SOLASTALGIA I (The Lament)

Like the tear-stained veil of the grieving widow,
A shroud of pity, loss, a cadaver’s pallor before me.
Blessed life bleeds from the islands of the south,
The flame hung dry like salt meat on a hook to cure,

An insipid reflection of glazed-crackling roast cheer,
And a pale resemblance of the bounding living pig.
You did this. I did this. We all played a blithe hand,
Stealing, rorting, gutting, taming and yoking the land.

Civilising the flame, the dreaming, with machine minds.
Only slumber, self-deception and glum pharmaceuticals,
Dull the migraine and quell my throat’s bilious chunder.
So, goodnight, I retreat under Thylacine’s flag. All is lost.

Her lace veil drawn, the pregnant widow’s hand reaches
Out from under her crochet prayer shawl to rest on mine.


SOLASTALGIA II (The Vow)

What to do other than mourn truly the losses and be
Vigilant guardians of a widow’s as yet unborn child,
In wish-laden optimism and rue prayer that the chain
Of embers from past generations will not disappear.

A landscape bled dry by an incendiary myopic greed,
Algorithms in suicide vests trigger greenhouse gases.
A gene-spliced virus of cyber spies and budget nukes
Indemnifies plastic monoculture. Lucid humanity lost.

Soulless, this orb will survive mute, a forgotten midden.
The sacred Crux still chandeliers the Milky Way without
The General’s sextant or Woureddy’s fireside moon dance.
The hallowed inferno of awareness itself, spirit, is at stake.

The widow’s fingers entwine in mine to make a vow
To lift the veil in the goodly name of divinity’s flame.

By Simon Bevilaqua