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So now what have you to say Anchises
Nothing I can understand it I have carried you so long so deep
Into the underworld that I am surely dead as you
And yet the plague is following to perpetuate the crisis
Let me set you down and sit beside you now dear ghost
And while we wait I’ll write another page
For all the spars and tackle that the sea has swallowed
For all the names of men and cities we have lost
For Carthage for the queen betrayed this heat this chill,
And the incomprehensible instructions we have followed
To the letter Is this it That we have crossed the blood-dark seas
To sit down with the dead at last at our infected ease
I used to think there was a point you meant to make
By revelation or by anecdote or by sayings dark with meaning
But you could not articulate the thing you had in mind
And maybe that was it that in the end
There is really no such thing as higher learning
Strive and seek oh all of that but what is there to find
Except the fact the dead are dead is not enough
And though we are in Hell the cities go on burning
Sean O’Brien is a poet, critic and playwright who lives in Newcastle. His latest collection It Says Here is published by Picador in May. 21st-century Poetry is edited by Andy Croft, email [email protected]