poetry

Limits
by Zenaida French

Such times like these
Do not allow us grace
As we approach
The limits of our lives;

Up there among the ticking nations
The big men sit around a table
Inventing barbed intentions
And double entendre;

Down here among the flooded trenches
The little men huddle in their raincoats
Under the yellow rain,
Parlaying blood and corpses;

Over there, Art the Clown
Hides behind his languid barricade
And takes a stand
Only marble gods attain;

And here is Literature, the campy Bawd,
Posturing on dung
As she juggles balls
In mock dexterity.

Such times like these
Do not allow us leisure
To pick our way with grace
As we approach the limits of this century;
The atoll’s blast
The rape of space
Have stretched the limits of our lives
To the hostile ledges of the next Millennium;

Blind and deaf
On alien shores
We miss the dance of sea-nymphs
As they frolic on the wreathed waves;

Trapped in the drag of rotor blades
We slash the limits of our desperation

And sink, gurgling,
Beneath the hissing waves.

1985

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