Requiem (April 2017)

A critique of the current state of the socio-psycho-political landscape in the Western world, and speculation on how we got here.

Requiem (April, 2017)

 

I fear no man.

I don’t fear the reaper. I have nothing to fear.

And fear itself? I’m afraid not.

Practically fearless.

And yet,

I am afraid for this world.

 

Something is calling. I hearken after it.

But it is hard to hear.

The crazy are louder. The lazy prouder.

But something is surely calling. Something is surely falling. I feel it.

I am afraid for this world.

 

What is it? What happened? Whence came this point of no return? When did it start? How?

Whatever, whenever, however, it did not start suddenly.

But suddenly, it is here,

and I am afraid for this world.

 

~~~~~ *** ~~~~~

 

It has been coming for some time.

Some say it was fated; the end, sown like a seed, inside the very beginning;

ever so slowly and silently, growing through us, only now blooming.

But I don’t think so.

It need not have turned out this way.

We failed ourselves.

 

It did, however, start some time ago, very soon after our first chance to get it right.

Just when we found the torch that lit the way,

even as we held it up, it began slipping from our grasp.

The sad few could see, and warned, but went unheeded,

as they so often do.

 

Those few could see we were losing the torch, the light, losing sight.

We gazed at the torch, and straight into the light;

too amazed, entranced, and so, blinded by it, instead of seeing the way it lit.

 

A simple mistake, but such a tragic one;

doomed to be repeated, over and over, in so many ways;

until seeing the mistake could no longer help us;

until it was too late;

until now.

I am truly afraid for this world.

 

~~~~ *** ~~~~

 

The torch became terribly misdefined,

its true meaning warped, wholly misconceived, time after time, each worse than the time before.

What was supposed to mean who we are, and elevate us to our greatest destiny,

became increasingly downgraded, cheapened;

until finally, we made who we are into something we merely have;

something that can be wielded;

something some of us can own, and keep others from owning;

something particular and privileged, instead of universal and empowering;

reduced to a commodity;

some thing.

 

That torch was called freedom. I don’t what to call it now.

 

In turn, the torch’s light became terribly misused,

its true purpose never really achieved, misappropriated, time after time, each worse than the time before.

What was supposed to penetrate darkness, turn ignorance to knowledge,

and lead the way to wisdom,

became increasingly narrow, utile;

until finally, we made what should help us better understand and discern

into something used to make more things;

something used to acquire more fame and fortune than others,

to gain political or religious power over the masses;

an evil tool;

some thing.

 

That light was called reason. I don’t know what to call it now.

 

But among all our blindness and blunders with the torch and its light,

there was, and still is, the greatest mistake of all;

the supreme error;

a dreadful error that made all other errors possible, even inevitable.

We failed to consider the hands that were to grasp the torch,

to hold up the light that we might see the way.

We failed to care enough about why we were holding it up,

why we needed to hold it up, why we needed to see the way.

We failed to care enough about how it should be held,

what to look for with it,

what to do with what we found.

 

Those hands,

the hands of each and every one of us, once called love and will,

once holding the promise of wiser, more cultured ideas, and of a civilized realization of ideals,

were the human soul and spirit, our caring heart and wondrous verve for life.

I know what to call them now.

Call them politics and power. Call them vain self-interest and raw avarice.

Call them whatever you want. But know this:

we are now at the mercy of what we have wrought with those misbegotten hands.

Be very afraid for this world.

 

~~~~ *** ~~~~

 

After centuries of mutating freedom and hell-bent reason,

of emancipation becoming enslavement, and the rational becoming rationale,

of compassion and passion morphing into cold calculation and unbridled drive,

the appalling error became the only answer

without question;

until ultimately elevated, edified and instantiated,

our hopes became misplaced in the error’s highest form,

sealing our doom.

 

For more than a hundred years now

we have been giving ourselves, and our collective global future, over to the “winner”,

to the self-anointed success, the champion of the damned,

in the land of the spree and home of depraved.

Lost in itself, lost to itself;

where winning eclipses all games, and cheating is the cardinal rule;

where rights are more like wrongs;

where culture just copies the best of the long since defeated, and calls it class, calls it original;

where money shouts, drowning out the impoverished and underprivileged;

where violence is daily bred, inflicted on innocence and evil alike,

then repackaged as entertainment and sold back to the victims;

where perpetual celebration is mandated, without any victory;

all with a delicious delight in decadence reminiscent of Rome,

but far more perilous for us all, whether inside or out.

 

It is a self-glorifying realm, a self-crowning kingdom.

The kingdom’s subjects are subjected to the kingdom and its hollow throne,

and so are we all.

The kingdom rules without a queen, without a white knight,

without challengers, without apology, without shame.

Self-involved. Self-serving.

Selfish.

 

~~~~ *** ~~~~

 

And just now,

right after a black prince was crowned under a banner of hope and change,

ruling beautifully and benevolently, giving the whole race a glimmer,

inexplicably there came a white knave.

The knave appealing to the darkest side, the worst of all possible bad choices.

The knave arose,

uniting the lowest, all too common denominator,

looking to purchase power.

The once brave cowered, and fools were empowered, their chosen knave now towered,

so far above them

and beneath us all.

 

The almighty dollar has finally won it all;

truth is supplanted by lies and alternative facts,

democracy by despotism,

substance by veneer;

genuine advances are being cancelled;

what’s left of Nature’s bounty is being trampled,

humanity running roughshod, in spite of all we know;

sabers are rattling louder than ever before, forces ramping up,

hungry for the rockets’ red glare and the bombs bursting in air;

cruel, despicable insects, once hiding in shame, now emerge boldly from their lairs,

back into the light, basking in the glow of disgraceful might.

And the crying is indistinguishable from the nervous laughter.

 

~~~~ *** ~~~~

 

The torch,

once a precious beacon of a worthy future, is now a forgotten principle,

lost in the aimless shuffle toward oblivion.

 

The flame,

that once shed light on the path through the darkness,

has been extinguished,

replaced by the sickly, invented colours of neon.

 

And the hands,

once the source of our tenderness and vigour,

have been co-opted into the service of narcissism and mindless consumption.

 

Now I,

the ever-positive thinker, the hopeless romantic, eternal optimist, dormant poet,

takes pen in hand, one more time, to strangely declare

that I am afraid.

I am very afraid for this world.

 

Author's Note

Unpublished, copyrighted