Viking poem

A rather long semi-translation I did of a medieval Icelandic poem can be found here.

And for sir?

For me it must be grouse; for the flavour

yes,

but mostly for the sound: the tearing

of skin as it comes away from breast;

the slurp

as the back is sucked clean of tender flesh;

the crack

as ribs break sharply into two

to make way for my tongue, their empress -

all these exquisite as only things from God can be,

but nothing beats the mortal ping,

so high and so soon dead

of a piece of shot falling onto china.

At once it is the fireworks of gunshot springing

like monkeys off the trees,

the pervy panting of the dogs,

the whispered arc of the falling bird,

and the silence of its last, unseen

flails upon the grass.

There is just left the as if reverential absence

of the hanging shed,

a perch of guiltless penitents, to transform

this silent music to the holy

before we’re back to linen shifting,

the echoes of this room

and metal on china once again.

Dreams

So what I want is just a gait,

a way of loping,

a horse walking into town

with its sleeping rider

swaying,

how a leopard swings its head

to turn and strut to the sound of languor

after eating.

The beat of leather soles on stone,

that bugle call

the prince bears with him

through his wearisome dominion,

a way to own,

a way to lord the sweating jungle over,

a way for everyone to see,

a way for six-shooter-swinging hips to be.

But there’s another kind of movement too.

Imagine two a.m. on a quayside;

a boat has loosened from its mooring and

is being reeled out to sea.

You feel it passing by you

into that big ball of darkness

and there’s just a little urge

to leap in after it and float

until you both become unseen.

Four-four

When I was a kid, going asleep

meant Eric Cantona,

the same moment spun out

like a careworn disc

until delicious grey arrived.

I never bothered to watch

him score – peace for me

lay in seeing him paw the ball

across the halfway line,

the ruffle of burst nets

rippling in his stride.

It’s a different picture now -

a man on a green shrub plateau,

sub-Arctic in its every hair,

a slate river diagonally

across his sight. He casts

a white line and waits until it curls,

drags, and sinks the fly.

He flicks it up and back then

drives it forward, spraying

the air with crystal light

as the fly dries and drops

like a feather to its bed.

I watch and wait, and the sun

grumbles home, each time the

same: the fly, by dark, is sunk.