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Keith Douglas’s “Christodoulos” Christodoulos moves, and shakeshis seven chins. He is that freaka successful alchemist, and makesGod knows how much a week. Out of Christodoulosʼ attic,full of smoke and smells, emergesoldiers like ants, with antsʼ erraticgestures seek the pavementʼs verge; weak as wounded, leaning in a knotshout in the streets for an enemy —the dross of Christodoulosʼ potor wastage from his alchemy. They flow everywhere; by swarthy portalsentering the crucibles of othersand the lesser sagesʼ mortars:but Christodoulos is the father of all, heʼs the original wise onefrom whose experiments they toldhow War can be the

Keith Douglas’s “Egypt” Egypt Aniseed has a sinful taste;at your elbow a woman’s voicelike I imagine the voice of ghosts,demanding food. She has no grace but, diseased and blind of an eyeand heavy with habitual dolourlistlessly finds you and Iand the table, are the same colour. The music, the harsh talk, the fineclash of the drinkseller’s trayare the same to her as her own whine,she knows no variety. And in fifteen years of livingfound nothing different from deathbut the difference of movingand the nuisance of breath. A disguise of ordure can’t hideher beauty, succumbing in