("I'M SPARTACUS!"
"NO, I'M SPARTACUS!")
WE'RE ALL HAMAS
NOW!
if the parallels were less obvious,
or were eerie when recalled;
if our appetites for the barbarous
did not spring,
full-formed,
from a lust to fight and fall;
if, when hope was bounteous,
unheard were Furies' calls;
if from the rubble piteous
"enemy" cries did not enthrall
if enemies were friends and we lived long
enough to hear a glacier's second song,
would we then needs pursue the peace
to ensure long life is sweet?
if endlessly creating
our own feasts and famines
were not our history,our chosen fate,
we would have stopped conspiring
to make our own expiring
but an unseemly sacrifice
to hate
dead children laid beside their mothers,
cries and screams from mourners;
living only loss, our own or others,
refusing or unable
to rise out of
our fable:
"The powerful can triumph,
possess everything,
turn the bloody tables
and suck good life from evil"
no volunteers for enduring
a life long enough for learning
from the hanging and the burning?
that life in peace and contemplation
obviates the lying desperation
for expiation?
those who love the war and gore
and name their weapons "Predator"
display the human evolution:
our guises, self-deception
achieve high sophistication,
yet, we are the same
as we ever were
and it's our weapons
rise to heaven.
not a vision into forward time
emerging from a dream:
not killers' drones nor minds so fine
will ever start the meme
of our flying, high and free,
of our own deathly vices.
