I am, the sinking weight of deathly Styx

grabbing & pushing mortals down in

the endless torture of afterlife –

the inflated heroes and the rotting commoners –

stripped and levelled in a single line.

The armoured wasted bodies

fighting for a glorified

section in history.

I am, memory –

possessing the blind bard,

invoking a perpetual ballad

of remembrance – murderer and murdered

piled into a jarring epic. Cities crumpled

and lives blown out.

Sing! Evoke the fatigued muses:

daughter sacrificed,

wife raped, mother sold and father

a living ghost – his eyes lined

with the blood of his sons –

the war replayed in a maddening litany.

 

I am, you – insatiable audience –

Here – you – are, god-like,

condescending puppeteers,

deceitfully observing yet

stringing the plot forward.

you, I

I, you

we take, watch, consume –

hopelessly struggling to gain

control and a grip of fate –

But,

remember you will –

Here lies: waste,

garishly dressed in glory,

reeking of immortality.

—

This poem is written in dedication to Michael Tippett’s King Priam which, in turn is an operatic rendition of Homer’s Iliad.

(Michael Tippett’s King Priam, The Royal Opera House, 2014. Adam Tunnicliffe, Clarissa Meek, Andrew Slater, Adrian Dwyer and chorus. © Richard Hubert Smith, www.richardhs.com)