while in everyday life

the pursuit of truth

Is seen as ridiculous

And speaking

with real emotion

abhorrent

We throng to cinema houses

most of all I believe

to view en masse

human beings

Actually communicating

with one another

The actors

are the Chosen Ones

of our age

given permission

to freely abandon themselves

to society's

Forbidden fruits

Of joy and grief

While we feast

On their remnants

In the dark

I climbed a narrow staircase

to a high turret

And then

looking down

On the dusky grounds of the city

I saw

where all the lines converged

a picture emerge

Of unearthly design

and intricacy

Keats loved

suffered, he wrote,

he died

supposing his words

to be finally

'writ in water'

Today though

any child

will be introduced to his poems

as if they were as real

and as solid

an existence

As the sun

Or moon

as indeed they are

though the paper he used

be torn

or stolen

Or the colour of his ink

be red

The suffering we know

bears no resemblance to her suffering

In her eyes

her entire self

her 'I'

Is so alive and present

It has burned its way

down through the centuries

searing the retinas

of billions of viewers

To each in turn saying

'I know'

It is the something

that has been all but lost

from our eyes

And in its place

is left a look

Of absence