What waxen heat flows through thy veins,

If veins at all?

Did you once stare with sight?

Those eyes – replacement of a man…

Standing in a pose that someone gave you to remember

Ever will they think that you are he – 

Our Bill, who looks quite different from what you might expect

(That famous silhouette on every schoolboy’s book of plays).

 

Dear Ludwig, can you hear again?

With ears that are not deaf –

At least as hearing as the rest – 

Blair, Bush and Bonaparte are one.

They never listened, though they heard

The wails of despair,

That you would wash with harmony,

From children everywhere.

 

And now what hollow people hold your hands –

Communing thus with shallow shells of men,

Who lived, and some whilst breathing still are dead!

Fame has consumed their souls,

And they are become nothing but images –

Familiar through repetition – a market with no interest

In the soul – only the look…