Suppose, said the Universe

Suppose, said the Universe,
that I don’t care about being understood.
Suppose that I care more about being?

You are wrong again, then, said the Philosopher.
For being that is not conscious being
can scarcely be called being at all.

Can’t we just lie down in the shade
the rest of the afternoon
and watch the wheels go round?
I made nearly everything spherical
in the beginning so it would roll
when I kicked it. 

You are absurd! cried the Philosopher.
Uh-huh, said the Universe.

I’d like to see a whole thousand of giraffes
walking along in a row,
with their heads in the air,
thinking, thinking, thinking …
with tail coats and horn-rimmed goggles.

From Noah An’ Jonah An’ Cap’n John Smith, Don Marquis, 1921.

The old calendar must be the right one

For the animals still use it. The stork
flies away according to it, the bear
comes out of his hole on the Candlemas day
of the old calendar and not of the Pope’s 

and the cattle stand up in their stalls
to honor the birth of the Lord
on the Christmas night of the old
and not of the new calendar. 

The Pope has made his new calendar
that Christ will get confused and not know when
to come for the last judgment, and the Pope
will continue his knavery still longer.

An Italian walnut tree that had
reliably put forth leaves, nuts, and blossoms
on the night before Saint John’s day under
the old regime performed its feat 

on the correct day in fifteen eighty-three.
I have today sent a branch, broken off,
to Herr von Dietrichstein,
who no doubt will show it to the Kaiser.

From The Reform of the Julian Calendar, Roscoe Lamont, 1920.

Falling in love, with a mountain

Anna, the old nurse,
her passion for idiots and corpses,
for wolf-stories;
gets it hot;
shakes chocolate from a tree;
not old at all.

Brunnenmacher (father) mountaineer,
presumably hirsute;
his smile and his blasphemies;
takes author in hand.

Grandfather, maternal,
a feudal monster, always spick-and-span;
excavates in imagination the Akropolis of Athens;
tells Prince Consort how to handle Queen Victoria;
sometimes mistaken for an angel;
dominates his harem;
vicious to the last.

Poets, should avoid towns;
generally born naked.

From the index of Together by Norman Douglas, 1923.

When in France

The sheets on this bed are damp.
The radiator doesn’t work.
I cannot sleep at night, there is so much noise.

I have lost my keys.
I cannot open my case.
It doesn’t work.

Excuse me, sir, that seat is mine.
I cannot find my ticket!
That man is following me everywhere.

There has been an accident!
Someone robbed me.
He has lost consciousness.

I feel sick. The noise is terrible.
I did not know that I had to pay.
I am lost. He is losing blood.

From Collins’ Pocket Interpreters: France, 1937.

the long night

it was raining a little bit all day
kinder drizzly and very damp
airplanes were buzzing overhead
most all the time jes like a lot of hornets
we seed quite a lot of our machinegun
battalion across the road from us
blowed up by the big shells

the woods were all mussed up
and looked as if a terrible cyclone
done swept through them
and all through the long night
those big guns flashed and growled
jes like the lightning and thunder
when it storms in the mountains at home

and oh, my! we had to pass the wounded
and some of them were on stretchers going
back to the dressing stations and some
were lying around moaning and twitching
and oh, my! the dead were all along the road
and their mouths were open and their eyes too
but they couldn’t see nothing no more nohow

i’m atelling you the little log cabin in wolf valley
in old tennessee seemed a long long way off

From Sergeant Alvin C. York’s diary, 7 October 1918.

The legacy of Chuchi-jo

The Kan’ei-ji temple is a quiet pagoda
home to a simple engraved stone.
Here supporters of the emperor
attacked the forces of the last Tokugawa shogun.

Home to a simple engraved stone,
a memorial to the souls.
Attacked the forces of the last Tokugawa shogun
(there are still bullet holes).

A memorial to the souls:
Matsuyama was plagued by guilt
(there are still bullet holes)
crickets and grasshoppers that had been killed.

Matsuyama was plagued by guilt
guilt at having caused the deaths;
crickets and grasshoppers that had been killed,
killed in the production of a scientific text.

Guilt at having caused the deaths.
To console the spirits of the flies
killed in the production of a scientific text,
few visitors stop by.

To console the spirits of the flies.
Here supporters of the emperor…
Few visitors stop by;
the Kan’ei-ji temple is a quiet pagoda.

From the listing for Mushizuka at Kan’ei-ji Temple.