The Unreflected Life

By David Jordan

I awoke to muddy boots,

My clothes soaked and stinking of urine.

Reject of Dionysus I am.

 

I remembered everything:

Stumbling in the dark, on the grass,

On the riverbank, like a rat.

Reject of Dionysus I am.

 

I can hear his laughter.

Old habits and behaviours reappear,

Madness, danger and fear.

Wasted days, wasted years.

Reject of Dionysus I am.

 

Damn you Dionysus!

With your leopards

And your laughter

And your car!

 

I follow Apollo.

Gladly, I toss away my thyrsus

On the riverbank.

 

I awake from stupor

To reason and intellect and imagination.

To the spring of the muses,

So cool and clear and clean.

Yes, there is nothing better on this earth,

I tell you, than to kiss that limpid water.