British, (1925-2003)
Pigs
(four ways of looking at)
- To Westacre Belle and Prestatyn Lucy
- Scrubbed pink
- They look the most naked of animals,
- Except for the coarse hair,
- Almost colorless and seen close to.
- With ears like awnings over their small eyes,
- They root with their blunt and specially
- Gristled noses, their legs almost
- Ridiculously delicate
- For all that warmth and fertility.
- Twelve or thirteen a time, is it?
- She grunts to let them know they can feed.
- Few are allowed to reach full size:
- Boiled down they make excellent lard.
- The delicate coloring
- And firmness of line
- Remind one
- Of a water color by Dürer.
- As St. John and Socrates
- Were at pains to point out:
- Nature is always
- Imitating art.
- Domesticated since neolithic times
- They are still indifferent to man.
- Clumsy, sometimes bad tempered,
- They can crack a leg by rolling on it
- Or smother a litter. And those jaws,
- Like clapper boards, that open as if
- The face was falling apart,
- Can make short work of a piglet
- Or an arm.
- In Chinese ideography,
- A roof with a pig under it
- Means home.
© John Cotton
Old Movies and Other Poems. London, Hogarth Press,1971. Distributed in US by Wesleyan University Press.
Old Movies and Other Poems. London, Hogarth Press,1971. Distributed in US by Wesleyan University Press.
About the Poet
John Cotton (1925-2003), British poet. was the editor and printer of the poetry magazine Priapus (1967-1990) which he co-founded with poet and short-story writer Ted Walker. He has published several collections of poetry. [DES-9/06]