Borges Poem by Douglas Scotney

Acc. to Borges, pron. Bor-gez,
Japanese film's most prevalent muse
is Etiquette Insulted:
descending from Kotsukay no Sukay
in 'The Learned History of the 47 Retainers',
who brought on the degradation and death
of the lord of the castle of Ako
after being the cause of a failing of etiquette;
who then failed to perform hara-kiri.

Borges reveals this in his
'El Incivil Maestro de Ceremonias Kotsukay no Sukay',
'The Insulting Master of Etiquette K no S',
perhaps better said
'The Master of Insulting Etiquette K no S'
and whatever that is in Spanish.

Borges took a work of literature
not necessarily smart or funny
and turned it so.

I like to rhyme Borges
with 'Georges'
as a Frenchman says.

For some time, it seems,
in Japan, at least since 1702,
poets have been on the nose:
that year, Kuranosukay,
who had served well his master,
the lord of the castle of Ako,
by cutting off his head
after the lord had followed etiquette
and put a dagger in his bowels,
moved to Kyoto,
from where came reports
he 'rubbed elbows
with harlots and poets
and even sorrier sorts'.
(Sorry for giving themselves up
to pleasure and shame.)

A point: The guillotine, being so recent an invention,
etiquette was raw in Revolutionary France;
had it been as refined as
hara-kiri was in Japan,
the platform would have been covered in red felt:
blood less seen, though still much smelt.

'Kyoto, unmatched for its autumn leaves'
was about all there was, if you please,
in the tale,
of the love of nature,
so prevalent in the Japanese.