Far-Fetched
Das ist der doux commerce! – Karl Marx
Ay de mi – a pin-
prick of blood, scarcely
more than a pore
flaunting its friendship
with a vein; bright
as the flower
of the flame tree that stained
our drive, our lawn, and the roof
and bonnet of our white
Ford Taunus
red … in piercing, heat-
hazed dreams Tina
the Turkey, fattening for Christmas in the dust
of Kano, interrupts
her pecking to fix
me with a beady eye, to puff
her breast and shake
at me her scarlet
beak and wattles. ‘The worse
it is, the better,’ she cluck-clucks, sotto
voce, from somewhere
deep
inside the labyrinth
of my skull: ‘On all
fours enter my unhappy coop, and lend
an ear: prolonged
and torrential storms will erode
the dirt I’m scratching in; the hand
that hurls the grain, and wields
the cleaver, and the rattan
carpet-beater, will change
before your eyes into a curved
and scaly
claw … Weep
with me for the doomed, for all short-winged
flightless birds, for the many
stragglers that the swirling waters
will pursue, and overwhelm … As I know
you know, beyond
this paling
scheming irregulars in tattered
fatigues prowl through the night, or gather
in clearings; crackle –
crackle – crackle – whoooosh! – the roar
of the flames from their bush-fires
makes the roots
of my feathers shiver
and tingle … Should you
like a fool venture forth, beware of the pitter
and the patter of overgrown children
scurrying for cover, themselves
fully-fledged, and resourceful
child-
catchers; and while I
scratch for fleas, and gobble
and gabble, can’t
you hear the shrieking of anxious
and bewildered parakeets – here I am, oh,
oh, here I am! – in flight from the noise
and the smoke, their cries
putting words in your mouth, oh here –
here I am – send me! … How
far these far-
fetched facts must travel before
they buckle and fall, and how
s-s-s-softly they dissolve
in the wind … the wind, ah oui, le vent
se lève, and en garde –
en garde, my friend, for I see
you mean to pluck each speckled plume
from this heaving breast, to skewer
and season
and devour me … welladay, or rather
whoops! – for it appears
that one of these
rogue talons
has flashed towards the cornea
of your left eye, and nicked it,
so, and now
the right: and hence
our heart-to-heart, our sweet
sweet commerce is breaking
into a chaos of flame-
coloured filaments
hovering, and sinking
like fireflies, and the rat-
a-tat-tat
of rain
on corrugated iron …’
