8. Reprise

Gold cherry

By Ewan

Wed, 25 Oct 2017
  • 3572 reads
10 comments
 

Hear them all again:

 

 

“we didn’t know”                                                             six million and you didn’t know?

 

“we didn’t hear”                                                              a night of smashing windows?

 

“we didn’t see”                                                                the platforms and the trains?

 

“we didn’t look”                                                               anyone in the eye?

 

 

Silence is complicity,

 

though ignorance is bliss.

 

What’s the use of silence

 

when it leads to all of this?

 

 

Some say the Devil’s dead

and buried in Argentina,

more say he rose again

more say he rose again

more say he rose again

to play with Donald’s wiener.

 

Hear them all again:

 

we will not go                                                                                          from Canaan now

 

we will not                                                                                               die of terrorism

 

we will not lose                                                                                       to Philistines

 

we won’t forgive                                                                                     our enemies

 

 

 

 

Hear them all again:

 

Jim and Tammy Faye

breaking through the static

on the short wave

 

 

“for though the nuclear holocaust

will not dis-crim-in-ate,

broooooo-therrrrrs and sissssssss-terrrrss,

at least the non-believers

will still eva-por-ate.

 

 

“Stand up, stand up for Jesus, you soldiers of the crass,

as we await the rapture, achieved by critical mass”

 

 

On the eve of destruction,

you ask me over and over,

if I’m ready for the new dark ages,

if I can wait a thousand years,

or more, for enlightenment,

or just a reformation.

Behind the drums of war

I can hear six billion voices

singing a canticle for Liebowitz.

 

Certificate PG
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Comments

Submitted by airyfairy on

Love the structure of this, Ewan, and anyone who gets a canticle for Liebowitz in a poem deserves canonisation themselves.  The silence is creeping everywhere again.  Anti-semitic crimes at a record high in this country, hate crimes against people with disabilities rising daily, and a government whip demanding to know which academics are saying what about Brexit.  I don't care if his colleagues are disassociating themselves from him.  There has to be a certain kind of collecive mentality for him to think that was OK in the first place.  

Sorry.  Meant to say - excellent poem.

Submitted by Ewan on

evil to triumph it is only necessary that good men do nothing. As Burke almost said. Never more true.

Thank you!

Ewan

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by airyfairy on

This is our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Day!  Please share/retweet if you've enjoyed it too.  And do read the other links in this poem chain, if you haven't already!

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Wow. Monumental. Like it's carved into granite cliffs.

All true. How did we get to be heading back there?

Parson Thru

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Nucular. The spell checker doesn't even register. But, then, it wouldn't, would it?

Parson Thru

Submitted by Ewan on

my Spanish students that Trump speaks English as well as Rajoy does. In the last year at primary school, our teacher corrected us every time someone said "noo-queue-lah" and then explained it was an anagram of "unclear", pronounced "new-Klee-ah", is that "Klee-ah"? He liked puns and word play although he was a stern and serious fellow.

Thanks for reading all of these.

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

My pleasure. I had a quick look at the etymology a while back. Some dictionaries are accepting it now as a variant, despite the fact its root is "nuke" (of nukes: nucular/ newkiller). Sometimes you have to hand it to the US variant: it isn't a variant at all, the British one is. This time, no.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Ewan on

you're absolutely right. Some "Americanisms" are usages which crossed the Atlantic with the Mayflower, for example "gotten" which, come on, we all know must  have been as legitimate as "forgotten" on our side of the Atlantic many years ago. No, my own bugbears are things like "step foot". How can that mean anything?

Regarding "Nucular" some dictionaries are wrong. The derivation is from the nucleus... hmm...I'm guessing the meaning of the words Atomic Theory is beyond some on-line dictionary compilers.

Ha! Thanks for engaging, Alubia Vieja

Best

Ewan

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Sim on

Another powerful message, stylishly delivered. Fabulous!

Sim

Submitted by Ewan on

Simone, the older I get, the more it seems that we learn nothing at all from the past.

Thank you for reading, and your kind comments

Best

Ewan

Author Page at the 'Zon