by Jaithirth Rao – Mint
As derivatives implode
As esoterics turn morbid
What do I do
in moments
when I am not taking delight
at the prospects of
genteel poverty
maudlin cringing
of pimpled bankers
now turning into
dying gladiators
of a new Rome
in molten decay.
My grandfather first read
Gibbon
in 1908.
In 1958
He said to me:
“Read Gibbon for his prose
But don’t get depressed…”
In 2008
I now read Gibbon
to live with the ungilded
depression
of the age.
Stately prose may be
the remnant failing therapy
for bankerly malignancy
eating into
all of us
repressed readers
depressed lovers
of Gibbon
