5 June 2011

ALL FALL DOWN

I.
Guns! Tanks! Airplanes!
Rolling carcasses of steel
Caress the levelled hillsides
With Death's Icy Gaze
Leaders chanting endlessly:
"Deutschland uber alles,
Brittania rules the waves,
Roma aeterna victoriaque,
God Bless the USA"
America, Germany, Britain,
Rome, Babylon, and Ur
"Dust to Dust,
And Ashes to Ashes"
Hurry up now and get past the "to"!
Who shall be next?
Stand in line and wail!
We all fall down
Lord Protector, Guide us now!
Defend us against the Devil
And the Fury of the Northmen!
The Enemy of God and Man
Will forever have power enough and more
(Hitler was elected, too.)

II.
The Sky breaks
The Sun streams in
Skulls in Mountains
Mark Hulagu's Novus Ordo Seculorum's wake
Where were ye birds
And your pebbles
To send this Abraha's elephants back
Beyond the Sea?
Alas! O, Attila! O, Alaric! Alas!
You never left a scar like this!
Ya Haroun, what thanks did Karlos Magnos' kin
Send for Abu'Abbas?
A burning city?
A ruined land?
By the Sweet waters of Babylon,
We will sit, weep, and remember
And in the mountains of Nineveh,
We will rend our clothing and lament!
Do not fear, O Babylon!
Now their walls are covered, too:
"Mene, mene, tekel, upharson"
happy shall be the Collector
Of your debts!

III.
Blinding flash! Heat!
Scorching earth!
Is today Black Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday?
Another Guillotin stands proudly by
Watching his brilliance shine.
Like Bulgars, we've been blinded
Only we have done it to ourselves.
The silence you requested is granted
Now go thou
And do likewise!
O You Proud King!
O You Proud Kingdom!
Men pray to you saying:
"None is like you,
None can war against you!"
Forty two months of you!
Enough!
Too much!
Like the Nephilim, like them of Gomorrah,
You too shall drown!
I hope against hope
I pray to whoever hears it is so.

IV.
Suddenly,
I look up
A woman stands before me
In one hand, she holds a torch
A Red Light blazes.
And in the other?
A placard:
"I am
America the Great
The Mother of Prostitutes
And of all the
Abominations of this Earth!"
And I knew!
Liberty was drunk!
You Lying Whore!
You Prostituted Lush!
Mother!

V.
Like Oedipus,
I plot to kill a king
But I, I shall kill you too, O Mother!
"Rache! Rache!"
A bloody finger writes.
Widows and orphans
Sonless mothers
And motherless sons
Attest that, yes, you are no wimp.
Now, if only, your mother
Were sonless
And wife a widow ...
But, you were not alone!
Revenge will be great!
Revenge will be bloody!
And a long way off.
Play amidst the rubble
Dance among the Ashes.

VI.
"Ring around the Rosies,
Pocketful of Posies,
Ashes, Ashes,
We all fall ..."

0 comments:

Post a Comment