England, (b. 1927)
On A Pig’s Head
- Once it had gorged itself
- to a pitch of succulence, they slew it:
- it was the stare in the eyes
- the butcher hated, and so removed
- with a quick knife,
- transforming the thing
- to a still life, hacked
- and halved, cross-cutting it
- into angles with ears.
- It bled no more,
- though the black pearls
- still lurked on its rawness.
- The ears were streaked with wax,
- the teeth stained near the roots
- like an inveterate smoker’s.
- It was the nose looked freshest–
- a rubbery, soft pink.
- With a spill of paper, I cleaned
- the orifice of each ear,
- and played water into the nostrils.
- The brain was a mere thimble of a brain,
- and the tongue, smaller than a sheep’s
- sliced neatly. The severed ears
- seemed delicate on their plate
- with their maze of veins.
- When we submerged it in brine
- to change it to brawn and galantine,
- it wouldn’t fit the bowls:
- evidently, it had been conceived
- for a more capacious age.
- Divided, it remained massive,
- leaving no room for reflection
- save that peppercorns, cloves
- of garlic, bay-leaves and wine
- would be necessary for its transformation.
- When set to boil, it required
- a rock, a great
- red one
- from Macuilxochitl *
- to keep it down.
About the Poet:
Alfred Charles Tomlinson, England, (b. 1927), is a poet, educator, translator and artist. He is Emeritus Professor of English Poetry at the University of Bristol, England. He is also an artist, and In Black and White: The Graphics of Charles Tomlinson was published in 1976.
Tomlinson’s first book of poetry was published in 1951, and his Collected Poems was published by the Oxford University Press in 1985, followed by the Selected Poems: 1955-1997 in 1997. His poetry has won international recognition and has received many prizes in Europe and the United States He is an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences and of the Modern Language Association. Charles Tomlinson was made a CBE in 2001 for his contribution to literature.
An authoritative translator, Tomlinson has excelled at of poetry from the Russian, Spanish and Italian, including the work of Antonio Machado, Fyodor Tyutchev, César Vallejo and Attilio Bertolucci. He edited the seminal Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation. [DES-01/22]