On the Uncertainty of the Poet, by Sanjeev Braich

The Uncertainty of the Poet, by Giorgio de Chirico (Italy, b. Greece) 1913

On the Uncertainty of the Poet

When swaddled in the specious shadow cast
by what must be the carcass of the past,
do I, an idle suppliant, asleep,
contrive to dream a soggy stinking heap
of votive offerings in blind homage?
Or is that yawning thorax a mirage
at which my marbled ardour tilts, and flicks
its just deserts: this bunch of throwing-sticks?

In either case, I pull a fruitless stunt:
my sticks are squibs, my coaxings impotent;
my bathos-bloated bulk's not feasible;
the ghosts of days are unappeasable.

And meanwhile, past the dark dogmatic tracts
of hinterland that grows as it subtracts,
the train of arrowed time fast forwards poured
in silken certitude, with all bar me aboard.

Sanjeev Braich

Sanjeev Braich is, or perhaps at some deep level longs to be, no more than a writer manqué. He lives and works in London.