Are there some epochs
When we feel the presence of history’s time
When a collective angst
Roils the senses
Intimations in the very air
That portend some vast disgrace?
Did not the poets and the playwrights
Feel the draughty wings
Of the giant eagle
The breath of the monstrous dragon
In that low decade of the 1930s
When all the kraken blew their fiery winds
Across the steppes
of Europe’s barbarous invasion?
Or are we all like the peasant
That speck ploughing his small field
Cleft to that narrow vision
When Icarus
[damaged] fell to the earth:
His vast pain unrelieved?
Like the missiles that shaft Ukraine
Relentless with their caustic power.
Like the soldiers of Zion
Butchering the medics of Gaza.
Untermensch – set to be eliminated
By hubris and religiosity:
The orthodox Tartar and the Jew
United in hate and lebensraum?
Or do the shopping malls
Still engender that trance like state
Staking their world to a barbarous bargain
Ripped from the hands of a piecemeal worker
The deficit of happiness unquenchable
Mental health radiating its disorder
Across the enormous expanse
Of that glittering veldt?
We sit and smile
And make digestive work
Of the poor possibilities that might be enacted:
The conditions to be met
In the face of disregard
And dehumanising despair.
All those fiery winds bring ashes unto dust.
The choking grit that so invites suppression.
Where the bonfires burn each stubborn law
The protection of the state expiring:
All are convicted on a madman’s whim
Burnt by every toxic declaration.
Every age replenishes its evil.
The madness of war
Accretes its stark decay
Tanked on the bile of boyish dreams
The fecundity of hate inspiring.
That febrile air will not be stilled.
Inexorable
It vibrates with an awesome power.
Once more
The poets and the playwrights stand sentinel:
All they can do is warn!
Beware!
August 2025
Gar Jones
When we feel the presence of history’s time
When a collective angst
Roils the senses
Intimations in the very air
That portend some vast disgrace?
Did not the poets and the playwrights
Feel the draughty wings
Of the giant eagle
The breath of the monstrous dragon
In that low decade of the 1930s
When all the kraken blew their fiery winds
Across the steppes
of Europe’s barbarous invasion?
Or are we all like the peasant
That speck ploughing his small field
Cleft to that narrow vision
When Icarus
[damaged] fell to the earth:
His vast pain unrelieved?
Like the missiles that shaft Ukraine
Relentless with their caustic power.
Like the soldiers of Zion
Butchering the medics of Gaza.
Untermensch – set to be eliminated
By hubris and religiosity:
The orthodox Tartar and the Jew
United in hate and lebensraum?
Or do the shopping malls
Still engender that trance like state
Staking their world to a barbarous bargain
Ripped from the hands of a piecemeal worker
The deficit of happiness unquenchable
Mental health radiating its disorder
Across the enormous expanse
Of that glittering veldt?
We sit and smile
And make digestive work
Of the poor possibilities that might be enacted:
The conditions to be met
In the face of disregard
And dehumanising despair.
All those fiery winds bring ashes unto dust.
The choking grit that so invites suppression.
Where the bonfires burn each stubborn law
The protection of the state expiring:
All are convicted on a madman’s whim
Burnt by every toxic declaration.
Every age replenishes its evil.
The madness of war
Accretes its stark decay
Tanked on the bile of boyish dreams
The fecundity of hate inspiring.
That febrile air will not be stilled.
Inexorable
It vibrates with an awesome power.
Once more
The poets and the playwrights stand sentinel:
All they can do is warn!
Beware!
August 2025
Gar Jones
