Poem of Despair & Longing

 

All will be sacrificed

22 veterans a day

Will kill themselves

Winter will vanish

Whole peoples are disappeared

Their languages dance song

Remembered only by the trees

The trees are cut down

And will be remembered

By stones

Silent

In the great absence

All is reduced

Men douse themselves

In gasoline

And erupt into flames

Forests reduce to tinder

And blaze on the far horizon

Ocean currents stall or reverse

Golden algae blossoms

And chokes the warming waters

Animals in laboratories

Die of boredom

Or loneliness

Sacrificed

Wealth is accumulated

Celebrities dwell

In parallel dimensions

And shimmer in the distance

Like fata morgana

It is not for gods

Or goddesses

Or spirits found

In landscapes

In waters

That the sacrifice occurs

But for urges

That renew eternally

As each destruction finishes

Or maybe it's all just

Due to bad ideas

But that's kind of

Anti-climactic

Narratively disappointing

Probably it's for both

And battles that are lost

Are as important

As those that are won

Permitting survival

Within chaos & great stupidity

Permitting memory

To persist

And meaning

note: I think the poem below is written in a similar spirit to which WB Yeats wrote "The Second Coming." He sensed something malevolent descending upon Europe between the wars and sought words to express this. By writing this, I too am trying to articulate the dark, destructive thing quite active in the world today. I am for realism, creativity, imagination, community, emotional resilience and vulnerability, but against despair. Despair is too painful and should be avoided. But witness and resistance in any and all of its forms is to be pursued and despair may be encountered in this process. Nonetheless, I believe and my experience shows me goodness, even happiness is still possible even under these conditions.