Tuesday, August 5, 2008

thirteen ways of looking at a durian

(or, responses to happenings horrific and thankfully past; with profound apologies to Wallace Stevens, and with reference to the great durian incident of 29 July.)

I
Among twenty bags of shopping
The only spiny thing
Was the shell of the durian.

II
I was of three minds
Like a tree
On which there are three durians.

III
The durian stank in the summer winds.
It was a great part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a durian
Are shunned.

V
I do not know which to detest,
The stench of great urgency
Or the stench of persistence,
The durian present
Or just after.

VI
Durians filled the long alley
With barbaric gas.
The shadow of the culprit
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O (wo)men of Ruddock,
Why do you imagine faulty pipes?¹
Do you not see how the durian
Reeks throughout the air
Of the alley around you?

VIII
I know ignoble scents
And rancid, indescribable vapours;
But I know, too,
That the durian is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the durian was cut at night,
It marked the edge
Of one of many odours.

X
At the stink of durians
Cut open in dead night
Even the birds of carriony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He came from Connecticut²
In a motor coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The vapours of his durian
For gas-leaks.

XII
The durian is reeking.
The gas-pipes must be leaking.

XIII
It was threatening all afternoon.
It was rotting
And it was going to rot.
The durian sat
In the garbage-bins.

¹ It was commonly assumed that the delightful scent of the durian had been caused by a gas leak.
² By happy coincidence, the perpetrator of this little débacle is from Connecticut.

Labels: bad kedron, durians: they don't smell good, in which there is fruit, in which there is overuse of labels, poetry