Iron Age

Iron Age full on when proud men

(and Women too) are hardest

On each other

Naked, narcissistic aggression killing

Thousands a day on two

Continents or three, incontinent

Crowing, growing pride of

Tyrants rants

Heedless

Glaciers, pack ice

Melt indeed, but

Adamantine hearts in echo chambers do not

Is this

The guilded cage

Of the Iron Age?

The high point, the

Acme, the C.O.D. order that the coyote

Placed to catch the roadrunner

World marches ineluctably forward like

Lemmings, failing to stem

The rising tide of our own destruction

Following appetent crowd off

The highest

Cliff

Windmills, cleaner

Energy foregone, freedom

Vanished

Water runs

Out. Oil runs

Out

When the wedding party

Comes, will we be the wise virgins or

The foolish?

If you cannot say, then Time

Will tell and what

is Time

But Movement,

Motion, and

Images?

I saw the Caspian Sea in

A dream last

Night

What of truth? Forsooth and

Kindness? Wisdom? Foresight?

Mercy?

"Shoot if you must this old, gray head"

'Twould be ill advised to say that

Or to catch a falling flag, because

We need to ask whether the tyrant has a

"Nobler nature within him stirring to Life;"

Heart harder than a Confederate slaver, he might just shoot!

I've not noticed mercy

So far

Have you?

Let us not be fooled lest

We be fools

This is not about forks in the road

Left or right, "when you

Come to the fork in the road,

Take it!"

But best, I think to

Bring one's own humanity along

For the ride

Invasions, Abrasions, Conflagrations,

Designations, Prevarications not

Well founded

But some are found, Bleeding

In a ditch beside the Road, the

Road we have taken because they have

The insiders, deciders, presiders,

Those with power, while we

Cower, we

"Let tyrants shake their iron rod" and how

Is it right to hate women? How?

By what right or title?

And how will they get by without the rest of

The world with fading lamps,

Rising seas, and Empty Cups? How will WE?

Is there actually a plan, or only temporary

Temporizing to enrich enrichment of the few to

The detriment of the many?

"Go ahead

And hate a

Neighbour?"

"Go ahead

And cheat a

Friend?"

Is that what is meant?

And the elite criminal caste so big it is a

Criminal class

Traffickers, abusers,

How many have they abused,

How many young persons violated?

Social net of abuse, a network

Crafted to cover

The Globe and to flatter

The influential. A prince,

Ruler, abuser's sycophants

In exchange for what?

A massage of the ego, or

Of something else?

Why should We the People

Abide this? or are we no

Longer We the People?

But just

Frightened masses? I remember

'Duck and cover,' drill

At school, when I, being overlarge, could not

Fit under my desk. "Paul, you are not

Covered!" I am sorry Miss P, I do not

Fit

I asked my father. He said

"I wouldn't worry too much,

Son"