WORLD WAR COVID
Poems, mine and theirs
Noble Virgins Raped
Herds of sheep;
Woolens, tapestries and rugs;
Linen from fine-spun flax,
One of the first human harvests?
Spinning cotton tough to pick, as Gandhi recommends,
And weaving satin from it;
Or spinning silk of endless toil,
Were those the source of literacy?
Did poems alone speak of spirit and wisdom?
Written prose only for accounts and suchlike
Because the written word is easier to ignore
Than good poetry recited in those days;
Nothing more or less than that?
Shut out bad judgment by failing to memorize it
And forbidding its transcription?
Did some epics survive the end of the world
When book learning disappeared?
Was the epic, the Veda, the only thing left to be heard,
Under the rolling tick-tock of Yugas,
Once time wound down and vaporized every page and pixel,
(All that hard work gone!)
Along with the skill to transmit it
And the will to understand it?
Waterpower,
In mills, on boats and when fishing.
Was that the source of the numeric?
Or was it the knapping of flint?
Parallel and perpendicular: an initiation to geometry?
Noble virgins raped,
Pried from shielding arms
Right after the last gasp of desperate fathers,Lovers, husbands and brothers,
All fallen in combat.
Those victims left alive cast out
To distant hills and shores
Far from the massacre.
Take refuge in the wilderness
Far from warrior haunted plains,
Unto distant hills and shores,
Between reticent shepherds and taciturn fishermen,
Where security is bought with silence.
To tarry there distant.
Sigh over beauties and laughter long gone,
Count the stitches, reweave the nets,
And recite the rhymes you’ve memorized
Despite the tears they wring from you.
While weapons comb the cities,
Burn them, flatten them and spill them out to sea,
Set adrift in famine and disease,
Turn them into blood-greased charcoal,
Their quiet hearths smothered for years or forever,
As God wills it.
Zombies keen nightmares on the silver screen,Lunge to eat victims alive:Merely starving survivors of that hecatomb?Phantoms logged long ago in DNAFrom a distant past best forgotten?Merely us in less opportune guise?
Withdrawn there from zombies
Shut away from plagued and looting armies,
Teach the young survivors, if you can,
To recite the verses and count the stitches.
Thus, in hardy fisheries and alluring embroidery,
In the magic of books and rare wines
Traded from afar for quite some time,
In a civilized way, in our way,
During good years prior and since.
The tinkle of gold, soft abacus clicks
And charming music along shared shores.
Let's speak of civilized ways, ephemeral yet heroic,
What wise men discuss with full bellies
While the children are safe asleep.
Every Learner, often and together,
As long as there’s peacetime left.
In courts of law,
Why not wash each other’s feet?
The ritual purification of jurors,
Litigants wash the feet of their rivals
And of other celebrants?
Before and after the trial?
Let’s discuss the mercy God shows us
Mimed by our pardon of the Other,
Our outbursts becalmed miraculously
By the peace of God.
Let’s discuss hearts delivered by our love for one and all,
That we forgot, repressed and stifled;
With tears of joy and sighs of relief
From human angels praising God
Not the jibber jabber prayer of stupid demands,
As if we knew what we needed better than God.
Should we accept God’s tender loving care,
The only thing that keeps us alive –
We, lost in the heart of darkness –
We could warm the chill beating in our chest,
And cradle every child in loving arms.
Peals of infant laughter,
Flocks of birds from forests as far as the eye can see.
Front doors left unlocked in trouble-free security.
Protection vouched for by trustworthy warrior valor.
Famine unknown,
Plague inadmissible,
Injustice unjustifiable.
Learning everywhere instead.
A pleasant life a thousand years long
The painful one cut short:
A simple question of choice.
With the ethics of a newborn:
Fragile, deep and charming.
Sacrifice vestigial but deeply rooted:
Self-sacrifice, less often of the Other.
Celebration explosive but shallow,
Evident everywhere, unknown nowhere.
What can I tell you about this neglected peace?
Me, druid on the outside looking in,
Sipping the morning warmth of whiskey tea
Spokesman for long dead prophets
Relieving winter pains with hot sake
Mere apologist for the sadly mistaken
Savoring soft dark red wines.
Harken to the herald of Learner!
Herald, not hero (as Sarraute noted).
The true heroes and heroines are coming,
Their thoughts deeper than mine,
Better peace technicians than I,
Dependable lovers of dependable neighbors.
Accounts of their opulent exploits will amplify Learner
From the Sections Why, How and What
To Who, When and Where.
Proud to serve as that herald.
No matter how fleeting my message,
How poorly written or unread.
Proud to post it clearly on the Internet.
I spit in the eye of doom,
That you may read me and agree,
Or refute me, just as well,
Or better yet, do it better.
Hear Yee! Hear Yee!
We have just passed the Kali Yuga,
The Age three-quarters evil,
Into the Dvapara Yuga, that of halves;
Technological progress over time
From the bad (nukes) to those better (Eden).
History has never been our judge and jury
The executioner who blindfolds us on the scaffold,
But our past: a cracked old mirror,
An old snakeskin we must slough off.
Having struck bottom and rebounded,
We ascend to the surface,
Whether we understand that or not.
It is up to you, young Learners,
With little help from us weapon-stained elders
Trailing the blood-trails of victims of history,
Starving millions of babies, killing beasts by the billion,
Our heart chilled by those blots on our soul.
Instead of drowning the poor,
Every hand to the oars and the bailing!
Every brain inspired by the idea of peace,
Every gut soothed by its rewards
Every heart strengthened by its success.
Peace technologies will follow its awakening…
… Ours …
Time enough may remain before the pixels fade,
Before the world jumbles once again,
Before bright eyes become bitter dust,
And entropy bays its victory, shuts us up for good
And recasts the Yuga dice.
By all that’s holy, some heroism!
Good sense and good hearts.
The best possible world placed in all humility
On the altar of God,
Not the WeaponWorld concentration camp.
That satisfied mediocrity swapped out for PeaceWorld,
Before the merciless universe annihilates us in any case,
Exterminates us like the social insects we are.
Let our ideals gleam!
Our fondest dreams shine like a second Sun,
More so than the chorus of our radios.
Let our foremost hopes shine brighter than entropy
And set the abyss of Death alight with the flare of defiance!
Far too familiar with bitter truths,
We could navigate beyond them to God’s serene homeport.
What do we have left to lose,
We who must lose everything in any case?
What are we afraid of learning, who know next to nothing?
What are we afraid of, with nothing left to fear?
I defy you to make PeaceWorld happen;
I could care less where you come from,
Your prejudices, your fears and your misfortune.
I invite you to pledge your life to the common good
As a deputy of this honorable race,
A PeaceWorld Learner.
IN FRENCH
…
COMMENT ? markmulligan@comcast.net