Saeculum Obscurum

The nature of human kind!

Saeculum Obscurum

We live not in a Dickensian world

filled with choking smog

and grey stone skies,

where children climb soot charred chimneys

with empty bellies;

nor one where feudal tariffs apply

and mere peasants  

pay with sweated labour,

while vassals kneel before the crown

and pledged reverence and submission

by homage and fealty for their lands.

These are not the Dark Ages

between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance,

when Petrarch, in writing of the past, said:

"Amidst the errors there shone forth men of genius..."

A time of dark and light,

black and white,

good and evil for the masses.

Indeed so.

Then why have we witnessed

over 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded,

ranking World War I  among the deadliest conflicts in human history?

Usurped only by World War II

during which over 60 million people were killed,

about 3% of the 1940 world population.

5 million soldiers and civilians

lost their lives in the Korean war.

During the Vietnam War

3,091,000 people lost their lives.

800,000 Rwandans were killed during the 1994

100-day genocide,

140,000 people died during the Breakup of Yugoslavia.

The Ukraine conflict has to date seen 10,000 fatalities,

and the conflict in Yemen has so far killed another 10,000.

Syria has seen 400,000 killed, many of them children

and many more displaced.

To name but a few dark stains

on the soul of our planet.

Many more have been maimed

or are forced into refugee status

Yet we call ourselves civilised,

see our cultures as 'advanced'.

We think the dark age past,

but in reality we are still

nothing more

than marauding savages

draped in loin cloths. 

28/02/17

Reviews

[R J Askew]

Indeed, we are brutes. And even if we can take death out of war, there will be those who clamour for it back. I thought FIGHT CLUB got close to it.

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Indeed we are. Thank you R.J.

[DIVYA]

The description of the Dickensian World and the Dark Ages is amazing. Then come the human tragedies that are mind boggling in their scale and horror! The conclusion is so superbly damning.

"We think the dark age past,
but in reality we are still
nothing more
than marauding savages
draped in loin cloths."

Truly, man did not change...A great poem John.

[John Alexander McFadyen]

It is so, so disheartening to see us inflict such suffering. If we look further there are so many wrongs I have not mentioned. Even the disgusting nonsense at Standing Rock. Many thanks Divya.

[DIVYA]

Very tragic, indeed...

You are welcome, John.