Poem: Luxor

Apart from being a criminologist I also like to consider myself a writer, and poetry is of course very suited for a blog because the narratives I write are both too long and still require too much work to post here without me feeling anxious about them.

This is a poem I wrote two years ago.

Luxor

As though the Gods alone could create
That which bears such historical weight
Sphinx and ram bordering the lane
Guardians of faith and priests' long-held reign
Bronze are the sands pouring into the Nile
Biblical river offering soil so worthwhile
Red spotted heights topping off the King's Valley
Approached through the desert's lonely alley
And at the end of the stairs that amazing sight
Looking over the city from royal height
Site of the temples of Gods long past
Oh, how they perceive time flying fast
Wonderous city of one-and-thousand dreams
How far and yet near our last meeting now seems

It was mainly inspired by those great fourteen lines by John Burgon, part of his 1845 poem about the desert city of Petra in Jordan. I can only wish to write so beautifully as he does, but I'll keep practising and though this blog is meant for serious criminological and sociological pieces, every once in a while instead I'll try and post a poem.

Petra

It seems no work of Man's creative hand,
by labour wrought as wavering fancy planned;
But from the rock as if by magic grown,
eternal, silent, beautiful, alone!
Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine,
where erst Athena held her rites divine;
Not saintly-grey, like many a minster fane,
that crowns the hill and consecrates the plain;
But rose-red as if the blush of dawn,
that first beheld them were not yet withdrawn;
The hues of youth upon a brow of woe,
which Man deemed old two thousand years ago,
match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,
a rose-red city half as old as time.

Naturally I should've copied that wonderfully rhythmic "eternal, silent, beautiful, alone!", that's just marvelous, as marvelous as the comparisons with Greece and nearer churches and cathedrals - I should've compared stuff too.

And though I've never been to Petra and so can't judge whether Burgon's poem is in any case truthful, I dare say that he is right in claiming that things of that level of beauty seem to be particular to the Middle East and parts of North Africa.

So, poetry. Because criminology can get really depressing sometimes.
I promise something more serious later this week, about the media coverage of the Dutch case of two missing (now found dead) boys whose father was found two weeks ago having committed suicide.