Sunday, June 19, 2011

often silly

Suspended

"When will we hear once more the pure voice of elation
raised in the nightwood of known symbol and allusion?
Oh, far from Mother, in the unmarried city,
you contemplate a new ode to Euphrosyne,
goddess of banquets; and in the darkest hours
of holocaust and apocalypse, cheap music and singles bars,
you remind us of what the examined life involves –
for what you teach is the courage to be ourselves,
however ridiculous; and if you were often silly
or too “prone to hold forth," you prescribe a cure
for our civilization and its discontents
based upon agapé, Baroque opera, common sense
and the creative impulse that brought us here,
sustaining us now as we face a more boring future."


"Auden on St. Marks Place," Derek Mahon

[Above Lee Street east of Damen Avenue]

About Me

Chicago, Illinois, United States