The Parthenon

Below the monastery the mundane

Enchantment of an elegant light lunch,

Reflected in a silver chocolate bowl,

Swallows the other-worldly whole.

Gone now a world of poverty and olives,

Where loneliness hits you like a low blow;

No wonder the despicable beau monde

Charms an ex-revolutionary hobo.

He minds his manners, quickens to the wit

Flashing, like sunlight through the scattered cloud

And frosted glass, around the candle-lit

Foyer, where politics is disallowed.

Next, the initiate attempts a flight

Of treacherous steps and finds himself above,

Seated with a priest of art and love

In a windowful of blinding light.

He hears the other, polished as enamel,

Array himself in unrevealing shifts;

And shaggy, heavy-lidded as a camel,

Takes a caliph's interest in such gifts.

A maid of Athens calls, Addio.

The bon-bon mots melt. Ivory turns to soap.

The conversation wanders in and out

Of silence, in and out of hope.

Returned then to the city-riddled plain,

He gazes off to where old pillars tell

Stories of heights closed now to Anyman,

Whose consolation must be unbelief.