Contage

(A conversational montage).

We stared the night at stars, as in a dream

That one might fall, to prove that we were real,

And show the world the order of some scheme

That we had launched, to tip the earth aside,

Beam-ended, tripped and floated cobweb wide

Where none before had thought to see or feel.

 

Then as we stood, they beckoned us to them,

They beamed the waste that tricked us into flight

While conjured with the bitterness of men

We sensed what none of us could ever see

As long as Mars, unconquered in your tree,

Remained to set afire the pitch of night.

 

‘But surely, you have caught some puny stars

On canvas, where you trapped them with your brush,

As I have scrawled and inked the train of Mars

In manuscripts, on envelopes and leaves

Enough to stay the mind of man that grieves

His violence, once the world has turned to rust?’

 

‘Too late,’ you said, ‘for time is running out,

And we, two puny souls, are not enough;

The world will rush, like lemmings, to decease

Before the robber barons slake their lust.

For gilt and gold and oil sate their creed,

While art and grace and culture turn to dust.’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Marie]

This does not bode well for the earth, does it? Artists, who should keep culture alive, are doomed with the rest.