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Anamnesis

Ian McLeod

I watch the clock to my upper left,
I can't but feel bereft.
I hide myself in the craggy cleft
of this rock, my aegis.

Of love, I was a grand Emperor.
Of fear, I had no horror.
Only that otherness and terror
straight from the Almighty.

As Claudius reigned empathizing,
stammering, stuttering;
a half-witted, scorned idiot-king:
so also have I reigned.

To quote him, "it is not quantity
of wits, but quality."
I mimic Claudius' false idiocy,
so I may too survive.

I'm measuring days in cigarettes:
I feel for Antoinette.
I held her hair back from the toilet:
it was her last drunk night.

I would, today, trade anamnesis
toward mellifluous
amnesia; blissful forgetfulness.
But that ain't happening.