Virgil, The Sybil, Freud and me.

Virgil, The Sybil, Freud and me

Poets, prophets, and psychiatrists all know,
That hell is our past projected to
Our future.

We watch existence flicker by,
Always the faded figure
On the edge of a family
Photograph.

In pool of water is majestic tree,
A God's-eye view of the universe.
Now don't be scared of what you see;
The pain you fear will be much, much, worse.
Beware the sunken bones of poetry,
So much safer to live at a distance.

People freeze in cinematic stills,
Formalised to a director's script.
Every gesture fraught with malice,
Devil's mask and artifice.

A microscopic eye of introspection,
An insect brain analysing all,
Is life worth the paper on
Which it's written?
If we give something a name,
Do we make it real?

Date mostly written: 1974