Joseph Conrad.
Heart of Darkness.
More even than August's oppressive heat
I regret the river's timorous retreat
This broader strand & more ample ghat
Beaching the yarer crafts of my burnt out heart
Well, not literally, but its what I now think I should, being literary, have said
By way of esprit de escalier to that not actually too intimidatingly well bred
South African, whose School's exchange with Sanawar did so derange my bottomless brunch
I became a burbling old fart gassing on about Cape Town's water crisis coz, like, so out to lunch
I couldn't see, Sweet Thames everywhere floods in our daughters' Commonwealth of thought
Rendering buoyant every Gloriana's suitor's barge but also Suhuni's unfired, pot
Ah me! 'Tis difficult from a gastropub terrace in Richmond to see
How wrong Conrad was about our estuary.
Envoi-
Prince! With nothing upon which to float, be it carvel or lapstrake
Language is a boat whose beams are but Heart's ache.
Language is a boat whose beams are but Heart's ache.
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