Ron Pretty: Two Poems
Diary of a Bad Year
After J.M. Coetzee
It is, I know, on a night such as this,
as warm and clear as this, as starlit,
that a man as old as this, as creased
and time-beaten as this, teeth worn
from chewing modernity’s iron tits,
begins to imagine sitting here, that
erogenous muse—you remember
the fantasy—all curves and empathy
beside you here on such a night:
how masculine, how patriarchal a dream,
propriety forgiven for fantasy,
that you could sit here together
under the stars, youth and age,
survival and beauty this still night,
such quiet you may not see again
this side of the deeper darkness, but
reconciled in the now and the knowing
she will remember this night, this quiet,
this lovely last transport of peace.
Abbey
whatever the song that sole note
rising into the still air above the choir
and the stone arches pointing upwards
worn by the winds and the envy of kings
the counter tenor glides lark notes
beyond the walls, escaping into the cold air
carried by the breeze of slanted evening
into the setting sun’s domain the eagle’s eyrie
earthbound the listeners are also carried up
the bones buried here and all their lusts
while memory haunting the walls
sinks into earth the slanting sun
under the abbey’s ribs casts its shadow
the headstones on the scarred grass
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