Category Archives: 1990

The Golden Man

Posted on by

“What is man that thou art mindful of him?” Psalm 8

I am a ragbag of organs
With guaranteed obsolescence,
A parcel of aspirations,
Of failings and infirmities.

And yet! and yet
Pure cosmic gold flows in my veins,
Gold laurel leaves surround my head
And, in the arcades of my mind,
A spirit moves, begot by stars.

I am a pit of misgivings,
Beleaguered by ancient taboos,
In the land of instant image,
A mirror without reflection.

And yet! and yet
Beyond the final range of hills,
I am my own El Dorado,
In the swamps of absurdity,
My own walled garden of delights.

19 March 1990

At long last the snow comes

Posted on by

At long last the snow comes,
Hesitantly at first,
Unsure of its welcome
In this precocious spring,
Then thicker and wilder,
Bestowing wet kisses
All over, head to toe,
Ardent, anxious to please.
I abandon myself
To its cold embraces,
Throwing open my arms
And lifting up my face.
Everything else cedes too
And settles down quickly
Under the thick blanket.

2 March 1990

Rome Revisited

Posted on by

I travelled light this time
And came to Rome without
Religious certainty
To pin my conscience down,
Free now to excavate,
From strata of belief
And primitive taboos,
Some vestiges of truth.
Now, gods and ages merge.
Inscriptions, sculpted all
By one perennial hand,
In unison proclaim
The noble promises
And hollow alibis
Of each successive age.
St. Peter’s colonnades
And fallen architraves
Of Augustan temples
Possess this in common:
All are, terminally,
Fatalistically,
In varying stages
Of decomposition.
No crying of the geese,
High on the Capitol,
Can protect the City
Against time and reason.

13th November 1990