Another poem about history

A Scholar’s Passion

The historian

flits between massacres, a fickle lover –

one minute hustled by an old chronicler

into congress with Fortune the Strumpet, still reeking

of battle, of armies mingling desperately at the junctures of continents –

and the next minute,

gently opening up the quivering

pages of an untouched little war that is

ready to bleed for him,

and leaving the old

series of deaths

musky with carnality and

time.