The Minor Poets: An Afterlife

O mandarins of vowel,

syllable and silence,

your voices seldom last

more than a generation,

taking their place beside

the ones whose fulminations

prevailed in dull committees,

columns and bulletins,

campaigns and public meetings.

Yours was the speech reserved

for solitary moments,

the speech of meditation.

How did it happen, then,

that consonants thrown up

by solitary anguish

and joy without companions

came in the end to rest

with wills and codicils

and the promises of those

who lost or were defeated?

Into that emptiness

where darkness blurs the lines

of privilege and merit,

sanctity and fame,

you step unheedingly,

280 companioned by a horde