Anxiety in Mosaic

BURNING DUMB WITNESS

16 Than a thousand peals of thunder Rumbling through endless stormy nights. These obscure cataclysmic times leave me trembling with wonder And here and there Is goodwill and peace bedevilled, Lying In ashen uselessness in the crematoria of evil. That these vain trespasses of mere mortals Could uglify the wondrous natural comeliness of mother earth so divine Bewilders my very soul And makes my blood run cold But until the last but one drop of Atlantic waters Has drenched all but a grain of Saharan sands, In scalding pools of tears we shall forever stand BURNING DUMB WITNESS Between July leaves fresh and green Penetrates a shower of rays; I bathe in your sun spray. Weave me a gilded morning That in the stillness of this place I may sit and listen To the oral tales of your secrets Muted in golden shafts Telling Of unspeakable mountain piles 17 Of shrouded indignities that burn In the blaze of your timeless memory Down to the ashes of forgiveness divine Of skulls and the crushed bones of innocents Strewn in the darkest grottoes of politics Of trillion zillion tons of blasphemy, hurled At you – since the day your eyelid melted away – From warped scriptures, mangled creeds And capsized dogmas And of swindling gluttons who grope In the dark of benighted lands Lugging pilferages from coffers and vaults Coruscating orb Divine Sitting decently on high, Unblinking omniscient spy (of all good and all machinations) You who uncovers the nooks and crannies of falsehood To the daylight jeer of truth Vouchsafe me that impossible knowledge Of the things you see But of which you utter not a word, Of how much nuclear greed per heart per nation There is down here And how many phobic heights more to ascend Before the end of days Eyeball of gold fire You burning dumb witness To age old truths and numberless un-divulged things Take this proffered hand reaching out for you 18 And lead me far far away into your omniscience, Into your eternity and into that wondrous power Which only a man’s bosom friend is privy to That, as you slowly sail Across this overhead sea of grey, I may behold you at midday without squinting Without going blind. BEASTS In this animal kingdom Here, where jackals eat jackals And cub devours mother hyena, On full stomachs Predators prowl still the jungle For prey In this animal kingdom Here, where giant tapeworms of insatiability Reside deep down the desires of beasts And appetites run wilder Than wild boars in dense wilds, A hunter heads home Bleeding from a damaged conscience, gun in hand And his own brother man Slung over his shoulder: Quarry for the long-throated In this animal kingdom Here, where some self-proclaimed kings of beasts Rival one another Just to be entitled ...