the past's prodigious weight

Here's one for the  #notblippedbefore  series, as taken from the 1980 collection of Michael H.R. Oldham's poems:


A Masquerade

Things insubstantial oust substantial things;
Inconsequence bids consequence get hence.
Our visions blurs, as draughts from tainted springs
Prove treason's trustiness and folly's sense.
Behold Life's ball - a frenzied masquerade!
Men harlequin with Fate, and clown with Death;
With furtive haste, they pirouette - afraid! -
The winnowed chaff of Fortune's random breath.

Anon, they petrify - then, chill as stone,
Stand janitor to mark the future's gate;
Or, toppling from some pedestal or throne,
Lie crushed beneath the past's prodigious weight.
      Man makes this masque his tarentelle of doom;
      His shattered world is his Cyclopean tomb.

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Michael H.R. Oldham

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