Old Man Ante Portas Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

Old Man Ante Portas



A portal, delicate and still,
a shadow, most pronounced
between two numbers, if you will,
of hair; only the vulgar pounced
upon fragility.

He paused to catch his breath.
How could a man of high nobility,
proceed and face his death?

A trap of honey waiting for sweet cream,
reflecting lumens and fluorescence, fragrant lure,
to feel the stirrings of a young man's hopeful dream
and see reality, still locked and wholly pure.

It startled him to feel determined hands
in symmetry, touch both his loins to say:
'Yes I shall open my small portal to demands,
and if it pleases, you perhaps may want to stay.'

And so it happened that he dwelled for evermore
inside of Roma, near Borghese's Citadel.
Knowing the anagram of Roma spells Amor
he'd chosen Heaven and its pleasures over Hell.

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