DAVID HOCKNEY

AN

ELEGY FOR X by

Anthony Burgess

X is unnecessary, like his brother

That ‘whoreson zed’ (King Lear) or like the other That stands between these two – the Grecian i, As Latins call it. You may ponder why

We need an X in taxi when you queue (There’s Norman tyranny. C double U

Will do, and did do for the Saxons when A queen had not dethroned a native cwen), Lugging your luggage from a train or bus, For tacsis at a Cymric terminus.

In Russia, if you have the time to wait, a taкcu is delivered by the State.

St Cyril gave the barbarous Russians X

For a good Grecian purpose. Even sex, A Western import, has a K and C.

The Welsh, though far from sexless, like to be X-less. And yet that letter was a brand

Of Celticness when Claudius stormed the land, Raping and pillaging, firing farmer’s ricks, Subduing what he thought were knavish tricks –

Asterix, Obelix, Vercingetorix.

X stands for sh in Malta; try Taxxbiex.

Venetians, scornful of the Roman leash, Mock X in rex and lex, bidding it dance

In place of voiced and unvoiced sibilants. Only in Xmas do we pay our dues

To the harsh velar Greeks and Russians use, For Christ is Xristos, and who spoke or wrote

The sacred name paid homage in his throat.

Now phoneticians sensibly denote

That fishbone-clearing phoneme with the letter

Which marks the sounds that K and S do better.

Was XXXXXX the ghastly agonizing rasp

St Andrew uttered in his final grasp

Spreadeagled on his special, chi-shaped cross?

It’s a sad letter. We won’t mourn its loss,

Let it be buried, vapourised or drowned

At least when it essays a double sound.

X is a cypher, X the great unknown, The sign of the analphabete, alone,

Along with brewing strengths, the pseudonyms

Of spies and co-respondents. Sing no hymns

Save frog-croaks. Only note where it is not

With this sole epitaph: ‘X marks the spot’.