HEAR THE SILENCE
"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport." (King Lear, 4.1. 37–38)
Veils of disguise,
shield our eyes
from the nakba,
from the human wreckage
Journalists targeted
children ripped apart
people degraded
picked off by snipers
the cruelty virus of today
will have its way
will return magnified
Spit it out
signs and wonders
on this blood-soaked land ~
their names will spread
across the seas,
across the centuries -
Right in my core
nestle
these things I can't recall:
but I know
where silence predominates,
in this empty,
clock-chiming hall.
like never before
we live,
like shadows on the dance floor,
like strobe lights on the ceiling
we lose our common humanity
the remnants of fellow-feeling.
?si=8Qxiqoa63FSC4nXe
M.C. Newberry
Thu 11th Jan 2024 17:07
Prussian author von Clauswitz noted in his famous tome "On War" that
what cannot be won in war is to be won in the peace (and vice versa).
War has been an integral part of historical human existence,
whether we like it or not. Like an extended family quarrel,
certain parts of the human family seem all too ready and
willing to "battle it out", with reasons that vary from the
righteous under perceived threat to the aim of achieving ascendancy for gain of land, wealth or religious belief. And
nothing much has (or will?) change on present evidence.
But then under the sky, humans attack other humans; animals attack other animals; insects attack other insects; and viruses attack other minute life
forms in their turn.
What does that tell us - except that only Man has the ability
to use reason to effect change. But reason is subjective in
many minds, so often to a hugely detrimental and ignorant degree. That perhaps is the fundamental ongoing problem.
We continue to be the hostages of self-obsessed brutish ignorance from somewhere in this world even while seeking to
improve this existence we are given.