We’ve all got history on our hands …

But through debauchery and plague

“I will survive” (as Gloria sang)

Survive with ease, survive with rage.

Reducing love to touch once more,

Preserving safe within the head

The subconscious and its niggling sore,

All tightly bracketed away.

Within me Europe’s felled by Asia

And freedom weeps for loss of rights

And my untamed imagination

Goes pale at what’s before our eyes.

Translated by Robert Reid