HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOUR
Auden & Isherwood
strolling in China
trying to soak up
The War
by the process of
osmosis
staining it
with words
observe
(at first what seems)
green horses
but turns out to be
only white horses
painted green
for camouflage purposes.
that evening in Canton
also offering them
the futility of two men
trying to
put a rat
into a bottle
a woman who lived
in a beehive
pouring water into a sieve
War knocks
over the inkwell
spills into men’s lives
covers
the white pages
of their wishes
makes the idea
of Hell
all too real
the spilt ink
eating
the words of men
who send letters home
and die in pain
never to return
only in others' memories
& useless dreams
marble memorials
while green horses
champ the grasses
the bridles & the bits
clanking & glinting
in the hot sun
of Now
as this last lost
evening
dies
*
Sonnets from China was originally published in a considerably different form as “In Time of War.” “In Time of War” was a sonnet sequence included in Journey to a War (December 1938), a book by Auden and Christopher Isherwood that included a travel diary, photos, and a long poetic commentary.
Here is one of Auden's magnificent sonnets from that journey...
HERE WAR IS SIMPLE
Here war is simple like a monument:
A telephone is speaking to a man;
Flags on a map assert that troops were sent;
A boy brings milk in bowls. There is a plan
For living men in terror of their lives,
Who thirst at nine who were to thirst at noon,
And can be lost and are, and miss their wives,
And, unlike an idea, can die too soon.
But ideas can be true although men die,
And we can watch a thousand faces
Made active by one lie:
And maps can really point to places
Where life is evil now:
Nanking. Dachau.