Our Usual Suspects

 

There are only two tribes of humans: they that make the wounds, and they who must heal them. Which kind are you?

 

*
 
How did They get

To be so Big

And We so

Very Small?

 

From Travancore

To Timbuktu

they roamed

the southerly

climes

 
O they were such

heady times !
 
*

 

Torched this way

blazed that pass
 

won whatever

they fought, alas!

 

subject peoples

captive prey

 

A World Indulging,

had Their Way

 
*
 
After a bit

they had it all
 

from Capetown

to Donegal

 
O the Masters

standing tall
 

how jocund

did they seize it

all !

 

Robbed good

Peter
 

slew brother

Paul

 

Whence the

fretful

Rise and Fall
 
*
 

Stole from the

rich
 

then again

from the poor

 

None that

they could

ever abjure
 
*
 

New wars came

old wars went
 

nothing they could

not circumvent

 

Theirs not to repine

nor to repent
 

In such
gorgings
 
no sign of
lament
 
*

 

Mills of Numen

grind too slow
 

Nemesis waiting

they didn’t know

 
The sturm and drang

afoot below
 
*
 

Of course the gods

did long retire

 
left a planet

still on fire

 
That’d bring down

both serf and squire
 
*

 

And so the Tables

half-way turned
 

even as planet

slowly burned

 

And Chaos hither

and thither churned

 

And now it must

all implode

 
They Crossed

The Line And Broke

The Code

 

Split the atom

diced its shell
 

headlong rode

this hearse to hell

 

Hubris heeds naught

very well?
 
*

 

Who won who lost?

I do not know
 

but together

we go
 

at frightful

cost
 

To Niflheims

below

 
*

 
Levelled to one

the big and small

 

for they had

no space
 

to take it

all

 

So, 2, 4 , 6,

and 8
 

when are we

all to radiate?

 
is that

our mordant

mortal fate?
 
*
 

For Justice

like a chary date
 

ever alas

comes too late
 

© R.Kanth 2018

 

Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (Novel) , A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse)