Apollo is a sated epigrammatist,
scrolling listlessly over and under.
No oases lie between the numbered clauses –
for the ladle is emptied upon the cadence
and the silver dries on its craggy spire.
But row upon row the unpotted asphodel
is sufficed in its rich, more naked element.
Ah, what is it to me that the wheels spin?
What to the many is a splendid vocation
to the one is no more than a threshing of husks.
This is a scene to be staged by pedants,
in which the fallen hero repeals the statutes
of highest noon, broken upon a cataract
of dusky bone: the celebrated host,
suffering the world’s excellent tartuffery.
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