Poeta Doctus

While I was trying to imagine a set list for my last reading, I had thought to perform poems that, though written in the early 90s, spoke to today’s world situation. One of these would surely have been the following poem, “Hamburger Smalltalk”, composed in 1991 and later collected in Grand Gnostic Central and other poems.

One of the stops during my first visit to Europe was Hamburg, Germany, where we stayed a few days with a couple, friends of my partner at the time. One was widely travelled and had lived some time in Africa. During a very pleasant, evening walk, with our respective partners and the dog, he related the anecdote the poem retells. Accordingly, the poem is spoken in his voice, complete with Germanisms of syntax and expression.

Hamburger Smalltalk

You’ve seen a picture of a cheetah

on a gazelle:  its teeth in its neck

bent back, its leg

around the gazelle’s hind leg

to break its back.

Cheetahs are a serious nuisance

for farmers in southwest Africa.  Lions

and other cats kill what they need

and leave something

for the jackals and vultures.

A cheetah goes into blood-frenzies—

if you have a herd of sheep

in the morning you’ll find forty

torn apart and maybe seven lambs

carried off.

The farmers know their herds

they watch and know which cows are ready

to calve and if a calf goes missing

they mark the mother

and send her next to the abattoir.

Now you’ll see five cows gang up

on a cheetah to protect the calves

and drive it off.

(He shook his head and chuckled)

The white tribe of Africa.