John Gallas has been to Nepal and he's brought back some... Kathmandoodles! His latest collection, 52 Euros, contains the poems of 26 European women and 26 European men from across the ages, 're-poemed' in his own unique way. Scroll down to the bottom to find out how to get a copy with 25% off.
1.Holi : two old men with walking sticks proceed down Yangal Street
How long, O Lord,
along, how bloody long –
for they are Carrying
Colours :
each effort-inch
pre-pokey, tip tip tip,
and then
the heave-ho after,
yellow pink orange red,
and then
the Festival
Within.
2. 40 years late at the Hippie Temple
To get high
I climbed the hot and fifty steps.
Dopey ghosts wobbled
round the stupas.
To get on down,
I took my trainers off.
O bright bare feet,
and young that were !
Trilokya Mohan Narayan :
keep on truckin’.
3.Dead body waiting at the City Ghats by a dried up river
You’re next, Sonny-Jim,
although you’re Not.
White sheet bundle,
purpled lump,
cold stone steps
down to where the water was
when last the river ran.
It’s a long dark wait, mate,
for Stokers and the Family
planks and plates
and the flood
that will not run.
Faith and Patience, man :
Fire will come and then
the long-imagined Freedom
drown it out.
4.A brief and unpleasant appearance by the Living Goddess at the window of Kumari-ghar
Grumpy old bugger
at high window.
She
by his Allowance be
three
minutes
pissed-off
painted
Mortali-
ty :
which doth bugger all for me.
5.Ed’s signature on the wall of the Rum Doodle Restaurant (1953)
From this spot
exactly
beside my
Pot of Tea Large
did Ed set out,
by which he rose into the milky clouds
in a famous steamy way
to the sugary light
than what there is no further.
6.The Dismissive Sick Bird sings in the hills of Nagarkot
The Dismissive sick Bird
goes
BLAAAAARGH
which is
like
really dismissive
and
like
sick.
7.The Sherpa Solution
if a man laden with forty kgs travels mountainously from A to C via B reaching B at midday and C where he delivers his load by evening and then returns unladen via B to A to collect his next load in half a day then at a porterous rate of twenty rupees per kg he will earn eight hundred rupees in a day and a half which is equal to five hundred and thirty three and one third rupees per day
if a man laden with eighty kgs travels similarly mountainously from A to C via B reaching B by the evening of the first day and C where he delivers his load by the evening of the second day and then returns unladen via B to A to collect his next load also in half a day then at a porterous rate of twenty rupees per kg he will earn sixteen hundred rupees in two and a half days which is equal to six hundred and forty rupees per day an improvement of one hundred and six and two thirds rupees per day or to put it heavily twenty percent on the lesserly laden man
8.A brief view of Everest before the clouds came
Look, John, look !
Beyond the Several Ranges and
the Hazy Ridges, west
of all the Weary World –
that’s Everest !
Look, John, look !
Tiny in the still bright air,
past Brevity and Getting On,
past Proof and Pain and –
oh, it’s gone.
9.Eurohippies and Suruwallies at Pokhara
Here be Hippies.
The New Persuasion,
googlechic and tinkletrippy,
promenade beneath the trees,
Faubourg-Finsbury-Nepalese.
10.Saturday decapitations at the Manakamana Temple
The Faithful rise in cable cars
Demurely to the Temple Top,
Where sweet black Billy, Loved of God,
Is murdered on the smoking stairs
To ease the passing of their Prayers.
How goes the picnic if
the blood required
were theirs ?
11.I Heart Elephants
The Elephant has fourteen toes,
8 before
and 6 behind ;
He also knows
Hasidic Law
and How to Make a Roman Blind :
Whilst sprinting in the woods he goes
TARANTA-ROAR !
TARANTA-RIND !
And blows
your
mind.
12.Thunder’s Trunk Trick
Thunder took
my two blue notes
and passed them up
to our Mahout.
And watched me while
with his glad
performer’s eye.
Something I saw
last night before
I went to sleep,
something of Love,
that made me weep.
Words and photographs copyright © John Gallas 2014
John Gallas was born in 1950 in Wellington, New Zealand. He came to England in 1971 to study Old Icelandic at Oxford, and stayed. He worked for many years as a teacher with the Leicestershire Behaviour Support Team. He has published several collections of poetry with Carcanet Press, most recently 52 Euros (2013), and edited the anthology of world poetry The Song Atlas (2002). Swims like a fish, cycles like a windmill.
With every blogpost we offer 25% off a Carcanet title, or titles by a particular author or group of authors.
For the next two weeks, we're giving you 25% off John Gallas's Carcanet books, including 52 Euros and The Song Atlas.
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