Requiem

Requiem

If I could invent a thought recorder
I’d be a great poet.
The truth would gush forth
in vibrant, elegant verse.
But as it is I can offer you
only reflections
and fragments of dreams.

In this country where everything
is backwards,
even my right decisions
are mistakes.

For one last time
nostalgia grips the
alcoholic temple,
and a man with four gold teeth
and a summer kimono
does not yet look like
K’s grandfather
who is sleeping in his own
great lake of unrealised poems.

I glimpse kindness in the eyes
of the unofficial priest
as he tends one last time
the narrow, failed altar,
with its mendicants sipping
the Spanish wine
he has saved for this last day.

I glimpse kindness
and then his face hardens
remembering all the mistakes
he cannot remember
of which this one is
the greatest.

He knows now that equality
is a hopeless dream;
the human heart will
have its hierarchies,
and each of us must
climb ladders of fear
with only memories
of ancient sunlight
to shield us from
mortal gravity.

How did I get here
spurting foreign words
like an educated parrot,
holding out for some
epiphany broadcast
on the hapless screen?

The girl in the white bikini
holding a glass of cold beer
against the air-brushed
backdrop of a southern sea
will never give you
what she promises.

But the old ruined men
parade their worn out memories
one last time
in the radiant light
of her forgiveness.