“The Anabasis of Godspeed” is excerpted from a forthcoming book-length poem, Faculty of Directions. A memorial to the expertise of West Indian troopers serving in British regiments throughout World Conflict I, the poem can also be the narrative of Godspeed, a younger boy residing in rural Jamaica within the Nineteen Nineties.
Bivouacking the night time at PELUSIUM. Some nights from his gap at BARRACKS LANE
because the sugar manufacturing unit purred to sleep and the canes curled their tails like fields of kittens Godspeed polished the moon to see higher Rosalie’s face and proceeded to ROMANI within the morning. Moved to MAGDHABA by rail. And a couple of platoons shaped escort to prisoners of struggle passing by way of the immemorial shade of the staffroom after the profitable motion at RAFA.
Then males proceeded to TAHPANHES the place weeping was ceaseless.
Proceeded by way of the reeds and hawks of UPPER EGYPT to the tamarisks
and hornets of LOWER EGYPT and from there to JERUSALEM the place No. 9265 Pte. J. Floras “A” boy died from dysentery. Within the Quaker chapel alone Godspeed seemed on the white angels and the luxe hair Christ painted above the baptismal pool. He considered the nub of magnet like a single black eye nonetheless whirling on the stalled fan.
The battalion halted the next night time at SUFAIR-ES-SHARKIYEH. A
pillar of fireside some noticed when the celebs went out. Godspeed trembled to the riddim just like the curtains of MIDIAN trembling to the wind.
