C. K. Stead, (New Zealand, 1932)
Por: C. K. Stead
H/oration
The days they run, they run
keeping the score on our faces
Licinius, and Death
with his fluoride teeth
and famous, boring torso
must always win.
We who´ve lived
paying our dues to the sun
on a fruitful isthmus
between two harbours -
what can we offer as bribe
to that dry-eyed skuller
on the darkest river?
What use that we escaped
war, and the worst of weathers?
Soon his sporty Lordship
will beat us to our knees.
The last lips
will have been kissed,
the last race run,
and in our cellars
the best bottles
will belong to another.
Together then
Licinius
let´s practise it bravely -
saying goodbye
and meaning for ever.
C. K. Stead (Christian Karlson Stead) was born in New Zealand in 1932 and is one of his country's most famous writers. He has published 12 books of poetry, nine novels, two collections of short stories, six volumes of literary criticism, among other texts. He has won the New Zealand Book Award on a number of occasions, both for his poetic as for his prose work. He is Professor Emeritus at Auckland University. In 1986 he published a book of essays on Pound, Yeats and Eliot. Poetic work: Whether the Will is Free, 1964; Crossing the Bar, 1972; Quesada, 1975; Walking Westward, 1979; Geographies, 1982; Paris, 1984; Between, 1988; Voices, 1990; y Straw Into Gold: Poems New and Selected, 1997.
