hachete's Journal: Eliot

In a corner of a dim carraige
Eliot is serene. Edinburgh. Glasgow.
His tweed turn-ups jut over hand-lasted.
A Captain, RA, coughs. "Didn't I see you
at the Kit Kat?" Eliot elegantly declines, turns
to his notes. The captain coughs again. "Norway."

Swansea, University College Wales. London,
the British Norwegian Institute.
In the corridor, kitbags are stacked and .303s clatter.
A Capstan is lit - "Oi vey!", "Watch it me ol'China!" -
it flares in the darkness, a Sergeant curses.
Eliot standing on a sand spit, braced by Hanseatic gales,
grasping Goethe, ignoring the fast tide gripping his feet.

Donne, Vaughn, Traherne, South Wales Borderers
doing their bit as darkness swirls and Dutch fields
double dug with famined hands. Herbert, Cranshaw.
Eliot, sleek and mannered, cements his thin red line

and smooths the page, it's Royal Vellum dazzles.
Eliot at cocktails denying Blaestein, who will fall at the wire.
London. Minnesota. Eliot picking his way between Army boots
and civilian bodies. The lights go out. We harvest weevils.

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