Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The fisher king
From The Wasteland: III. The fire sermon
Emergency operator. What service do you require?
One Grail Knight, please: I've suffered a dolorous stroke.
Click, bzzzz...
***
Football tournament in Nagano: no problem. Six-hour car journey home: no problem. Wake up Monday morning and the muscle in my thigh is absolute agony. Hobble, hobble, hobble: the key is snapped in my bike's lock, not that I could ride it anyway.
The pain has now subsided to a throbbing warmth that doesn't reassure me. Maimed and impotent in my dark castle, I read by the light of the top window and await better days. The blazing, dead heat stifles; the rain fertilises nothing but my imagination.
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I sat fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother's wreck
And on the king my father's death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year.
Emergency operator. What service do you require?
One Grail Knight, please: I've suffered a dolorous stroke.
Click, bzzzz...
***
Football tournament in Nagano: no problem. Six-hour car journey home: no problem. Wake up Monday morning and the muscle in my thigh is absolute agony. Hobble, hobble, hobble: the key is snapped in my bike's lock, not that I could ride it anyway.
The pain has now subsided to a throbbing warmth that doesn't reassure me. Maimed and impotent in my dark castle, I read by the light of the top window and await better days. The blazing, dead heat stifles; the rain fertilises nothing but my imagination.
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