thursday, january twentieth, two thousand five

High noon,
still no sign of sun,
clouds lower overhead,
the very puddles
reach the sky,
muddled thoughts
fill my world with
shades of grey.

Even
this miraculous mirror
on the world
gives no reason for joy,
as if some dark force
weaves itself
throughout
our entire kingdom.

Surrounded by troops,
while snipers survey the crowds
our newly-crowned king
proclaims

“We have seen our vulnerability, and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny — prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder — violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders and raise a mortal threat.”

promises to bring
freedom to the world
while Hajj pilgrims symbolically stone Satan
and, putting a modern face on slaughter
Turkish authorities try to clean up ritual killing

Feeling like
some freshly-gored
fisher king,
I cannot help but wonder
if one must
sacrifice the heart
in order to leave
no room for despair.

4 thoughts on “thursday, january twentieth, two thousand five”

  1. Sacrificing the heart is not worth the price of despair. Hope goes with it, too. Though, maybe, without hope, there is a way to move forward. But there is no road without a heart.

    Great post, Loren. And a poignant question to raise with the poem!

  2. “prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder”

    Heh! Who says the Shrub ain’t self-aware?

    You know, I’ve been racking my brain lately trying to decide who I’d prefer if I were American: Heinlein’s Nehemiah Scudder, or George W.? I’m leaning towards Scudder.

  3. From the side or
    a little more toward the front,
    you don’t even have the notion of the exact object you see.
    Do not try to approach,
    the distance is always the same.

    You are only self-deluding if you believe contrarily.

    See.
    Notice you only distinguish shapes.
    The rest is diffused,
    like a crushed fly which no longer has contours.
    You chase and chase, but you know not well what.

    At least make a game of this,
    as if a sky-rocket
    having just been launched
    would eternally
    continue to
    illuminate your sky.

    And everything you would see clearly.

Comments are closed.