by Tom Kuhn
At God’s tables this drinker was denied
And never a blessing poured on him from heaven
But he must stab at people with a blade
And risk his neck in the nooses of their hangmen.
Feel free to come and kiss my arse at least
Said he, when he was feasting as he liked to feast.
4
For him no sweet reward in heaven beckoned
The law soon passed his proud soul under the rod
And yet he was, even he, a son of God.—
And a long while fleeing in the rain and the wind
The gallows beckon, to reward him at the end.
5
François Villon died on the run
In woodland before they caught him, quick and sly—
Doubtless his insolent soul lives on and on
Like this little poem that will never die.
And when he laid him down and croaked
He found, late and hard, that even this he liked.
An account of the tick
1
Through our dreams in childhood
In the milk-white bed
Around the apple trees flitted
The man in violet.
2
Lying in the dust before him
We saw: he sat there. Heavy.
He held a dove and stroked it
In sunshine, by the highway.
3
He prizes all you give him
Sups blood the way ticks do
And so you’ll only have him
He takes all else from you.
4
And if you gave him your joy
And the joys of others too
And hard you lie and poor now
He won’t remember you.
5
He spits—for entertainment—
Straight in your face and spies
To seize you on the instant
If there’s fear in your eyes.
6
In the evening at your window
He watches for a while
And goes his ways affronted
By every noticed smile.
7
And if some joy is in you
Though you laugh under your breath
He plays a barrel-organ
His tunes are all of death.
8
If anyone derides him
He sinks in the heavenly blue
Who nonetheless created
Sharks in his image too.
9
And nowhere would he rather
Sit than at your deathbed.
He haunts the final fever
The crook in violet.
SECOND LESSON: SPIRITUAL EXERCISES
Fellow humans
1
Soon as a man, the moons being counted
Tugged him forth from where he held
He, small and miserable and red
Screaming out of a woman tumbled.
And they were there. With sponge and linen.
They welcomed him with trumpet-blare
And washed with tearful emotion
The shit off him. (That much, for sure.)
2
Thenceforth he has their grace and favour.
He is their child, he is their man.
With tears, undressing him, they savour
The lime distemper he has done.
And when he feeds, their mood is cheerful
With glee upon his squirts they feast.
He sees: their costume is funereal
When his pet dog gives up the ghost.
3
They push their word between his teeth.
He says it. They’ve said it already.
He wants hyena’s leg for meat
Hyena says his leg is tasty.
And if he says his clouds are swans
They say he’s blind, they say he’s hungry
And show him his teeth and the ones
In their mouths are the same exactly.
4
They put themselves into his dreams
(Where he lives, they have their rooms.)
For him they slaughter their last cow
(And watch him while he eats it too.)
With feeling tears they salt his meat
And while he eats, stand watching there.
Grinning they count his teeth and wait
In faith outside the toilet door.
5
For closer human contact with him
They push their little sister his way
Asperging her with Bible verses
So he can mount her. Smiling, they
Thus lubricating his felicity
Wish him sweet rest when he retires
And light him up with searchlights brightly
And listen in on him through wires.
6
For after all they are not monsters
And nor is he the Good Shepherd
They’d walk on coals for him. In tears
They watch when he becomes less hard.
And then they show him red offspring
And tell him, should he turn them out:
The thing there on his sweetheart, milking
Was left by him, it is the fruit.
7
He lives in terror of their horror
When he feels more than he can bear.
For though they skinned him they were clever
And left him with a shirt to wear.
In many a shirt he wore his body
Through the light of day, in disguise.
He died. And his beloved quickly
Combed his hair over his eyes.
8
She laid her body against his body
She made him sick of the world. She saw
Observing him asleep, how uneasy
Under the lids his eyes were.
In his mild flesh she inculcated
Deep the chains of his servitude.
He on his deathbed translated
His last words for her, and died.
Orge’s song
Orge said to me:
1
On all the earth the dearest place I have
Is not the grassy bank by my parents’ grave.
2
Orge said to me his dearest place
On earth has always been the shithouse.
3
That is a place, he says, where you are content
Stars are above you and under you excrement.
4
The place is simply wonderful where you can be
As a grown-up, alone, says he.
5
A humbling place, keenly you learn there you
Being only human, must let everything go.
6
A place where bodily at ease you can
With gentle emphasis aid the inner man.
7
A place of wisdom where you can prepare
Your belly for another round of pleasure.
8
But you know who and where you are in that place:
A young man in a shithouse feeding his face.
On the drinking of schnapps
1
In the green unholy muddle
Sits a derelict with a bottle
Of green schnapps. (Of green schnapps.)
Sits a derelict with a bottle:
Heart trouble, perhaps.
(Heart trouble, perhaps.)
2
Oh behold Joseph, the chaste
At the monstrous fleshpot feast
Sits and sucks. There sits he
At his fingers, which are chaste, sucks innocently.
(Innocently.)
3
Seven stars, they taste bitter.
Softly plucking stomach shiver
Makes it sweet, makes it sweet.
Seven ditties, seven litres, we’re all right.
(We’re all right.)
4<
br />
Linsel Klopps walked straight as a squire.
Now however he’s much freer
Now he sways too. He sways too.
Swan upon his pond, we thank you!
(Swan, we thank you!)
Exemplary conversion of a purveyor of brandy
1
At the bar behind the glasses with his
Heavy lids, and lips of violet
Dismal-eyed, a sweaty countenance
Sits a purveyor of brandy, pale and fat.
With his greasy fingers counting
Money into a sack, he droops
His head into the brandy’s oily
Puddle, and there he sleeps.
2
And his heavy body groans and writhes
Sweat clings cold upon his brow like slime
In his spongy brain he’s visited
By a dream, a terrible bad dream.
And he dreams he is in heaven
Must before God’s throne, and fearful
Downs a brandy, downs another
And another till he’s sodden full.
3
Seven angels circle him about
And his knees are weak and let him down
But he’s led now, this purveyor of brandy
Dumb to God’s white throne.
Oh his eyelids are so heavy
He can’t raise them in God’s light
And he feels his tongue is sticking
Blue, with a disgusting weight.
4
And he looks about him for assistance
And sees in a green algae-light:
Fourteen little orphans drifting weeping
Downstream and their faces blotting out.
And he says: they’re only seven
Because I’m drunk, and that’s the truth.
Doesn’t say it for he cannot
Get his tongue to touch his teeth.
5
And he looks about him for assistance
Among the men singing and playing cards
And he roars, I am the schnapps purveyor!
But they roar and slur their slurred words.
Blind and full of schnapps they are roaring
Goodbye to all hope of heaven.
He can tell by the green marks on them
That they are already almost rotten.
6
And he looks about him for assistance
And he sees: he stands in just a shirt before the throne
Stands in just a shirt in heaven, hears them asking:
Have you drunk all your wardrobe down the drain?
And he says: I had a wardrobe
And they say: Have you no shame?
And he knows: That many have stood here
In just a shirt I am to blame.
7
No more now he looks about him for assistance
Slap down on his knees he drops
Bows his neck and feels the sword in it
Feels the slop of sweat his wet shirt drips:
And he is ashamed in the sight of heaven
And he feels deep down inside:
God has cast me from Him now because
Purveying brandy is my trade.
8
And he wakes with heavy lids and staring
Eyes and lips of violet.
But he says to himself: I am no longer
A purveyor of brandy, pale and fat.
No, in future only for the orphan
Toper, dotard or devout
Long-suffering female will I hand this
Cursèd filthy lucre out.
Legend of Malchus, the pig in love
1
Hear the tale of our friend the pig
And of the love of his life!
Oh he wanted to be loved
And all he got was grief.
2
Since he had never felt that way
(Sweet first love of his life!)
Oh he loved head over heels
And all he got was grief.
3
For the sun herself was cause
And object of this passion.
What if she drove him head over
Heels to desperation?
4
Then one day in the light of the sun
No grief came from above
And our friend the swine exclaimed:
Is this then not love!?
5
Such happiness decided him
The swine, to act: henceforth
In the eternal sunshine
He’d stroll about on earth
6
And by enlisting other swine
And by obliging them
To abase themselves when he walked by
And duly venerate him
7
The canny swine was hopeful
That he would impress her
And in the kindly light of the sun
Would promenade forever.
8
But hardly likely that the sun
Sees every earthly swine!
She turned away the light of her eyes
And brought the darkness down.
9
Now within and all about
The poor pig there was darkness.
But he had an idea how to
Court her with success.
10
Together with another swine
He practised spewing out
Flames from his eye-holes
And poison through his snout.
11
And (by words alone) he forced
An old black pig to pass
Him Algiers’ riches
For his swinishness.
12
And when the sun came out again
He danced in his excitement
Gasping, nobly bashful
A trotter-step that meant
13
Everything that ever
Any swine had felt
(For love forgets past misery
The wounds, the rubbed-in salt!)
14
And so in a little meadow
Deeply moved this creat-
ure deposits Africa
At his lady’s feet
15
And so doing, he announced
That each and anyone
Who sought to spoil this union
Of souls, he would machine-gun.
16
And on dark days when she broke
Faith with him, he ran
Grimly from his trough and waddled
Out into the open
17
And there, for all to see, this beast
(Dreadful pale he looked)
Spewed his rage up at the clouds
Till he himself was soaked.
18
Indeed, dark mornings at the well
Where the sweet cress grew
He threatened her that one day
He’d gobble her up too.
19
Since pigs eat anything he meant
This seriously, no doubt;
But they find it hard to eat
When the sun comes out.
20
But a swine’s not dumb, he knows
The sun in the heavenly blue
Is always the lady love of who’s
The biggest swine right now.
The friendliness of the world
1
To this earth where the cold winds blow
You came as a naked child, every one of you
Lay there owning nothing and freezing cold
Till a woman wrapped you in swaddling clothes.
2
Nobody called you, you were not wished for
And nobody came with a carriage to fetch you here.
You were unknown on earth when a man
For the first time took you by the hand.
3
And there is nothing in the world that is your due:
&
nbsp; If you want to leave no one is stopping you.
For many, children, you were perhaps of no account
Many, however, shed tears on your account.
4
From the earth where the cold winds blow
Blotched and scabby you’ll depart, every one of you.
Nearly all will have loved the world when they
Are given their two handfuls of clay.
Ballad of those who help themselves
1
They still sit there smoking
Among trees on the shore
Their heavens are blanching
Already, and poor.
2
They have no doubt with brandy
Emboldened their spirits?
And see now astonished
How black the night is.
3
They are drinking? Still laughing?
Like smoke, the laughter rises
And suddenly the red moon
Spooks in the branches.
4
So their heavens are blanched now?
How fleeting they were!
Their day’s done already
And they are still here?
5
No doubt they’re still bawling
“God helps those . . .”
Comes their way a breath from
The rotting pine trees.
6
Disconsolate winds blow
The world’s sick of them!
In silence, on mud-flats
The evening quits them.