A poem for Penn State

The following poem was submitted by Dr. Robert Lima, Professor Emeritus of Spanish and Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University, from his collection Tracking the Minotaur.

This Late the Idols Ply Their Trade
                                                 
Shattered idols walk the dreamland now,
treading grey cities fervently,
deciphering spheres,
punishing the gold leaf of their frocks
masochistically.
 
This late the idols ply their trade,
tramping on the the vestiges of night,
bearing a sense of decadence
that grips the moss-scent city
and posthumously tortures laughter.
 
Dread idols are appearing furled in flags
rent from the temples of divinities.

 
They pass to fields of sacred wheat
thrashing and absorbing without effort
the remnant stalks once virginal.
 
These idols are the twisted beggars
ploughing fields in winter,
divining seeds,
crushing flowers of frost.
 
They lift their feet ten quilted steps,
emphatically,
in a moment’s definition,
to decompose the rain.
 
Idols are shattered on earth,
disciplined to our variations,
reacting in solemn processions.
 
Broken idols pieced on fallow land
are splintered noiselessly in night.

 

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