precious little else when for pennies more, (Wellington's phrase) the scum of the earth enlists for drink. Too harsh, I think, of imagining the Foreign Legion, kepis of scarlet the near requisite haggard looks moving in waves across the desert pitting date palms with bayonets. the occasional fellow ravaged by French pox. Then dunes where water should be -- storms granulating blown particles twice the perimeter of a camel train from whence decent men become driven (as the desert fox) to crouch beside themselves with poor material, loose flintlocks and cartridge belts rotting to the touch, The pitched camp (I see brackish oasis glare) stars big as pebbles in potato white Napoleon before Cairo his soldiery and ragged tents flapping like tongues of pillaging Arabs (or later battlefield carrion wolves) on the run from Allah and sweet date wine, their torpid hooves sound against rock matching wits grown sluggish in still more drifting sand. Noon and blood purring like a two minute egg over and over the spitting, curses mandatory flies and sweat trickling on sandbags from manured lives little to eat-- C rations a century away, the good populace begrudging meals to vagabonds and trash anyway. See the last desperation in classic terms betrayed by finite trength brisk elements raise the odds a measly temperature climb, a few more driving winds to stir the pot animal suffering dancing like stretched canvas on thin frames. The leading roustabout unflinching, waves a stony mutineer's salute. And somehow it always manages dawn and the heat of the day wicked, oblong in an empty stretch forever, it seems, before bullets open graveyards mow the brigand down, take the corpse for its own mummifying with precious hands about the contours of her desert body, and firm cleavage oscillating between curvatures of desiccation, blanket heat. 40 41 42 Back to the Contents Page ENDING UP reads like living down -- a coconut arriving with the tide, bottles perched in sand the blue glass colour or imprisoned dreams genie of a bottle cap. Ending up. the brow or a gondola overturned sees memories squared away -- the window of the envelope an all too foggy membrane. Turning out like ending up no check-out time or non-existant room service in a flea-bag motel. 43 Back to the Contents Page OFFERINGS (A Movement in four Parts) The night is folly without the moon, trees blank space against a frontal sky where lattice work from a bled fish reveals skeletal markings will not administer the red
Prev.
Back
Top