endgame between Duchamp and Beckett

Marcel Duchamp

What the Waiter Gave Me

 

What the waiter gave me was never
*****what I had ordered,

yet I grasped his language
*****imperfectly, knew the country

too little or too well to complain. Instead I watched
*****the veterans, arranged like ancient

chessmen under linden trees. They savoured
*****that brash scent,

nodded sightless to the ocean’s funeral
*****jazz, black eyes behind black

glass. Limbless, partially
*****limbed. Cognac bloomed

on my tongue, lit my blood with the grim
*****aria of this age’s end—

an enervated gasp of belief,
*****or unbelief. Bandsmen were murdering

final anthems, our cuckolded statesmen
*****at last anathema to the thugish mass.

Then evening slowly spun a slick of cream
*****into my coffee, tainted the sea with saffron,
*************************lead.