Later Verse Last Letters

i

The progress of the soul is a slow
Endeavour, full of the ironies
Of the narratives we create

These contexts exchangeable
Half-hearted escapes into subjectivity
That I know I am an epitaph
Waiting to happen, that my
Mortality hangs on a leaf

ii

Like a moment lost at dusk
That my legacies are without meaning
And all that I am will be forgotten

That this world is temporary
These signs we make to each other
Mere symbols in an eternity
Of syntax lost between bodies
Miraculously born and aged

iii

Without dignity, sick with
All that misfortune can bring
Tiding of a lost world

Not enjoyed by God, not followed
By the banks that profit
On the debts of the carnal
My art is short-lived, indeed
And not the childlike plaything
Of how a self-praiser prays.