Names of the Hare
after
Seamus Heaney's translation from the Middle English
a man met his left
leg
all is not right
a man met his right
leg
all is still not
right
unless he descend
from the ground
what he holds in his
hands
what he blesses with
arms
how he forgets peace
but let’s interupt
our story to speak
the names of rabbits
scum-from-shed
pus-gravel
beat-the-child
donkey-pot
weight-loser
narrow arrow
home-late
sky-daddy
wife-of-hate
blue-eyes
eyes-of-wall
hedge-hidden
stayabed
coupon-colour
fakebreath
twitterbark
race-monkey
unusual-ear
double-pill
air-pollution
turbo-nose
Olympic-bid
blood-hashtag
Herb Alpert
I look forward to
you
shake-in-heart
lambs-are-flying
gum-sucker
awesome-Pete
make-believe
salmonsnack
man who cares for
the fear of all
one who is afraid to
call it
all this happened
and you can go a
long way
to the east
to the west
to the south to the
north
wherever you are
willing to go
and now, man meeting
his legs upon the green
a wonderful day to
you
I come to my
deceased family
like springtime
Gary Barwin is a writer, musician and multimedia
artist from Hamilton. His bestselling novel, Yiddish for Pirates won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, and the Hamilton Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award. His latest book is No TV for Woodpeckers. His latest chapbooks are the visual works, Broken Light (Penteract Press, 2017), Quantum Typography (Timglaset Editions, 2018) and the collaborative poetry sequences, gravitynipplemilk anthroposcenesters (with Tom Prime; above/ground press, 2018) and PLEASURE BRISTLES (with Alice Burdick; above/ground press, 2018.) Barwin is currently Writer-in-Residence at McMaster University and the Hamilton Public Library.
____________
The Names of the
Hare, translated by Seamus Heaney
http://bourguignomicon.blogspot.ca/2010/08/names-of-hare-anonymous-middle-english.html
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