The Small Nation
Except that vital tree, courage.
Your poets scourge you and, with each
Crack of rage, you bow further
Into the dirt. All the scaly ways
Of selling are scored in your
Present face, the snivelling cares
Of profit and loss, the sad slow
Dimension of death darkening
The dull years leading to the end.
No register but the lean bone,
The gratuitous thanks for the unfelt
Insult, the sclerosis of the soul,
Can be scanned with any honesty.
What shall men do, wrapped
In your dark nets of subterfuge?
Some are imprisoned, to gnaw
Anew in solitude the dry bone
Of their love, but the rest of us
Are free, for various practical reasons.
No past’s mounted trophies
Can do more than induce
A sentimental groan. There is now
No bugle of words to tap
A well of truth, nothing
But the tarmac’d road
Past the supermarkets
And the tarred vowels
Of a tongue abrasive as thistles.
No blood suffices and we attend
The slow funeral of a small nation:
In the end there will be silence;
Now, even the withered heart rages.
Page(s) 4
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