Laocoon and Apollo: in the Vatican Museum


The beach, the trampled sand, the fires
still smouldering, horribly
proleptic. Greeks gone.
That bloody horse. You had to go
and open your big mouth, didn't you?
Yes, I think you did.

Apollo looks away, intent
on his own idea of beauty.
This messy death, this serpentine
assassination, this is
nothing to do with him. He swims
in the sublime, an element
inimical to man, in which
he sees us drown with divine
indifference, with calm blank eyes.

David Callin

If you have any thoughts on this poem,  David Callin would be pleased to hear them.