Tuesday, March 31, 2009

TC: Prophet


"I have been certified as mildly insane!":
photo by Gillian Wearing, 1992-3 (Tate Gallery)




So then he wandered out into the street and began to testify
Something about life being a long journey of the soul
An endless voyaging turning into a voyaging with an end
One knows how but one does not know when
No one yet knows when as the traffic bore down on him

As the traffic bore down on him my mind drifted in the wilderness
Or was it that my mind having been adrift all along
I’ve just grown to regard the wilderness as my resting or laughing place
He cried but those were not yet his last words
As the traffic parted around him as around one charmed

3 comments:

Nora said...

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course...

Nora said...

(that's not my translation, by the way -- it's Robert Fagles')

samuel butler said...

Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide... Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much...