The sunburnt terraces which swans make home <br />with water purling, Macchu Pichu died <br />like Delphi long ago— <br />a message to Justinian closing it out, <br />the thousand years' authority, although <br />tho' never found exactly wrong <br /> <br />political patterns did indeed emerge; <br />the Oracle was conservative, like Lippmann, <br />roared the winds on the height, <br />The Shining Ones behind the shrine, whose verge <br />saw the impious plunged, 6000 statures <br />above the Temple shone <br /> <br />plundered, centuries plundered, first the gold <br />then bronze & marble, then the plinths, <br />then the dead nerve— <br />root-canal-work, ugh. I—I still hold <br />for the saviour of teeth, & I embrace <br />only he threw me a vicious<br /><br />John Berryman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dream-song-102-the-sunburnt-terraces-which-swans/
