Three Poems
by
W. R. Rodgers
END OF A WORLD
OLD MAN-
354
yes,
in
one night all the marble heroes
Came down from their high decks and marched away
Into anonymity like pierrots,
Our flags climbed down their own ropes like spiders
And scuttled off, also the tame salute
Went wild and flew away out of our hands,
Our roof of government slumped, and our laws
Slid like slates, unsettling everywhere,
Title's kite-string broke, and Rank's anchor sprang.
I could tell you a hundred happenings
Of that
anxiou~
night, I could recount how
Our social circus shook, angry cages burst,
The animal acts escaped and ran amok,
The lion-tamer Discipline was mauled,
Sentiment bitten by his own charmed snake,
The lariat Intellect lassoed itself,
And the sly Illusionist sought safety
In his own deceptions. And that wild pig
Contempt, poking in our hearts' levelled drives
Of habit, and old holdings of desire,
Snooped out the pious w-ish and snouted up
The planted response. And, on top of that,
Scathing winds of hate came, bringing locusts
Which ate our fig-leaf sensitivity,
Our grass-skirt insularity and poise.
Freely our frozen loyalties thawed, and
An annulling flood suddenly straddled
All the lock-gates of class, caste, and custom,
All the sluices and allotted safeties
Of our civilisation, all names, norms,
Numbers, paths, proprieties, all were drowned
In rebellion's mound of mounting waters.
