February 16, 2020

“After Thucydides,” Poems by Bruce Robinson

“After Thucydides,” Poems by Bruce Robinson
After Thucydides  

Read to you my silent poem, 
how does it go? Goes 
without saying, va 
 
sans dire. 
And then someone spoke 
and there was the largest crowd 
 
in history, and a luminous 
array of tariffs 
made us rich again 
 
which after all was our 
pre-existential condition 
before the construction 
 
of our glorious, seguro- 
will-cover-it wall, 
and we learned that 
 
however true it may...be.. 
that truth is something  
intermittent, which is how  
 
some histories are written. 

**

 It’s Your Past Catching Up with You 

 and then your past  
 catches up with you, or tries to, 
 and then your past 
 tries to oscillate your future,  
 or makes a very good effort 
 to be closer than it appears 
 and then you’re past 
 all caring, all over-canvassed 
 tenses meet each other mid-stream, 
 toll your moment, tell your future, 
 and then your past. 

 **

 Dirthivination and The Descent of Man 

 Weak as we are, 
 weak though we may be, 
 the way we fumble with 
 our awkward polities, 
 perhaps we’ll stumble through this, 
 (does there not exist a theory 
 that perhaps we’re all one species 
 beyond the struts and fretting 
 and the cavalier apostasies) 
 and do so without rancor, 
 certainly?  

***

Poetry and fiction by Bruce Robinson has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry Australia, Fiction, Pleiades, Common Ground, Woven Tale Press, Dead Mule, and Aji

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#poetry#political#religion#Thucydides