Four Poems

 
DORé'S PRINTS OF HELL

Ours are milder. The heads
Trapped in ice, Satan's Schloss
And bony wings are scary,

Quaint. In our morality
Discretion, Knowledge and the Senses
Were never friends we'd chat with

Who might defect. Doré, who
Etched Hell, also drew those windmills
Gaga Don Quixote fenced at.

From childhood we have run out
Into the world: dawns light
Fright's corner beyond the lamp;

Seasons are dense with breeding, distance
After distance dotted with love's shapes
Dying; and the empire of Aeneas
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