Achilles & Patroclus
An Ekphrastic Poem
Your poverty is not exactly mine
Long journeys do not always yield progress
Your world looks warm and your smiles define
The immunity of youth to distress
Of a kind that only time can create
How green your land is, like my ignorance
Of what you dream and say and whom you hate
Words and images do a charming dance
Smells you recognize like your family
Would be hostile strangers in my nostrils
Your faith has a dangerous gravity
Fortresses can create prison morals
Will your work be more joyful than my own?
Will just the right human appear for you?
What will grow now that your friendship is sown?
Will you change, or will the others change you?
You could be Achilles and Patroclus
Or everyone we’re not, or all of us
About the Creator
D. J. Reddall
I write because my time is limited and my imagination is not.
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Comments (5)
stunning!!! psyochologically written!
The immunity of the young to distress - yeah!! The friends/partners or perhaps “societies” of men…. I recently read what a “lothario” Rushdie was. Nice ending with the photo; this poem makes one stop to ponder.
"Will your work be more joyful than my own? Will just the right human appear for you? What will grow now that your friendship is sown? Will you change, or will the others change you?" Loved this stanza the most. Certainly very thought provoking!
I am reading "Ransom" at the moment by David Malouf - do you know it? It is about Priam taking a ransom to Achilles for the body of Hector to be returned. This is a timely sonnet. I'm not sure who all the people are here pictured. Is that Martin Amis with Salman Rushdie? Deftly done - as always.
Well done boy.