On this cold November night
Salman Rushdie shook my hand.
An irate Ayatollah had
pronounced a fatwa on the
man

He seemed at peace, this hirsute fellow.
in his bespoke suit from Savile Row.
He signed some copies of his book
then his security man said he must go..

The lecture hall had been half full.
Perhaps some had been scared away.
I had come to hear him speak.
Freedom of speech must rule the day.

Outside  Colden in the dark
an amphitheater is tucked away
A stage sunk in a bowl of grass
where Greek tragedies  might be played.

Which tradition shall prevail?
I wondered to myself that day.
Will acolytes of a murderous cult
Sweep Euripides away?

A Moslem horde  poured through the gates
when Rome fell  for the second time.
The Divine Wisdom was defiled
and Constantine Palaeologus died.

I turn my collar against the damp
illumined by sodium vapor light
I think on Arnold's loss of faith
and ignorant armies that struggle in the
night