…These men are worth your tears:
You are not worth their merriment.

-Wilfred Owen, “Apologia Pro Poemate Meo”

When that loudmouth on the wireless machine
Alludes to Western Civilization
What does he mean? Paradise Lost? Probably not
Nor Saint Paul speaking on the Field of Mars

The Kalevala, Hagia Sophia
With its pendentives lifting up our prayers
Horatius fighting to defend his bridge
And Wilfred Owen dying bravely on his

Lord Tennyson and Idylls of the King
Chapultepec, Henry V, Becket
The paratroops at Arnhem, Saint Thomas More,
His King’s loyal servant, but God’s first

The Stray Dog poets of Saint Petersburg
The brave last stand of Roland at Roncesvalles
Lewis and Tolkien and glasses of beer
Montcalm and Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham

Hildegard von Bingen, Siegfried and the Rhine
Magna Carta, HMS Hood, the Thames
The Grove of Daphne, “The Old Rugged Cross”
Beatrix Potter and her little pet rabbit

El Cid, Anne Frank, John Keats, Saint Benedict
“I Have a Dream,” Dostoyevsky, and Greene
Viktor Frankl, Dag Hammarkskjold, and Proust
Good Chaucer’s naughty pilgrims telling tales

The Gettysburg Address, Willie and Joe
Stern Saint Augustine of North Africa
Wodehouse writing a jolly bit of fun
Saint Corbinian and Bavaria

The ancient glories of Byzantium
Pius XII contra the bombs and lies
The 602nd TD Battalion
Saint Joan, the Prado, and Robert Frost

And far, far more.

When that loudmouth on the wireless machine
Alludes to Western Civilization
What does he mean?

Something a wise Benedictine said reminded this scribbler of the poor man to whom Becket gives a blanket in the 1964 film:

Poor man: "Thank you."

Becket: "You're welcome.  It will keep you warm."

Prissy cathedral canon: "He'll only sell it for drink."

Becket: "Then* that will keep him warm."

Compline in an Alley

Oh, let the poor man cling to his bottle
It’s his, isn’t it?  It’s his own free choice
The only thing he owns. Not even the space
Behind the dumpsters is reserved for him

Some bigger guy might take it away tonight
And his blankets too, and maybe his shoes
But with his bottle he is a worthy man
And he will drink to his own worthiness

Hard-earned, hard-fought, hard-drunk, ‘til dead
And kissing no one’s feet or hands or *ss

A Take Away from the Take Away Steak Fingers

King Henry II: Forks?

Thomas Becket: Yes, from Florence. New little invention. It's for pronging meat and carrying it to the mouth. It saves you dirtying your fingers.

King Henry II: But then you ***** the fork.

Thomas Becket: Yes, but it's washable.

King Henry II: So are your fingers. I don't see the point.

-Becket, 1964

Encapsulated in bivalves of foam
As bottom feeders in the fast-food chain
Small fragments of a poor dead cow, chopped, shaped
And formed into cow fingers that are not

For it behooves the diner thus to know
That cows haven’t any fingers at all
But the dear diner does, and digitally
Renders the cow fingers as nutrition

And that is all there is about cow fingers -
Not a topic on which the gourmet lingers