To The Waxworks Going Down, The Soul In Flames Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[for the poet-playwright, Martin Burke

when an artist dies, worlds go with him (m.d.) ]


how sorrowful we were to view his faltering stagecraft at the last
impossible for the skies to remain as blue
or green the waters, mirroring his catastrophe

in the Old Paintings.
in this age, or any other, Icarus, the turning of the page
is hard to take

so near the Sun you came
and then burst into flame plunging beyond Time.
and the world is waxen

and all of it is melting
the whole great waxworks of it all.

leaving us all so small.


mary angela douglas 21 december 2018; rev.17 january 2019