Pasolini
Still they drive over
your body
with that car.
Still they assault
your flesh
and brutalize your body.
I looked in the bookshops of Dublin
for your poems, and could not find them
anywhere.
They had Heaney’s poems,
Plath’s poems, they even had Neruda
and Ginsberg’s poems, Homer of course,
Milton and Blake and Rupi Kaur.
One shelf had my own little book there.
But, Palo you were not there, why?
Is it because you were, as they said,
a corrupting homosexual?
No, the shelves had many queer writers there.
Is it because you were a dirty communist?
No, many commie leftist poets where there.
Is it because you were an Italian catholic?
No, I think not.
Because you wrote about the slums, and the sub proletariat?
It could be, but there were other slum writers there.
Is it because you told the truth and that is dangerous?
It could be, but there were many truths there too.
Do you have any of Pasolini’s books?
No, no I never heard of him, who is he?
He was once described as one of the great poets
of the twentieth century, and only a few can claim this title.
Oh, he said.
Yes, I said.
Salo, I said, with a wink.
Still they drive over your body in that car.
Still they assault your flesh and brutalize your body.
Still they burn you, and execute you with their silence,
their mediocrity and bland culture of murkiness.