Reflections 1968

                        It began shyly, innocently

In duskyshadowed introspection, searching

            thru far-seeing disks of molten sand

                        sipping Scotch and water

Looking at Gabriel blowing his golden horn

            (Iconoclasts plot to no avail)

                        legs and hips shiverkissed

Olympian Christ accepts the blood sacrifice

            from Rome’s modaltared green temples

                        hands clutched clumsily

Violating History ... or nothing, while raging

            Zarathustra's prophetic ‘god is dead’ split souls....

                        arms caressed shoulders shyly

Errant Eros sowed his Elysian seed

            with élan while

                        knowing lips kissed a living temple

Youngmen hustling for god stepped silently

            on pungi stakes, youngmen dying

                       desperately mouths exploded open

Oh God, why does our nation’s truth

            taste like blood?

                       tongues moved in a liquid language…

Undergraduate gods create undergraduate nations

           and Icarus is reborn a million fold.                       

                       the sounds of silence gave way to primal passion...
                       spent, we left the shadows fulfilled

           Sometime later we discovered

                            Even Eros

                                   Loses his way

                                          To Elysium.

Ray Corbett