James Fenton

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The MistakeWith the mistake your life goes in reverse.Now you can see exactly what you didWrong yesterday and wrong the day beforeAnd each mistake leads back to something worseAnd every nuance of your hypocrisyTowards yourself, and every excuseStands solidly on the perspective linesAnd there is perfect visibility.What an enlightenment. The colonnadeRolls past on either side. You needn't move.The statues of your errors brush your sleeve.You watch the tale turn back — and you're dismayed.And this dismay at this, this big mistakeIs made worse by the sight of all those whoKnew all along where these mistakes would lead — Those frozen friends who watched the crisis break.Why didn't they say? Oh, but they did indeed — Said with a murmur when the time was wrongOr by a mild refusal to assentOr told you plainly but you would not heed.Yes, you can hear them now. It hurts. It's worseThan any sneer from any enemy.Take this dismay. Lay claim to this mistake.Look straight along the lines of this reverse

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God, A Poem 'I didn't exist at Creation, I didn't exist at the Flood, And I won't be around for SalvationTo sort out the sheep from the cud-'Or whatever the phrase is. The fact isIn soteriological termsI'm a crude existential malpracticeAnd you are a diet of worms

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It is not what they built. It is what they knocked down.It is not the houses. It is the spaces between the houses.It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist