Yorkshire is covered with water
Row thy boat throughout the veinlets
Through the joints, both forth and backwards,
Through the broken bones, O steer thou,
And throughout the joints when broken.
(From Kalevala, Runo XV)
Hammer [Groucho]: It’s deep water, that’s why a duck. It’s deep water.
(From The Cocoanuts, 1929)
I
Sleety snow.
I was jogging round Metviken.
Near the diesel engine factory they came:
two drunks staggering
slanting across the road,
suddenly overcome
with rage:
fucking dog fuck you fucking fucking dog
When moving through falling snow
in a wet wrapping
sludge of snow
. . .
sticky snow
You get it inside
the house no matter how you
try to wipe those
shoes the rugs become like
watered horses
(The tables here are the upturned hooves
of ruined equestrian statues)
II
What is it that you want? To go on breathing?
. . .
Always a lot of blather
about stories Stories.
but life is
a different flow.
The old Heraclitean one,
the same but always new.
What was it Marcus Aurelius wrote about Heraclitus?
Heraclitus often told us the world would end in fire.
But it was moisture that carried him off; he died
smeared with cowshit.
I’ll give you a story.
THE FULL TEXT OF RALF'S 'STORY' IS AVAILABLE IN THE INTERLAND ANTHOLOGY 'SIX STEPS UNDER WATER' PLEASE CLICK ON THE BOOK TO BUY
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