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ARTS AND CULTURE

In the ring with Stevens and Hemingway

  • 01 March 2016
    Wallace Stevens and Ernest Hemingway meet the Marquis of Queensberry at Key West in 1936   The old hoar has come in from the sea, While the Insurance man is fingerly sipping tea.              Poor old Oscar Learned the rules of boxing,            And so must we.   The teacher was called Kid Young, Might have been a tent man        For all I know. No one I knew had a name like that. We went into his rope-squared ring, To be learning to look after yourself was the real thing.   Rounds and counts, jabs and feints        Glass jaws and upper-cuts,    Southpaws and the rest.        It was a new word-world.    Yet more colonial drill        And blood should spill.   Meanwhile there was order by the key,        Water was washing,    Banter and barter in brief bargain,                Then a jab to the jaw,                        fishbone cry, a hand cracks,                        skinless words.   Suddenly it's all so clear        like the glove's leather thwack You had to learn boxing            to watch boxing Because it was good for you,            just as grandmother's Castor oil was.            It's all stomach boy.       In praise of sheep (Lambs' fry and bacon)   In the morning you can see them huddled under the trees, Mist nosing the new air. There are many who think that sheep Are foolish, stupid, brainless, As they leap hurdles that are not there, Butt and buffet airy nothing As they skip and shuffle, bleat and snuffle, Drop dung without discretion.   I think sheep are underrated, And when I can taste the offal feast Of kidneys, brains and liver — Tripe fails my digestive tract The one-legged chef at school saw to that —   And when I know that my jacket is pure wool, I can never be the fool That thinks sheep are silly beasts.   Sacrificial lambs have more than paid their dues, And may god forever nourish the flock with rams and ewes.       Fifty-second wedding anniversary in the emergency department of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham   Occasions conspire, words perspire, There is so much to say to fill the day Birthdays, anniversaries and a reigning monarch's records-fray.   Of course, soon the corgis will be whooping and skipping Celebrating Mummy's day of many days Days beyond the statuesque shape of Victoria's longing.   Playtime in the Palace yard, knuckle-bones, Meaty-bites and gold-plated scraps, The banquets always are burnished with imperial tastes.   Gloria Lilibet! Lilibet vivat!   We sat
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