on tours

to Soliman’s garden

on a horse

with clipped wings

To comfort the bereaved

it is advisable that reports of such trips

be prepared in advance

For it will often have proved

far too lovely to return

in any calculable future

Returning from a lengthy trip

he was astonished to find

he had strayed to a country

not his place of origin

For all his encounters in scattered spots

with the black paper hearts of men

shot by the arquebuse

his bow-and-arrow story

did not happen

Then there was Penelope’s

Castilian grandmother

blocking his entry at the garden gate

wordless and busy with embroidery

Sure, the grandchildren

are smiling in the background

apparently better disposed

towards foreigners

Their furtive hopes

still almost too small

for the naked eye

(But the idea is good

and the noise far away

even the building)

Until the light has

failed as if bereft

the white mist

barely infiltrating

the trees

and as if they were painted

on a green landscape the animals

descending to their black shelters

come to a standstill

at the edge of our gaze

resolute

half his journey done

our ailing neighbor too

pauses

reckoning the distance left

The band was playing

and singing a little Turkish

marching song, with ensigns

shouldered they filed out

onto the plain at their ease

to where their ships lay

concealed beneath the cliffs

Their camp has long

been abandoned the soldiers

long ago returning to an older

post in a different time

But in Northamptonshire

their legacy has remained

green acanthus and orchards

houses inhabited still

by the Roman gaze

Guarding what once

was brought here

safely from afar

the Dardanian gods

Faced with the deep shadows

of the mountains of growing darkness

we had to break our journey

Making ourselves at home

high in the canopy of the forest

with the birds and fishes

Discussing the dragging winter

and maybe blowing a tune

on the Berecyntian horn

Savoring our dawdling

the poor Penates

smile among themselves

The beginners have concluded

an exercise in the accomplishment

of elaborate figures

as part of their training

in advanced impromptus

Abandoned now

the sand-track curves

into the lengthening shadows

Then, slipping through subito

from some other place an apparition

crosses our field of vision

at an astonishingly measured tread

Démonstration, Messieurs,

the zenith of my art,

riding, at a walk, and

that without flaw

or flourish

Says almost imperceptibly

bending down towards us

prior to vanishing

at the other side

Chiron the old centaur

The real disaster

so they say are the consolations

the garde bourgeoise

in the republic of our dreams

Repetition once mere play

a five-finger exercise suddenly

a repertorial must

for intractable pupils

To cheer people up

they shift the scenes now and then

in our moral institutions

The mountain backcloth sinks

into the waves and time sheds

its skin every year

Out of sorts in the stalls

the Troubadour beholds

the panoptic spectacle while

poised at the entrance

Malatesta forks out for his ticket

Setting:

On the Sandwich Islands

the Dictaean Grotto

Personae:

Basil the Rainmaker

and the coiled polar dragon

Plot:

Somnia, terrores magicos,

miracula, sagas, nocturnos

lemures portentaque Thessala

Intermezzo:

Acts of negligence in accordance

with relative beauty

strength or wit

ex. gratis: The plump Etruscan,

the ivory flute

and Latin song

aut:

Proteus sub aqua submersus

putting ugly cattle to pasture

aut etiam:

The Sphinx

fleeing toward Libya

Final Tableau:

Victorious Basil

earns the sobriquet Fifty

Analysis:

Salomo Schellenkönig the skilled

basket weaver counts his coppers

Balance:

A small

fortune

Recently seen

in the vicinity of Flore

Northants, the rhinoceros

appeared this morning

in my garden

With a sly look albeit somewhat

nonplussed it stood in the herbs

wreaking as it shifted its weight

from one foot to the other

considerable havoc

The animal is a victor

the elephant’s mortal foe

for when he comes upon it

the beast will charge headfirst

between its front legs

They also say

the rhinoceros

is quick joyful and

lusty too

Odd to say it did not retire

to the bushes after its wont

but with its head arrogantly

cocked on one side ascended

skywards in a gaily embroidered

Californian moored balloon[3]

A monotheistical

creature it would seem

while the elephant

as Pliny tells us

is clever and just

and worships the sun

and the moon

The program enlists the turqueries

of a newly lapsed century

a potpourri with bells and cymbals

orchestrated obscenities

Masked players swell

the plot in a green theatre

their true faces overwritten

Rather than greater virtue

the happy ending proposes

more trivial vices

The hedges rustle with applause

and the bygone ladies

of the court return

below the lawns

Back to reading

cubist

novels

Grown sheepish

by morning I study

the grounds of my coffee

At midday I cut

a slice for myself

from the hollow pumpkin of summer

And not until dark do I risk again

the Cretan trick

of leaping between the horns

Great-grandfather

in his gay jacket

casting a horoscope

A perfect

heptagram omitting

the malefic houses

Those white areas

photoset and printed

in my historical atlas

As you know

the owl was only

a baker’s daughter

And Sheikh Subir

a professor expelled

from Persia

After numerous

proselytizing expeditions

to Paris

Geneva Smyrna and

Constantinople

he was burned at the stake

in Moscow