"Remorse" [by John Tranter]

(After Baudelaire)

When you sleep at last, my darling,
for the last time, beneath a slab of stone,
when the weight of that slab presses down
and crushes the breath from your breathless chest,
when your bedroom is a hollow box
six feet deep in the damp soil, when
you long for a flicker of light to illuminate
that horrid cave, thick with eternal dark,

your grave, like a sheriff in a black and white
Western, my confidante, for sheriffs are always
ready to listen to a poet, will sneer, and mock
in whisky-soaked tones: ‘What’s up, darling?
Couldn’t you guess why the dead weep? Remorse
for a wasted life. Now say good night.’

-- John Tranter

Editor's note: The poms after Baudelaire that we have posted by John Tranter were written at the Civitella Ranieri in Umbria.