Two Years at the Road Side

ANTHONY HIRST was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire in 1945. He was educated at Ashville College Harrogate, and Emmanuel College Cambridge, where he studied theology and English. He had a very varied career as library assistant, furniture maker, building contractor, architectural designer and postman, before returning to university in 1992, obtaining an MA in Byzantine Studies and PhD in Modern Greek Literature at King’s College London, after which he was a research fellow at Princeton University and then at Queen’s University Belfast, where he was later a lecturer in Byzantine and Modern Greek. He is course director of the International Byzantine Greek Summer School, now at Trinity College Dublin. He is the author of GOD AND THE POETIC EGO: THE APPROPRIATION OF BIBLICAL AND LITURGICAL LANGUAGE IN THE POETRY OF PALAMAS, SIKELIANOS AND ELYTIS (Peter Lang, 2004); editor and translator of THESE SCATTERED ISLES: ALONNISOS AND THE LESSER NORTHERN SPORADES by Kóstas Mavríkis (Oxford Maritime Research, 2010); and editor of ALEXANDRIA, REAL AND IMAGINED (with Michael Silk, Ashgate Publishing, 2004), THE IONIAN ISLANDS: ASPECTS OF THEIR HISTORY AND CULTURE (with Patrick Sammon, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014). He has re-edited, or “de-edited” as he prefers to say, the Greek text of the main body of Cavafy’s poetry for the Oxford World’s Classics series (C. P. Cavafy, THE COLLECTED POEMS, Oxford University Press, 2007). He has published many articles on modern Greek literature (especially the poetry of Cavafy). He has three children and six grandchildren and in recent years has lived between Stoke Newington in northeast London and an old farmhouse in Sud Tourraine. His previous volumes of poetry are MEMORIALS, NIGHTSCAPES, ETCETERA: POEMS OF SEVERAL DECADES (Colenso Books, 2020) and FLORA AND FAUNA (HOMINIDS INCLUDED) (The Delos Press, 2021).

• CONTENTSIntroductionviiiHim and me3Lost consonants3Where three roads meet5Lost butterfly7Linked-verse meditations on the13th of May 20218speaking of the dead10Diptych (23rd of June 2021)11The Narrow Road14Water moths16Fehim and his villages (remembering Turkey,Autumn 1968)19Strange question, inconclusive answer21To die of cancer on the 28th of August 1950 (7th of September 2021)22Another day24A Roman house24So it was you (6th of October 2021)25Overloading26Two-moon Junction (Luton Airport Parkway)26Shellfish27Autumn Hill Reservation, Princeton, New Jersey28“Tonight at Ten . . . the worst drought in years” (3rd of December 2021)28Frozen January 30Ще не вмерла України SOME TANGENTIAL THOUGHTSON A “SPECIAL MILITARY OCCUPATION”Poem for Zaporizhzhia Day (4th of March 2022)31The contents of a room (27th of March 2022)32Royal appointees (16th of April 2022)34“a host, of golden daffodils” (16th of April 2022)34Bird scarers (27th of April 2022)36No pathetic bunker suicide for you (2nd of May 2022)37———— o ————Seeing eye-to-eye39The sound of silence40“Lived by the It”41Glimpses of my father42Road sense44God in his Gardens46This New Testament of ours48It’s all just chicken shit (and eight other titles)50Gone with the Wind51Wasp sting51A long unfinished sentence (16th of July 2022)52Late pick-up at the station (26th of August 2022)54England, England über Alles (10th of September 2022)54No mellow fruitfulness56A split quatrain in blank verse (26th of January 2023)56A Vote of Tanks (26th of January 2023)57At sixes and sevens — thoughts on some of thisweek’s news (27th of January 2023)58Youthanasia (4th of February 2023)60The grinding of tectonic plates (10th of February 2023)62The Owl and her poor Pussycats (poem for a BraverMan than I) (2nd of May 2023)63That Owl again (26th of May 2023) 64“Secret Knowledge — Stradivarius and me” (6th ofJune 2023)68Hellenic Train (12th of June 2023)70Prehistoric spacemen72Alcohol-free73Titanic idiocy (21st of June 2023)74Fish tanka (4th of September 2023)76Incomplete scenario, August 197178The end of summer (7th of September 2023)79Nomenclature (13th of September 2023)803 in 181The bees’ needs (25th of September 2023)82Reflections on a funeral from afar (27th of September 2023)83Brief exchange with Mr T. S. Eliot OM85Alternating currents (29th of September 2023)86Direct current (29th of September 2023)87Gradual ascent to wisdom88Being and having89What does AI mean?89Reborn, rechristened, 196490Top-heavy international sonnet (30th of September 2023)92Oligarchy, or Plutocracy (call it what you will, it’shere, it kills)92Too many voices heard in Rama (10th of October 2023)93The Judgement of God94Policing the World (11th of October 2023)95No holds barred (12th of October 2023)96You have been warned (13th–16th of October 2023)97A PERSONAL EPILOGUEThe time will come101for the love of trees (an epitaph)103APPENDIXWords worth and words not worth so much107Index of titles and first lines118