Zeitgeist

Homo homini lupus

I do not understand the times.

My soul weeps for a bleeding world

My trembling hands reflexively fly forward;

To stop the relentless gushing.

Through my helpless, hapless fingers,

I feel its lifeblood flow.

Beneath my tiny hands,

The wound, the gash, is too big.

I, who can offer no suture

But words.

 

Death’s minions move

With unerring precision

To destroy, to consume, to ruin.

But that is just what people do

And have ever done.

Eros and Thanatos wrestle -

Are doomed to wrestle forever -

They are locked in an eternal stalemate,

A war of attrition.

Widows’ tears fall like sweat

Slick off the Titans’ backs.

They drink orphans’ blood to slake their thirst

In between rounds.

 

I weep hot tears for a broken world

A world where man preys on man

Where the haves rob the destitute

And those who have not

Have even the little they possess -

Their hopes, their loves, their lives -

Snatched from them;

An awesome world that glitters and glows

A world of litters and hovels.

Where the children of the rich,

And the children of the poor

Battle a common foe - round bellies.

A world where some children grapple with obesity

And others with kwashiorkor.

Where the rich make chairs creak like crickets

While their countrymen have rickets.

 

The world is in the claws

Of Wolves’ paws.

There are viziers, and pawns;

Those to whom the world belongs

And all the others, in their jaws.