Present Times


Remembrance day, once again, to hear the bugles call
On the eleventh hour of a late autumn day
To tell us that we have now buried the last memories
Of the day when reason gave over to the savagery
In the untamed breasts of men in the name of honour
As the last members of the species who felt that way.

So my darling, without honour, what remains?
Hermann Hesse? The endless feuilleton to read
Across the illuminated machine made manuscript?
Love has become so prescriptive,
As if this essential act is the last posturing,
Of the indolent civilisation everywhere gone mad.

Oil burns, atoms split, fire upon fire in the furnace
And ten billion fingers turn the breeches and levers
That make more and more of the same inane gadgets
That line every child's chamber across the globe
From Rio de Janeiro to Helsinki,
The vision blurs and the eyes stare at nothing.

The twenty leaders make small talk wearing neckties
About the importance of being earnest
And what fun it is to swear to keep the secret.
Some were selected to be elected and others just insisted
That it was destiny that took them to the rostrum,
Standing in line like in the allegory of slander.

There are mercenaries and thugs everywhere ready to shoot.
But no soldier is prepared to die inside his iron vest
Not because he is not brave but because he is tired
Of waiting for an excuse good enough to pull the trigger
That would spit out a thousand bullets in a minute
Thinking that it's a policeman's task to catch assassins.

Yes, Gordon Sumner, Russians love their children too,
Since you reminded them to, sitting on your new castle wall,
Thinking of the Berlin Wall and barbed wire fences,
The same twisted wire that lined the trenches
Waiting for bodies, with ribbons on their chests, to fall.
Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is bright.
 
 

Bevagna 11 11 2010