Downing a Dawned Horse

another slight edit to tighten up

When’s the last time you happened upon a quagga 

grazing the coppery shade of Walvis Bay? 

You’d be surprised, I ventured -- indeed son 

indeed. Down a pawn, rooked. The old horse 

snickered. One of his little jokes, test to see 

had the seed burgeoned, could I still parse 

a riddle to its involutional core? 

Picking through the mixed greens, duck confit

with rosemary potatoes, he let me stew 

the lexical soup of old haunts -- curious I imagine 

to know which incantations I’d cast to bake 

a meaning into his cornish query? 

About halfway through our apres malt 

I bolted an arrow through the old bull’s 

eye -- Namibia! The old scow seared to the waterline.  

Indeed son, indeed. Up a pawn, rooked, the old man cackled.

Ken e Bujold

Reviews

[W. Barrett Munn]

Quite an interesting choice unless you have been there. Namibia and Walvis Bay and an extinct zebra woven into a chess lesson. Ashbery would be smiling.

Winston

[Ken e Bujold]

i have been to Namibia. Walvis is a beautiful place. But the genesis of this poem was simply wanting to use the great word quagga (for a long time, but not exactly one that comes up in conversation.) coincidently, the title also refers to extinct horse> a dawn horse is term used for horse earliest kin

[Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn..]

Ken,

I found this piece to be a most captivating panoramic read that is absolutely enjoyable ...

Marve

[Ken e Bujold]

Thanks Marve. Decided to dial into my Ashbery for a bit, have a little fun with words and poetic play. This all came about from the lovely word quagga and my wanting to use it for sometime now. Glad you enjoyed the romp

ken