Manlius was thrown down, / The ruling few preserved their wealth, / Their power remains as dour, / As the Tarpeian Rock itself. / / Like the waves Rome was roughing, / Cries were cutting through the gloom, / But the man was gently laughing, / Falling down to meet his doom. / / ...
I know a woman, full of silence, / Her bitter weariness from words, / Dwells in mysterious, blinking eyelids / Their widened pupils, secret worlds. / Her soul is greedily wide open / To copper music of sweet verse. / To life, that’s worldly, pleasant often, / She’s deaf and...
Greetings, Red Sea, shark soup, / Negro bath, sand cauldron! / Like stone cactus flowers / limestone, not moss, blooms on your cliffs. / / Sea-monsters swept up by the tide lie dying / in anguish, out on your islands / in the burning sand: octopi, tritons, swordfish. / / From Afr...
Only one thing torments my delirium: / how certain sharp lines go on for ever, / and a bell rings and rings and rings / like a clock marking off eternity. / / Just so, after death, / eyes stare into darkness / (the agonized hope of resurrection) / trying to see familiar visions. / ...
This country could have been paradise: / it’s a den of fire. / We've been advancing for four days, / we’ve not eaten for four days. / / In this strange, bright hour / we don’t need earth’s bread: / the Lord’s Word / is better nourishment. / / The b...
Marvellous, and sad - yes, that’s what this temple / is - a joy, a temptation, a threat. / Eyes exhausted with desire / bum in the slits of confessional windows. / / The organ melody rises, falls, / then swells fuller and more terrible, / like blood in dark church-granite veins ...