When Chaos Has Come and Gone
If all your fantasies
were eventually to
come true
the question would remain
whether you would retain
beneath the surface
the savagery of
an earlier life
when citizens conjoined
for a day for an hour
for a lifetime for a weekend
and stayed authentic
though artfully nonchalant
constantly concerned
though genuinely passionate
giving all yet contemplating
the wholly unknown life abroad
or at home of their other halves,
thirds, quarters, fifths, etc. For all
our dignity and attempts at calm
we are by nature turbulent
and, what’s more, ignorant
of the devices of nobility.
