I Wanted Nothing Less than Hope

Music: Fugue in Eb Minor
By Dimitri Shostakovich.  Sequenced by J. Marques.

Alpha List Philosophical Poems Contents Home Copyright by Nicholas Gordon

I wanted nothing less than hope, But, relishing despair, I plunged into the nearest hell And spent some weekends there. I saw no answers on the walls, No rebirth in the rain, No saving grace in suffering, No rapture born of pain. What held me there? It must have been The jackal, crazed and lean, Who took my face between his paws And, hungry, picked it clean.