“Triumphs and Laments,” by Daniel Tobin

Poetry faculty member and 1990 alum Daniel Tobin was recently featured in Berfrois. Read an excerpt of “Triumph and Laments” below:

Triumphs and Laments

(the mural by William Kentridge)

As though these words were shadows sprayed
across a wall of travertine
such figures resurrect the scene
blanched to presence on this page—

stone, really, the white river wall
stenciled with attributes of moss
and merely human detritus,
its negative space colossal.

Here within this running frieze
Romulus murders again his twin,
soldiers behead barbarians
while a saint sighs in ecstasy.

Here lovers in a fountain splash
wildly for La Dolce Vita,
as the broken march defeated
to where the ghetto flies to ash.

Read this poem in its entirety, as well as another, here: https://www.berfrois.com/2022/01/triumphs-and-laments-and-roar-by-daniel-tobin/