A Small Eternity

 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?—Jeremiah 17:9, KJV

The verb suicide is both transitive

And intransitive; the act’s been called

Murder with mistaken identity.

By that logic, murder’s suicide, too—

Merely the victim’s identity got wrong.

Atavus means "ancestor," and long

Atavistic myself, a small eternity,

Recalling atrocities no human can forgive,

Eyeless in Gaza, perceive suicide—

Who'd have thought that '25 would whisper '43!

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

Epitaph on a Parcel of Prevaricators

These, at a time when the world looked doomed,

An era when soul self doubted,

Paused for a moment, then resumed

Selling life short, and went to bed.

Their dreams trumped the trough upended;

Sound the sleep of the loaded liar;

What fate conceded, these defended,

Renouncing proofs of Earth on fire.

Tip o' the kepi to A. E. Housman's “Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries”

Monday, August 18, 2025

To a Crow

Krähe, wunderliches Tier,

Willst mich nicht verlassen?

[“Crow, you queer creature,

Won't you please let me be?”]

—Wilhelm Müller, “The Crow,” set by Schubert in his Winterreise (1828)

Hail to you, swart spirit,

  Bird you've always been

(Don't think I doubt it!)

Since, in the Miocene,

Seventeen million years ago, flapping on the scene,

 From lizardry you leapt,

  Smarter yet, and more,

With all your promise kept,

And that resounding caw.

We martial upright apes are greatly in your debt!

On Windy Ilion's plain:

  Horseman Hector dead,

The Greek and Dardan slain

  Bleeding ghastly red,

You cleared things up real quick—“Mr. Clean,” but years ahead!

On Cannae's battleground  

  Countless Romans dying,

Expiring all around,

   Were not by you left sound—  

Speedy's your middle name, the Carthaginians found!

Austerlitz’s butcher’s bill,

  Paris, Boney claimed,

Would in a night refill

  (Excluding, that is, the maimed).

Your cleanup once complete, no emperor complained.

The Somme and Stalingrad

  Both called upon your aid.

Bipedals had it bad,

  Old Clootie had it made!

Hell’s fires blazing bright, still crows were unafraid.

In this sampler of warfare

By generals of repute

The crows were always there,

Waiting patiently to loot

Sightless eyes—cadavers' wounded faces' fruit.

In Ukraine's Donbas today,

  Ravens diligent,

Dead die the hi-tech way,

  "Negotiations" spent.

For po-faced anthropophagites, those crows are heaven sent!

Saturday, August 16, 2025