The Alchemists.

This poem was written after seeing Persian bas-reliefs in Le Louvre and was first published in The Ekphrastic review.

The Alchemists.

Owen’s alchemy never produced

the fool’s gold of glory on battlefield

but from the mud-burdened trudge

of men moving beyond exhaustion 

as they passed a bare, pock-marked,

death-filled, barbed-wire strung world

he wrenched a pure and shocking gold of truth.

Ancient Persian artisans performed 

a different kind of alchemy.

Gone are sièges of noise, blood, death,

broken walls and burning cities,

bodies impaled outside the walls,

boastful Kings commissioning bas-reliefs,

walled cities and palaces, 

courts, officials, culture and conquest.

What remains is alchemist’s gold,

exquisite bricks glazed 

in brown, bone, ochre and aqua,

depictions of warriors,

archers with coiffed beards,

abundant quivers and resplendent garments

standing erect with their straight spears,

now on display in La Musée du Louvre 

millennia after he who commissioned them

has faded to forgotten dust

and most he gloried in

has long lain covered 

by the relentless detritus of time.