Two Poems by Evan Jones

A Sad Sort of Song for Zeno of Elea

He argued: there is a world, there is no void,
all of nature rose from heat and from cold.
Dance sadness, dance weakness, dance all that’s grown old.

He argued: every tyrant is a terrible tyrant
with his teeth in their flesh and their arguments.
Chide smugness, chide shyness, bring down arrogance.

He argued: humans are creatures of earth
and the soul, dry and damp – an admixture of both.
Hold pity, hold tempers, a war ends an oath.

Dance sadness, dance weakness, dance all that’s grown old.
Chide smugness, chide shyness, bring down arrogance.
Hold pity, hold tempers, a war ends an oath.

‘Mucius thrust his right hand into the flame’

That should have been our life.
Hotel rooms in Paris and Dresden, a borrowed
space in Athens or Istanbul. Something
of the poetry we read about in novels.
We want to say a decision was made
to turn against it all. But where was it
made and when? We loved the museum
spaces and the old masters, the self-portraits
as too-pale David. There was nothing
that was not seen and seen to.
The city streets, the rambling hours,
the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. Mucius
thrusts his right hand into the flame.
There is no decision, there is no turn,
the hand is burned. The house,
the mortgage, the children running
through the Flohmarkt am Mauerpark
or shouting over breakfast in West
Didsbury. I can’t tell them what is coming.

Canadian poet Evan Jones has lived in Manchester since 2005. His most recent poetry collection is Later Emperors (Carcanet, 2020). His translation from the Greek of C.P. Cavafy, The Barbarians Arrive Today (Carcanet, 2020), was a TLS Book of the Year.