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R:1

War chariots shooting
Times Square, rush hour,
Head on crash.

Plush dive. Edgy.
A drink or two. Hearts
Thumped for each other.

The Kiss, The Thinker.
Modern Greek.
Ovid on 42nd Street.

Aroused, We slouch
Sideways
By cross-town train.

Inferno. Fanfare.
Aftermath. The Pieta.
Our Magnum opus.

We collapse,
Pant unintelligible,
Inconsolable.

We are Migrants.
Passports in tatters.
Always foreign shores.

We murmur together,
Translate English
To Latin, maybe Japanese.







Orginal

I pause too late,
the drink already
gone to my head.

He cooks a little.
Porcini mushrooms,
coarse sea salts.

Turns back to me
exposed. Waist down.
Edgy, almost Roman.

I've seen this before,
I lean on my elbows,
meeting him halfway.

How much he needs
a woman. Frantic rage
for an hour, maybe two.

War chariots shooting
the Plain of Megiddo,
Head on crash.

St. John the Baptist
preaching, The Kiss,
The Thinker and me.

Ovid Metamorphoses,
my magnum opus
signed by us both.

Aroused,
I slouch sideways
along gates of Hades.

Inferno. Fanfare.
Aftermath.
the Pieta.

At last he collapses,
pants, unintelligible,
inconsolable.

In my ear, guttural
like a man translating
English into into Greek.

Classically erotic. Nice allusions to antiquity which give the piece stature.

I would change Hell to Hades just because. Nicely done

The last 2 stanzas are the best.....take out an 'into' in the last line....I would remove the John the Baptist stanza....it doesn't advance the poem... though an active verb inserted would improve the stanza....but ah, those last 2 stanzas make the poem more personal, and thus more interesting

Agree with Bob, John the Baptised
was against this sort of thing.

How much he needs
a woman. Frantic rage
for an hour, maybe two.

I see his desperation, his need for
a woman, for a woman in need . . .

Bernie I liked the original better. If that is any sort of crit.