Collected Poems Anthony Burgess (best pdf reader for ebooks txt) 📖

safe on shore,

Noah planted vines and fondly watched them sprout,

And when he saw the luscious grapes fill out

(One bunch weighed ten or twenty pounds, or more),

He crushed the juice in ferment, let it pour

Down the red lane, and gave a toper’s shout:

‘It’s good, it’s fucking good!’ His drunken bout

First made him high and, after, hit the floor.

That was strong stuff, he was not used to it.

Like all us drunkards, snoring at the sun,

He lay as flat as a five-lira bit.

But – shame – our patriarch had no breeches on

And – but I’d better quote you Holy Writ –

‘Displayed his balls and prick to everyone.’

21. THE AGE OF MAN

If it is true, as the priests say it is,

That every ancient patriarch and prophet

Took a long time for old age to kill off (it

Was, in some cases, nine damned centuries),

They must have been damned short of maladies –

No stone, hard chancre, or bronchitic cough. It

Could be they postponed their trip to Tophet

With secrets still unsold in pharmacies.

Such agelessness would wreck our modern age.

That lad, see, fifty years in his high chair,

A hundred more at school, would choke with rage

(Himself a dad now, in or out of matrimony)

Waiting for dad to die and bless his heir,

Trying to run up bills against his patrimony.

22. THE TOWER

‘We’d like to touch the stars’, they cried, and, after,

‘We’ve got to touch the stars. But how?’ An able-

Brained bastard told them: ‘Build the Tower of Babel.

Start now, get moving. Dig holes, sink a shaft. A-

Rise, arouse, raise rafter after rafter,

Get bricks, sand, limestone, scaffolding and cable.

I’m clerk of works, fetch me a chair and table.’

God meanwhile well-nigh pissed himself with laughter.

They’d just got level with the Pope’s top floor

When something in their mouths began to give:

They couldn’t talk Italian any more.

The project died in this linguistic slaughter.

Thus, if a man said: ‘Pass us that there sieve,’

His mate would hand him up a pail of water.

23. ABRAHAM’S SACRIFICE (1)

The Bible, sometimes called the Jewish Chronicle,

Says, midway between Noah’s and Aaron’s ark,

That Abraham played the grand old patriarch

And sacrificed to God, with fine parsonical

Language that all that blood made sound ironical.

He took a donkey from the donkey-park

(Chewing up chicory and grass in stark

Lordly disdain, as if it wore a monocle)

And called to Isaac: ‘Pack the bags and load

This donkey, get the boy to bring a nice

Sharp axe, then kiss your mother on the cheek.

Bring coats and hats, we’re going to take the road.

The blessed Lord requires a sacrifice.

The time has come to teach you the technique.’

24. ABRAHAM’S SACRIFICE (2)

They ate, while day was cooking in the east,

Some breakfast. When their journey had begun,

Abraham led them in an orison

That lasted for a hundred miles at least.

Then the old swine or, if you wish, old priest

Said: ‘We’ve arrived. Shoulder that burden, son.

And as for you – ’ (meaning the other one)

‘ – Wait here. You toom,’ he told his fellow-beast.

They started climbing. Halfway through their climb,

Isaac said: ‘Where’s your victim wandered to?’

‘Wait’, said his father. ‘All in God’s good time.’

They reached the top, where knife-edged breezes blew,

And Abraham said: ‘A victim, yes. Well, I’m

The priest, son, and there’s only me and you.’

25. ABRAHAM’S SACRIFICE (3)

‘No, no!’ The boy knelt in his innocence

– The right position for that butcher-dad

Who raised his axe above the hapless lad,

Ready to do paternal violence.

‘Stop!’ cried a voice. ‘I think we can dispense

With filicide.’ An angel. ‘You’ve just had

A Godsent test, and passed it, I might add.

Baaaah – here’s a sheep. Quite a coincidence.’

To cut it short (I’m sick of the damned story),

The sheep was slain, and all the four went home,

The ass to pasture, Isaac to his mother.

As for the slab he nearly made all gory.

It’s a prized relic, hidden safe in Rome,

At Borgo-novo, or some place or other.

26. JOSEPH THE JEW (1)

Some merchants, so it’s said, near signed the pledge and

Gave up the drink when they heard something odd:

A yell deep in a well. ‘A child, by God,’

One said, sticking his chin over the edge and

Peering. They hired a dredger then to dredge and

He dredged up, dripping like a landed cod,

Howling like hell, a stinking clayey clod,

Joseph the Jew, so goes the ancient legend.

They dried him, cleaned him, gave him fodder and

Bought him a shirt against the inclement weather,

But didn’t want to bring him up by hand.

Seeking returns on what they’d clubbed together

They sold him off in Egypt, contraband,

For a few rags and half a trank of leather.

27. JOSEPH THE JEW (2)

Joseph grew up. When he was fully grown,

The lady that he worked for cast him looks

Whose drift he thought he’d read about in books,

Sighing, trying to get him on his own.

She ogled him with many a meaning moan,

Carefully careless with her eyes and hooks.

Her hunger could not be assuaged by cooks,

Only by some raw mutton with no bone.

One morning, bringing the hot water to her,

He found her naked, the sweet buxom slut,

So damped her with the contents of the ewer.

She grabbed him by his single garment but

He left it with her, naked but still pure,

And ran away, the bloody idiot.

28. LOT AT HOME

Two strangers, both with staffs, but one a bit

Lame from the journey, weary but still wary.

Arrived at the holy hour of the Hail Mary

(I love anachronising Holy Writ)

Looking for lodgings. Lot, who had just lit

His window lamp, saw them, called them and said: ‘You’re very

Welcome here.’ They smiled: ‘Ah, a good fairy.

Such kindness. You’ll be amply paid for it.’

These two were angels. The buggers of Gomorrah,

Hearing of their arrival, knew it not,

Else all their hair would have stood up in horror.

Their pricks stood up instead. They yelled out: ‘You

Selfish unsodomite, let’s have them, Lot.

You don’t require their arses, and we do.’

29. LOT’S WIFE

The angels now announced themselves to Lot

And said ‘This town must suffer for its fault.

No rooftop, cavern, hole or nether vault

Will hide them when the flames leap high and hot.

You and your family leave now. Do not halt

And look back down Longara Road. Do not,

We say again.’ But hardly had they got

Away