TROPHY

I knew from the first
That you had trouble with words.
It was what I expected from a pigling.
When you saw the lion you squeaked
Or squealed. It was enough.
I understood.
You had no wish to be diminished.
You skipped across the desert and it was
Once more a streak of sunset on the Nile.
What saved you this time? Maybe a stray sheep,
Lions preferring mutton to pork chops
Any day of the week, or so I’m told.

Later I picked up the horny skull
Of some old sheep,
Killed by your lion or wasted by disease?
Was this a trophy, Piggles,
Or an atrophy?

THE NIP

You were lucky not to have snuffed it
Earlier.
The way your Mum kept sitting on your head.
Was there no creep to keep you
Safe from those clumsy, mumsy hindquarters?
But she’s dead now. Her hams are dead and eaten.
Mostly.
I might observe, Piggles,
Death seems to run in your family,
Gallop even.
Then there’s that torn ear,
You don’t, I hope, mind me going on about it,
Now that both you and Mummy are so dead.
A mother should not nip her little-ones.
A mother is for nipples not for nips
And those peevish pigs’ teeth
Might have settled your hash,
cooked your goose, made mincemeat of you.
As Adulf said, das ist ein Sauerei!
Jawohl, Adulf, mein Freund!

SAINT BOTULF

Adulf, a saint, bless him! came along.
Sieg heil, Adulf! He did not smile.
Darf ich vorstellen brother Botulf,
My brother, brother,
And by my brother, I really mean
My brother, not just any old brother, brother.
Some name him brother Botolph, others brother Botulf
A saint may choose, mein Freund, out from UK.
More English than the English, these days.
Done the Nile, done the pyramids,
He wanted not to miss
Tony and his telamons

Ach, wo! but who’s this little swine?
I introduced you to them.
O what a tight, rubbery ball of joy!
You wobbled on perfect, pink,
Allthewayuptoyourbelly, trotters.
Plumper
Than ever you were before,
Your piggy eyes bright as a squashed glow worm,
Bright as a Pembroke scholar,
And the torn pig’s ear where your mother nipped you
Smiled in welcome.

I say! Really! Gosh! What a jolly nice pig!
Botulf swayed on his English legs and swooned.
You were just too pink and precious,
Just too elegant and Nubian,
Meeting you was
Just too much.

THE TENDER SPOT

On your pink back you lay,
Winded, your trotters to the heaven’s four winds,
One, one might say, to each one.
I tickled you and found
Your tender spot.
Struck by lightning, struck by lightning!
Hobbitquoting Sim,
Panbashed and panicked,
Was shown the cave door.
I wished him high jinks, the tall telamons
Watched him limp stylewards without waving.
He turned painfully,
Pig! he shouted.
Pet I said
And pet I meant!
I said.
Returning, I caressed your tender spot.

SIM

It was all for a piece of you
(One has to make allowances I guess
For saints who spend a lifetime up the pole)
That poor old Sim, no words now only teeth
And flashing limbs and eyes and slabbering lips,
Chivyed you round our cave.
How you could run! You really whipped along.
Your pretty trotters swift as swallows’ wings.
You streaked more pink than sunset on the Nile.
Seeing the horror in his naked legs
And his intention in the kitchen knife.
Run Piggles run, I cried. You heard. You did!
I felt your bounced and wobbled anguish.
What saved you? Mayhap my big shiny frying-pan
With which I struck out at his matted hair
Lap after lap, and raised the yellow dust.


Months later, with that self-same kitchen knife
Raised by this arm, if only there had been
Some saint to thwack my dread locks with the pan,
But you are dead and eaten,
Most of you.

VISIT

Simeon, my pal, a saint, bless him!,
Pillar of society, a stylite,
Down for a few days,
Dropped in to see me with eyes only for you,
And could not wrest them from your plumping cheeks,
Salivating, feeling sorry for himself,
Off the style and on the agony,
His words came swimming
Along the grand canal of his oesophagous,
Skating across his tongue,
Leaping over his teeth.
I had to duck to dodge them:
It’s tough, friend, at the top,
High-life, low self-esteem.
Not much that one can say for Dair Sem’an:
Although perhaps a tad more fun than Slough
Or Merseyside.
These days my basket comes up empty as
A kosher pork-butcher’s on Saturdays,
And if not empty comes up locusts,
One kind or the hopping other.
For twenty years no crumpet and no crackling,
And not so much as smell a bacon-rind
Or dock-pudding.
And babbling thus, enough to try a saint,
He bores right through me till the third day dawned
When guests like fish, they say, begin to stink,
And I hand him a broom to sweep the cave,
A kitchen knife to peel his breakfast carob.
Christ Jesus, Tony! surely there must be
Some small advantages to being Christian
And I spy one starts with the letter π
π for pigling?, brother Simeon, π for pet?
π for pork, brother Antony, π for pork,
And, teeth flashing as the deft words skipped over,
But brother, why not pork for pie?

TELAMONES (2)

The best thing since sliced bacon,
You, I thought, and not one to compete
With saint or poet, not one to object
To fags or alcohol.
I took you down with me to Ali’s bar
To meet the Desert Fathers, all saints, bless them!
(O Ali, take away these yellow beers.
They’re much too yellow, Have you nothing browner?)
Yes, pigs can not be saints
Or poets. That would be,
Oxymoronic, an absurdity,
Like jolly Yorkshiremen or telamons,
Or telamones, playing Rugby League,
Though if they could
They’d have the best front row for miles around.
(A bacon-sandwich would be just the thing
And, Ali, dont forget the HP sauce.)
At least you won’t be writing any poems
About my telamons or anything.
That’s just as well.
I thought.
One poet in a household is enough.