(with apologies to Alexander Pope)
How often I have wished to disappear
To Babylon, and grow a garden dear;
But, due to certain moral obligations,
I cannot rightly yield to such temptations.
In practice, therefore, I to you am wed
And stuck inside your suffocating bed.
Ambitious fools have thought it perfect bliss
To gain from you a kick or fiery kiss;
To scale the heavens from your breast-like hills,
While overlooking all your ruthless kills;
To slide upon their unperceptive soul,
As sinks it down into the blackest hole.
But I instead your genius consulted,
And many dreadful lines of verse resulted;
I saw your shadow’s stronger than your light,
And those you darken never shall unite.
`Gainst you the sole insurance policy,
As bards before me knew, is prophecy.
Jerusalem
23 August 1997