Imperium

1 August 2012
Memory takes us for a ride, and we it –

Time clocks its vengeance on forgetfulness;

When the god Remembrance comes calling

(Old Eros in a mask) we repossess


In vain the confabulated latitudes

For our retelling, now tainted and digital;

Far below the long-relinquished Equator

Our analog histories in the original


Lie in dust like Alexandrian manuscripts

Or sunk, an irretrievable Atlantis;

So we puzzle over what preceded Genesis

As we wait for Revelation to supplant us.


And so history is our cross and our salvation,

We genuflect before its stations, cosily;

From the first sad Romulus to the last

A hundred dozen winters weave a rosary


We can say in one chart or chapter,

And we joy ourselves then, or else we cry;

And we fix memory’s shingle to our future –

We will miss ourselves when we die.
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Alex Skovron

About Alex Skovron


Alex Skovron’s five collections of poetry to date are: The Rearrangement (1988), Sleeve Notes (1992), Infinite City (1999), The Man and the Map (2003), and a volume of prose-poems, Autographs (2008). Awards for his writing have included the Wesley Michel Wright Prize for Poetry, the FAW John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award, the Australian Book Review Poetry Prize, and, for his first collection, the Anne Elder and Mary Gilmore awards. His prose novella, The Poet (2005), was joint winner (with Kate Grenville) of the FAW Christina Stead Award for a work of fiction. Alex’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas. The numerous public readings he has given from his work have included appearances in China, Serbia, India, and on Norfolk Island. His New & Selected Poems is forthcoming from Puncher & Wattmann, and a volume of short stories is in preparation.



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