Prospero, in retirement
Turbulent events over, the tropical island
a gruesome memory.
I am a private citizen again
with a sufficient if ungenerous pension
provided by our good uncle,
and, while awaiting the sequence of surgeries
expected in my age group,
just like all the other oldies in the supermarket
pushing their shopping carts--
or maybe luckier, since unlike many of them,
angry-faced and aggressive with their carts in the aisles,
I’m not alone.
I hardly can remember when,
all those years,
I had a public responsibility--
for what, to save the world?
Stimulate unawakened minds?
Straighten out erroneous ideas?
I can no longer imagine I could!
But I had healing magic in my fingertips then,
and the voices of the Gods encouraged me.
I even dreamed that Shakespeare created me,
the Magician.
And when the words that came from him
appeared on the page,
I was Shakespeare!
Only when I go on stage to do my old act,
even with the hall three-quarters empty,
do I remember how important this once was to me,
as I am jolted back into the heady atmosphere
of performance, of significance, of revelation,
where the words matter
and I’m able to connect
to the heart and soul of people again--
God, those poems are good!
And I forget I’m just another old guy
with a leaky prostate and a shopping cart.
Back in my private life,
I won’t read anymore
about Kosovo, Chechnya, Africa.
After a lifetime of horrors
that basket is full and there’s no room
for another massacred innocent.
I am more and more cut off from the world,
except in the warm embrace
of my home with my wonderful friend--
so lucky, so lucky--
or on my travels abroad
where I am still connected to something greater
than shopping and cooking and cutting hair:
The Seven Wonders of the World, truly,
The Adventure, The Quest, which goes on
but has to end soon
when these limbs grow too frail
to totter to the plane.
But as long as I can get
my ass and my luggage to Kennedy Airport,
I’ll keep going, keep going, keep going.....
Page(s) 13-14
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The