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Grey Angel
In the woods lurks the grey angel;
Wingless and disillusioned, he awaits
The onset of diarrhoea,
Bismarck’s jocular displeasure
And the seagull’s lugubrious weightlessness –
Later than previously, he erects
A flag made of wormwood
Brought all the way
From the ceiling of an underground café in East Berlin -
He sighs….and it is like someone playing
A musical saw: it expresses harmoniously
His perpendicular musical soul –
Expecting nothing, he is perpetually disappointed
By the visitations of crones desirous of petty miracles,
Of repentant tax-gatherers requesting absolution,
On New-Age moongazers seeking enlightenment,
Of people who desire certainty, answers,
Of people who pursue truth and self-righteousness,
Of people who just want to see what an angel,
Any angel looks like. Only these curious rubbernecks
Touch his bland and ironic soul with a faint luminosity –
Their enthusiasm for life, if crass and tawdry,
At least provides the salt which otherwise
Has lost its flavour….a pity
That it just rubs salt into his wounds.
Copyright ©
Richard Allen
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