THE DAINTY MONSTERS
Michael
Ondaatje
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The Martinique
From the clarinet’s staggering weave,
the image: Sunday market—
stalls with oranges and old books,
dirty breasts of turnips
splitting skins in a wicker basket.
The music formed from spit filled trombones
is played through barriers of smoked white lights
creating grand irresponsibility in the dancing,
waking the snakes in my head
until the tongues begin to move
like dark lightning,
me sitting in this cool smokeless room.
The trees, like a tattered curtain at my window,
the dresses on the line, filled
with fat dancing duchesses of air,
the deckchairs white, leaning on their elbows,
and sun climbing through leaf and starring window
shaping black liquid on this paper
—all qualified by the music.
And with each change of rhythm
the fruit and flower stalls bustle.
Grey men sit on collapsable tables
legs dangling, eating lunch,
giving change with their mouths full,
until finally the music
stutters to a halt on a drum
leaving silent moving sun on my desk.
Epstein’s Pan
stilled on a poster, tacked to my wall,
with leering cratered eyes
lifts his pipes to lips like a sandwich.
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