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Souls
There are so many souls worth saving the face wreathed in roses whose eyes tell tales from before civilization when trees were…
THE ENORMOUS CORRIDOR OF SORROW
In the enormous corridor of sorrow
masked Napoleonic pygmies play with human
souls in the
shapes of coke bottles and guided missiles
and the clatter they raise
is more deafening than silence but
leads to the same end the same bolted door
A gigantic wheel rolls down
sorrow’s enormous corridor aclattering
as if to challenge with grief its mere
invention as the era of slaughter
though it doesn’t matter
I can’t find my eyes among the rubble
A tsunami traded for the killer instinct in
the heart of man might set out a tea set
in the enormous tidal wave enough to
engender a pretense at civility though
no one finds himself more content
than the self-justified mass murderer
at home with his happy shadows
7/26/2005 (from In the Realm of Neither)
This poem was written at the height of the tragic summer war in Lebanon, and the sentiment continues into the seemingly endless day of tragedy in Iraq and elsewhere. Arrogance is the vice here, and Napoleon has always typified for me the arrogance of a leader who rather thinks he is God. It’s a huge mistake… and everyone suffers. Because at base they are intellectually, emotionally and spiritually stunted, and God intervenes, much to their surprise I’m sure, and cuts them down at the end.
Categories: Poems