– 95 –

The Man Who Went the Other Way Down The Golden Road to Samarkand

It must have been another life,
but I remember I met them oh
somewhere on the road between Qasr-E-Shirin and Chah-i-Surkh.
I trotted backwards with them for a while for company
and wondered at their purpose.

I dozed on the sofa.
My book slipped.
My soul wound out of my mouth
like a white shirt in a breeze

and wished me away.
I asked them:
‘Such a big, bundled, bouncing, bell-banging bunch;
where, pray, have you come from?’

And they answered:
‘From Old Baghdad the Beautiful, Fat Sir.
Upon the spicy, rose-drenched sniff of night
some fortnight since, we saw the Heavens stir,
and left the dim-moon city of delight.’

‘I'm from Darham Muminggen Lianheqi,’ I said.
They bounced along. The dust burned overhead.

– 96 –

We rode through a hole in the world.
Spunky's mane blew like fingers over his eyes.
I tucked in my jubbah round the saddle.
Long, long shadows rippled across the tamarisk scrub,
fandangled with camel-bells.

I sighed in a cushion.
My book fell on the rug.
My round reflection trod water
through the window

and fished me out.
I asked them:
‘To what land, gentlemen, do you so eagerly ride,
with your bazaarable baggage and your soft, sedulous eyes?’

And they said:
‘Hastened forth by budging hope, Fat Friend,
across the blue beyond, the boundless sand,
from wonted hearths towards the unseen end,
we take the Golden Road to Samarkand.’

‘I'm on my way to Zarqa to visit my sister,’ I replied.
The round horizon waited, white and wide.

I tugged at Spunky's bit. Froth chomped from his tombstone teeth
and flew forwards like lace in the braking air.
The caravan began slowly to overtake us,
rolling with more purpose and delights than we were,
contrariwise, and jingled, and bundled, and burned.

– 97 –

I snorted at the paper light.
My book slept
with its wings laid softly flat.
My finger tickled the hairy rug

and twitched me off.
I asked them:
‘Tell me, kind sirs, what lies so chockablock
and bell-behung in all that creaking cargo?’

And they replied:
‘Have we not, Fat Brother, rose-tinct jams,
wigwams, amber clams and cloud-light rice,
pungent spices, turbans, bourbons, hams,
and pekes and peacocks fit for Paradise?’

‘I have a Camel-Turd Fuel-Brick Maker,’ I said.
The lovely land of Zarqa retreated overhead.

They slipped athwart us flat out at the sunset,
which bobbed and bled like a barbecued tomato
about to burst through the trembling muslin of the horizon.
We stopped. Spunky rattled his mane and puffed.
I twisted and turned, unfinished, in the saddle.

I couldn't quite get comfortable.
The tip of my soul, grown and knotted
like a prisoner's escape,
fluttered at the keyhole

and fetched me through.
I asked them:
‘O fast and furiously fading friends;
what fans your fiery purpose to go on?’

– 98 –

And they sang:
‘Perhaps beyond the last, long-dreaming day
there lives a prophet who can understand
why men are born. Farewell, Fat Soul! Away!
We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand!’

And they were gone. ‘Gee up, Spunky,’ I said.
Behind us the bandage of the horizon stained blood-red.

ANZAC Snap

‘The soldier is F. Come (NZ), to be killed

soon after on the crest of Chunuk Bayir.’

Churchill sat in a smoky chair
and watched the London rain:
We'll chase the Turks to Hell, he said,
and chase them back again.

The Beautiful Battalions sailed
under a seething sky:
they landed at Gallipoli,
to do his work and die.

We'll be in Consty-nobble soon
and drinking pink champagne;
and then we'll get our medals, boys,
and sail back home again.

– 99 –

But X was full of dying men,
and Y was full of dead:
and Heaven, boys, was full of shells
that whistled overhead.

O Johnny Turk keeps shooting, boys,
so keep your heads down low:
we'll be in Consty-nobble soon,
cos Churchill tells us so.

I just stood up to see the sea:
It's quiet, boys, I said—
and something whistled through the sky
and hit me in the head.

The farm is still at Paterau,
the sheep graze by the sea:
and men ride up and down the bush
who've never heard of me.

O History is made by men
with nothing else to do:
they watch the rain and have ideas
to try on me and you.

But glory isn't Names and Noise,
it isn't Arms and Men:
it's living out the little life
I'll never live again.