Lament for a Latter-Day Adonis
for Sultan Padamsee

1

Weep AOI AOI AOI
Beat breast
Adonis Adonis
        drowned himself
        in the Cam
Antinous Adonis drowned

2

They brought the dis-
-membered
body and sewed it together
They could not find the phallus
Osiris devoured by Set
Brother set upon by brother
        Dead and resurrected
                    and dead again...
Isis wed his photograph

3

When the Tigris runs red
to meet the Euphrates
And Tammuz is dead
Almonds sprout in the land
and poppies shout for joy on stone
each petal blood-red

4

[Self-Portrait]

The sculptor-idol before dying
left an effigy
for future generations
to worship
Narcissus looked in a mirror
                            and drowned

5

When the mother came weeping
alone to bury her fatherless son
Herself, husbandless
She turned stone
She turned young
She turned his beloved in death
as she could never have
                                had he lived

6

When Christ died on the cross
in Palestine
No one cried
But Rome crumbled
                            I heard and I read
                                    Then, I wrote.


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