Hell Creek Anthology (J.T. Welsch & Dominic Evans)

Publicado por Sidekick Books en 2015, "Hell Creek Anthology" es un libro de poemas del escritor estadounidense J.T. Welsch con ilustraciones del británico Dominic Evans. Se divide en veintiséis capítulos basados en la obra "Spoon River Anthology" de Edgar Lee Masters, que narraba en verso lo que ponían los diferentes epitafios de los residentes de la pequeña localidad ficticia de Spoon River. De esta forma, Welsch recopila los epitafios de la comunidad que vivía en Hell Creek (Montana, Estados Unidos), incluyendo al Tyrannosaurus rex, el juez Ankylosaurus o el convicto Dromaeosaurus albertensis. A continuación dejamos una muestra de lo que se puede encontrar en sus páginas, todo ello acompañado de las ilustraciones de Evans:

Paronychodon explanatus

Your attention, Tyrannosaurus rex, president of the hoard;

Ugrosaurus, editor of the Argus;

Lambeosaurus, pastor of the leading church;

Albertosaurus, several times Mayor of Hell Creek;

And finally, all of you, members of the Social Purity Club—

Your attention to Baryonyx’s dying roar,

Standing with the heroic remnant

Of Eotyrannus’s guard on Mont Barremian

At the battle field of Wessex,

When Rhabdodon, the Ornithopod, called to them:

“Surrender, brave Theropods!”—

There at close of day, with the battle hopelessly lost,

And pack of bulls no longer the army

Of the great Eotyrannus

Streamed from the field like ragged strips

Of thunder clouds in the storm.

Well, what Baryonyx roared to Rhabdodon

Ere the Ornithopod fury made smooth the brow of the hill

Against the sinking light of day

Roar I to you, and all of you,

And to you, O planet.

And I charge you to scratch it

Upon my stone.

Triceratops maximus

Together in this grave lie Triceratops maximus, attorney at law,

And Nyx, his turtle, constant companion, solace and friend.

Down the gray path, friends, offspring, bulls and cows,

Passing one by one out of life, left me till I was alone

With Nyx for partner, bed-fellow, comrade in root gnawing.

In the morning of life, I knew aspiration and saw glory.

Then she, who survives me, gored my soul

With a horn which bled me to death,

Till I, once strong of will, lay broken, indifferent,

Living with Nyx in the back of a dingy cave.

Under my jaw-bone is snuggled the bony nose of Nyx—

Our story is lost in silence. Go by, mad planet!

Triceratops horridus

I know he told you I gored his soul

With a horn which bled him to death.

And all the bulls loved him,

And most of the cows pitied him.

But suppose you are really a lady, and have delicate tastes,

And loathe the smell of rot-barberry and moss.

And the rhythm of Roarsworth’s “Ode” runs in your earholes,

While he goes about from morning till night

Repeating bits of that common thing:

“Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud…”

And then, suppose:

You are a cow well-endowed,

And the only bull with whom the law and morality

Permit you to have the marital relation

Is the very bull that fills you with disgust

Every time you think of it—while you think of it

Every time you see him?

That’s why I drove him away from home

To live with his turtle in a dingy cave.

Thescelosaurus neglectus

Where is my male juvenile—

In what far part of the planet?

The juvenile I loved best of all in school?—

I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin head,

Who made them all my offspring.

Did I know my young bull aright,

Thinking of him as spirit aflame,

Warm-blooded, ever aspiring?

Oh, young bull, for whom I prayed and prayed

In many a watchful moment at night,

Do you remember my stomp signals

On the beautiful love of Dionysus?

And whether you ever took it or not,

My bull, wherever you are,

Work for your soul’s sake,

That all the clay of you, all of the dross of you,

May yield to the lava of you,

Till that lava is nothing but light! …

Nothing but light!

Torosaurus latus

I was the horn-dresser

Talked about, lied about,

Mother of Leptoceratops,

Whose strange disappearance

Was charged to her rearing.

My eye quick to beauty

Saw much beside reeds

And frills and feathers

And bones and hides,

To set off sweet faces,

Deep colorings with a splash of gold.

One thing I will tell you

And one I will ask:

The stealers of husbands

Wear chalk and trinkets,

And fashionable frills.

Wives, wear them yourselves.

Frills may make divorces—

They also prevent them.

Well now, let me ask you:

If all of the hatchlings born here in Hell Creek

Had been reared by the Formation, somewhere on a kept field;

And the fathers and mothers had been given their freedom

To live and enjoy, change mates if they wished,

Do you think that Hell Creek

Had been any the worse?