DOCTOR OF BILLIARDS
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f all among the fallen from on high,We count you last and leave you to regainYour born dominion of a life made vainBy three spheres of insidious ivory.You dwindle to the lesser tragedy--Content, you say. We call, but you remain.Nothing alive gone wrong could be so plain,Or quite so blasted with absurdity.You click away the kingdom that is yours,And you click off your crown for cap and bells;You smile, who are still master of the feast,And for your smile we credit you the least;But when your false, unhallowed laugh occurs,We seem to think there may be something else. SHADRACH O’LEARY O’Leary was a poet--for a while:He sang of many ladies frail and fair,The rolling glory of their golden hair,And emperors extinguished with a smile.They foiled his years with many an ancient wile,And if they limped, O’Leary didn’t care:He turned them loose and had them everywhere,Undoing saints and senates with their guile.But this was not the end. A year agoI met him--and to meet was to admire:Forgotten were the ladies and the lyre,And the small, ink-fed Eros of his dream.By questioning I found a man to know--A failure spared, a Shadrach of the Gleam.
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